“I don’t have a boyfriend,” she says tentatively, dipping her toe in the pool, checking the temperature. Something like hope flashes in Santi’s eyes, and Amelia quickly waves it away. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t know what I meant. I don’t know why I said that—”
“Kind of a strange place for you to hit on me—”
“Stop,” she says.
“It’s not like the world is coming to an end or anything.”
The laughter comes unexpectedly. She hits him with the back of her good hand.
Santi shrugs and looks away, but she keeps her eyes on him, on the shaggy hair covering his forehead, the fire reflected in his eyes. He may be caked in mud—they all are—but he looks comfortable out here, no matter how dirty he is, no matter what he’s been through. Another day, another time? she wonders.
“Why did you get in the car that night? With your friend?”
He laughs. “I’m not really ready for sharing circle tonight.”
“You knew you were going to get caught, right? I mean, you had to know—”
“I had an idea,” he says. “Yeah, I had an idea.”
“So, why? Why do we do stuff like that?”
He grunts, dismissive. “We?”
“I should have been in my tent last night,” she says, “with Celeste. Should have been buried and mangled, just like Jerry and Rico. Just like Celeste. I should have died.”
“You were lucky.”
“I was out.”
This is enough to pull his eyes away from the fire. “You were out?”
Maybe it’s the way he’s looking at her. She’s seen it so many times: disbelief morphing into impatience, as if she’s insulting him by even suggesting that she could behave contrary to the assumptions he’s already made. Maybe that’s what makes her decide to jump right in the deep end.
“The owl represents strength. Wisdom. Magnificence.” She holds up the flask and shakes what little’s left inside. “This is mine.”
Santi smiles, then sighs. “They never suspect the white girl, do they?”
“Something like that.”
Santi tilts the bottle over his open mouth, waiting for the final two drops—three—before he lays the flask at her feet. A sudden gust of wind blows the smoke straight at him, so he stands and puts his hands in his pockets, turning his back to the fire. “What am I going to do about my sister?”
“Probably not get thrown in juvie again is one strategy,” she says.
He laughs so loudly, so suddenly, that she glances over at Victor to make sure he’s still asleep. “Damn, that was cold.”
“Sorry.”
“No you’re not. I deserve it, anyway.” Santi’s face is still covered in shadows, still turned away from the fire. “He kept telling me that the choices I’ve made don’t have to define me. Jerry. What does that even mean?”
Amelia finds herself regurgitating a line from the training manual. “We don’t have to keep making the same decisions. That’s what he thinks it means.”
“But the ‘define’ part. What else is going to define us?”
Santi takes his seat again. He holds a live pine bough over the fire, and the green needles begin to crackle as they burn.
“Lots of things, maybe,” Amelia says. “Do you believe in God? That God has a plan for us?”
Hundreds of tiny embers flicker and glow as Santi waves the bough gently above the fire. “Why?” he says. “Do you want God to have a plan for—”
“No, no. I don’t want anybody to have a plan for me. I can hardly make it through the day dealing with my parents’ plan.”
“So what do you want?”
Such a simple question, but it takes her by surprise. Has she ever really considered what she wants? What she really wants? Her whole routine in high school was built around just getting to another day, but that had nothing to do with what she wanted. Survival is a need, not a want.
36
It never got online, at least. That’s what she kept telling herself. That her mistake wouldn’t follow her around for the rest of her life.
Wishful thinking. She didn’t need the Internet for it to follow her around. She would remember everything.
She knew who he was before he ever spoke to her, of course. Everyone knew who he was. But his name sounded different coming from his mouth, the upperclassman talking to the new girl, the freshman only a month removed from a mid-year transfer, and she remembered thinking: Benny? That’s a dog’s name!
Later, she would wonder why she hadn’t seen it coming. She would think that maybe she’d been disarmed by the name. A fluffy, cuddly, harmless little dog’s name.
She would remember looking in the mirror before leaving her house. Brushing her hair over and over again. That euphoric giggle. Maybe it’s nothing, she would remember thinking. Maybe he’s just being nice. Maybe he invites lots of freshmen to his parties.
She would remember the conversation with her parents as she left. Be safe! You know I will. We love you! I love you, too.
She would remember arriving at the party with her new friends, other freshmen just like her, and she would remember wondering where her new friends had disappeared to so quickly after they’d arrived.
She would remember that first taste of punch. She would remember climbing the stairs. The pulsating bass from the living room speakers. So dark in that house for some reason, light coming from outside, from the kitchen, from any room but the one she was in.
She would remember being the one to lead him upstairs as the giddy elation exploded in her chest, his hands on her waist as they climbed. He steered her down the hallway to his room. She was in his room. There was a bed.
She would remember that he smelled of mouthwash.
And she would remember that it was the smell of mouthwash that cut through the effects of that punch. Making her look around as if for the first time, making her wonder why she was here. What she was doing in this boy’s bedroom.
She would remember feeling like she shouldn’t be doing this.
She would remember also feeling like she should. After a lifetime filled with