by Anna Carey
You eventually want to go south, so instead you turn north, starting into the woods. You don’t try to hide your tracks. If you can lead him somewhere you can hide, you might have a chance at disarming him. You are bone-tired and you don’t want to keep running. You want this to end, one way or another.
You pull off the sweatshirt, wringing it out as you go. The water that drips down is pink, from a bloodstain on the sleeve where you hit the rock. Your left elbow is bleeding, the skin ripped and raw. You let the blood run onto the dry leaves below. He’ll know you’re injured now, and might think it’s more serious than it is. You want him to believe he is winning.
You continue for more than an hour, and finally the woods end, opening to a lake below. The drop is seventy feet, covered in jagged rocks. It’s too steep to climb down. A few clusters of stones line the cliff ledge behind you, some almost six feet tall. The wind has picked up; it would make sense for you to try to find shelter between them. You need Cross to believe that you would.
You spread the sweatshirt out on the ground in a patch of sun, roughly four feet from the rocks.
You’ll need another spear. And then you’ll need a place to hide.
His approach is so slow, so methodical, that you don’t notice him at first. He moves from tree to tree, staying hidden as he comes toward the lake. His gun hangs by his side. He’s focused on the sweatshirt you left out.
He starts and he stops. Once, he kneels on the ground, examining something there. Blood? The dried, broken leaves that were crushed as you went through?
As he gets closer to the edge of the water he reaches out and pulls something from a thin branch. He holds it up, examining it between his fingers. Even from a distance, you can tell by the way he stretches it between his hands that it’s a strand of hair. Your hair.
You’re just yards from the rocks, hiding behind a nearby tree. You inch back so you’re better concealed by its trunk. You keep your breaths slow and even, knowing that as he gets closer, it’s more dangerous to look. Every time you move, you risk him spotting you. Instead you listen. It’s subtle, but when you close your eyes, you can hear the sound of his boots touching down on the leaves.
His steps are light as he pushes closer to the lake. There’s no sign that he’s aware of you here, hidden behind him. He must be twenty feet away. Now ten. As he moves to the outside of the rocks you can see part of his back. He has the rifle up and is getting ready to aim.
It’ll be difficult to disarm him from behind, but he’s within five feet, the closest he’s going to get. You grip the spear tightly, hoping the tether will hold. You take a breath in, then release it as you rush forward, launching into him, jamming the flint into the tender spot below his right shoulder blade.
He drops the rifle with a muffled yell. You pull the spear out and hit him again below the ribs. He grabs the end of the gun with his left hand and spins back, trying to aim. But you’ve caught him off guard. He’s in too much pain to use his other arm. He fumbles, trying to get to the trigger.
You grab the rifle from him, turning it around and pointing it at his throat. He falls back on the ground. You stand over him, so close you can see the lines on his forehead, the way the sweat has flattened the part in his hair. He’s hidden his jacket somewhere and instead wears a green canvas shirt. The front is smeared with mud.
You tap his chest with the end of the rifle. “Game over.”
He leans back on his left arm, propping himself up. “You know I made you what you are, don’t you? The island was only the beginning. The ones who survived were the ones who were deemed worthy of the Migration—ready to be moved to the real world. But you only knew how to survive in the wilderness. How was that going to help you in a big city? On the subway, on the streets, surviving on your own? You may not remember it yet, but for weeks before we released you into the cities, we trained you—we taught you everything you know.”
“You didn’t make me anything,” you say. “I am more than you—than your twisted, messed-up game.”
The end of the rifle is still against his chest, pressed right above his heart. You keep your finger away from the trigger. You’re afraid of what you might do. He did this, he did this to you. He killed Rafe. He killed the others. He’s already taken your life.
“Go on now,” he says. “I can accept that I’ve lost.”
“Go on now, and what? Kill you? So you never have to face what you’ve done? So you die here, alone in the woods, a victim?”
“Take your prize.”
“My prize is my freedom.”
You back away from him but keep your aim, making sure you’re far enough that he can’t lunge for the rifle. “Get up,” you say. “You’re going to lead me out of here.”
He stands. You gesture with the end of the rifle, urging him forward, but he doesn’t move. “You won. Take your shot.”
“No.”
“You know why we chose you, right? You were nothing. Disposable. No one wanted you.”
You won’t let him get to you. We’re not murderers. We’re not like them.
“All this time, you would’ve thought there’d be outrage. Parents searching, desperate to find their kids. But no, nothing. It always amazes me. There are people who can disappear and it’s like . . . like they never mattered to anyone. They never existed.”
“If I didn’t matter you wouldn’t have come for me. We wouldn’t be here.”
You say it, but your throat is tight. He is pushing you. He wants to get a rise out of you . . . he wants you to kill him.
“It’s a game, Blackbird. And I’d rather die than lose.”
He turns to face the cliff and runs toward the clear, cloudless sky. He’s three steps away from the edge, then two. He’s going to jump.
He’s almost made it when you lower your aim and take the shot. The bullet hits him in the back of his calf. He stumbles and you fire again, this time aiming for the other leg, just above his knee.
He falls forward. You go to him, kneeling down, letting the rifle drop to your side. You press your palm against his back, running it along his belt to make sure he’s not hiding another weapon. No knife. No rope or ties.
He’s wearing cargo pants, with pockets in the front, back, and by his knees. When you reach for the side of his leg he groans and tries to swat your hand away. You think it must be the bullet wound, that he doesn’t want you to touch it. But then you notice the outline of something flat and square—a cell phone.
He tries to fight you, but he’s bleeding from his wounds, and you are stronger, prying it from him. The phone is on, but the top left corner reads No Service. You tuck it into your pocket.
You rip a three-inch piece of fabric from the bottom hem of your jeans, wrapping it tightly around the wounds in each of his legs. Then you shift him onto his side, tending to the gashes you made with the spear.
He won’t be able to move, but with his wounds bandaged like this, he also won’t bleed to death. You don’t want him to. You want him to suffer.
CHAPTER FORTY-SIX
THE CRUSH OF the leaves beneath you. The wind as it musses your hair. Everything feels different as you run now. Lighter. Freer. The fear that held you for weeks is gone.
You’ve crossed the river and are headed south; only a few more hours of daylight are left. You’re coming through the trees when the light hits your eyes, catching on the thick cover of leaves above, and triggering a flash of the island.
She is after you. You hear her running through the forest behind you. Rafe is in front, cutting at the dense brush with a long, rusted knife. He nods to his left, where the hillside slopes, the ground too slick to walk on. Instinctively you know what he means: Go that way. We have to slide down.
You make a sharp turn down the hill as a bullet zips past you. When your feet slip you lean forward in a somersault, your chin to your chest. The back of your shirt rides up and your skin is rubbed raw. Rafe follows you, a graceless, frantic tumble down the hill.
You land, hard
, at the bottom. Your scar has ripped open. Your neck is bleeding. You help Rafe stand and move deeper into the woods. The beach is somewhere ahead.
You can remember the rest, but you don’t want to. It all comes back: the part when you reach the break in the trees, the open ocean before you. Rafe’s shirt pressed to your neck. More shots fired from above.
It is as he promised it would be: a rush of feeling and sights and sounds. It’s not all there, but something has broken open.
You are arguing with your brother. He’s younger, no more than nine or ten years old. The house is cramped and dark. Every surface is stacked with newspapers and unopened mail. When he gets angry his brows draw together. He reaches out, yanking the remote control from your hand. He throws it across the room, and it smashes against the corner of the coffee table. Plastic pieces on the carpet. When you look up your uncle is in the doorway, his fists clenched. Your brother gets up and runs.
Then there is the simple, still memory of a worn corsage on your nightstand. Another of a football field surrounded by orange mountains. The image of a gutted Victorian house on a steep hill, the insides stripped down to the studs, trash inches deep on the floor. Two people sleep on a stained mattress.
You run and it comes back, pieces of it. Your mother’s laugh, heard as if she’s right there—right beside you. Your father in a hospital bed, his eyes open, covered with a thin gray film. The aboveground pool with the ripped plastic siding. The way you chased your brother around it, running to create a current. That subtle whirling funnel in the center.
It’s coming back. It will all come back. You run, your steps light. As you move through the trees, the exhaustion lifts.
The phone buzzes in your pocket. An alert.
When you look at it, everything feels different—it’s finally over. It’s done. You’re back within range of a tower. There’s a signal when there wasn’t one before.
EPILOGUE
“I DON’T WANT to do this,” Ben says.
“We don’t have a choice.”
You are standing around the corner from the courthouse. There are cameramen all over the stairs. Reporters jammed behind metal guardrails, waiting for more people to pass. Celia texted saying Devon and Salto were already inside. Today the remaining targets are testifying in front of the grand jury—you can only imagine what it’ll be like for the actual trial.
“Are you going up to Fresno when you get back?” he asks.
“I’m going to try. I want to see his grandmother . . . she said Rafe’s buried ten minutes from the house. I have to do family stuff first, though. See my brother, my aunt.”
“He was a good guy.” Ben doesn’t look at you when he says it.
“What are you even talking about? You two hated each other. Please don’t do that bullshit thing where you pretend you’re best friends with someone just because they’re dead.”
“I’m not, Lena.”
Ben leans against the wall. You both stare ahead. There are two kids you don’t recognize starting up the steps, a police officer behind them. You wonder if they’re the other targets flown in from LA. More came forward from Chicago, one from Miami, and another from Seattle.
“It’s just . . .” he starts. “He was with you on the island. He helped you when Cross was after you, when Cross kidnapped you.”
“We helped each other. We were a team.”
“And I liked him for those reasons,” Ben says. “I know he meant something to you.”
Everything. It feels like he meant everything. He is in your dreams, the memories more vivid than before. Rafe leaning over, letting the waterfall wash his hair, his back. He turns, wipes the water from his eyes. He is standing right in front of you. He smiles.
It makes you hate waking up.
“I’m just . . .” Ben starts. “I wish it was different.”
“Me too.”
You stare out onto the park—the same one you were in just two weeks before, when you were waiting for Cross to show up. Gray clouds blot out the sky, dropping the occasional spray of rain. A cluster of businessmen streams past on the sidewalk. No one bothers with umbrellas.
“Your brother,” he says. “How is he?”
“He’s with my aunt in Cabazon. He’s picking me up once I’m back in LA. After I see Izzy.”
“And after that?”
You turn, studying him. The suit doesn’t look right. It’s too formal, his hair combed back, the curls glossed with product. You know you probably look just as strange. Celia bought you a black dress and flats for the courtroom. Neither of them fits you right.
“What do you mean, Ben?”
“When can I see you again? I was serious before, Lena. I love you.”
“Please don’t say that.”
“Why? I hate that you’re going through this—I don’t want you to go through it alone.”
You could be with him, you could be without him. Either way you’re alone. It’s hard to explain that to him, though. Hard to make him understand that you’re only now getting your life back. And that life, with all its memories and mistakes, is complicated.
“It doesn’t feel right anymore.”
“I’ll wait.”
“I need space to get back to myself, to remember. To figure out who I am and who I was before this.”
That stops him. He turns, peers around the corner, watching the crowd file up the steps. Cameras flash. Celia has just come out the front doors. She looks around, scanning the sidewalk for you.
“I guess we should go,” he says.
“I guess so.”
They’re reading the last of the names. You sit in Izzy’s room, listening to them finish. Every three names is John or Jane Doe—remains they found on the island but couldn’t identify. Hundreds of targets—of people—that might never be found.
“I understand why you didn’t want to go to the memorial,” Izzy says.
“I just wanted to get back here. To see you. See my family.”
“Ben went?”
“He felt like he should. The reporters are going to be all over him. I already saw Devon on the news on the way over here. Some guy shoved a microphone in his face.”
Izzy sits back in bed. The shaved part of her hair has grown in a little bit, and she’s dressed in clothes her grandmother obviously bought her. But otherwise she looks like herself. You can just see the outline of the bandage on her right side, just under the fabric of her T-shirt. The wound got infected in the past few weeks. She was in and out of the hospital, staying in Los Angeles a month longer than she’d planned.
Francesca DePalma, Misty Williams, Aaron Isaacs, Jane Doe, Chrissy Park . . .
The television on Izzy’s dresser announces the names. They got the mayor of New York to read them off. He pauses after each one, looks up, as if he knew them personally.
Joy Frias, Paul Simmonds . . .
You’ve learned how AAE got its start. When the hunts began on the wealthy game hunter Michael Thorpe’s island fifteen years before, it had been a standard outing, a group of friends going to a place that was unpoliced, no one worrying about endangered species or strict regulations. When hunting the indigenous animals became too predictable, they began smuggling exotic game to the island. And when that no longer held the thrill, one of the hunt’s most dedicated original members, Theodore Cross, raised the idea—at first only a whispered joke, or so he made it seem—that the hardest thing to kill would be other humans. The idea took hold.
At first they’d found homeless people, prostitutes . . . anyone they thought no one would miss. But the runaways were the ones who lasted. Hunters would leave and come back weeks later to find them still there.
Some of the hunters tried to stop it—at least, they claimed they had. Cross was the one to draw a line in the sand. If you were against the hunts, if you were a threat to AAE, you were killed. If you turned, they found you. If you told anyone, they found you.
Connor Rinsky, Albert Aguilar, Rafe Magnuson . . .
Y
ou grab the remote from the bedspread and turn off the TV. They haven’t finished the names but it’s hard to listen anymore. What separated you from them? Why did you survive when they didn’t? People had all kinds of things to say. You’re alive for a reason. You survived for a reason. What was all this reason that people talked about? Sure, there would be trials and settlements, and Cross would never get out of prison. But the dead were still dead. Their lives had meaning, too.
You hear a car pull up outside. You go to the window and pull back the curtains, noticing the rusted white Toyota by the curb. There’s a boy in the driver’s seat. He’s checking his reflection in the visor mirror before he gets out.
“Your ride, huh?” Izzy smiles.
She grabs your hand, pulls you into a hug. You tell her you’ll keep in touch, you’ll write, you’ll call. And this time you mean it.
You make your way to the front door. Chris is already out of the car. He stands by the curb. Sixteen and in that weird in-between stage—thin, gangly, with an Adam’s apple that looks out of proportion with his neck. He holds a bouquet of daisies.
“My chariot awaits?” You laugh, but you have to blink back the sudden rush of tears. Chris stares at the pavement. He doesn’t say anything.
You’re the one who steps forward. You hug him first. He’s a foot taller than you, at least, and with your head against his chest you can feel his breath choking up. He wipes his eyes.
“I’m glad you’re back, Lena,” he says. “I’m glad . . . I’m just glad.”
He hands you the flowers, turning away before you can see his face. As he climbs into the car you turn back, just once, looking up the street, past Izzy’s house, past Ben’s. A flock of birds has lifted off from a nearby tree. They move together, darting one way, then another.
Rafe is there, on the sand, kneeling as he cuts the fruit open on the rock. The inside is a deep, gorgeous pink. He passes you half.
“You’re sure we can eat this?”
“I’m not sure about anything anymore.”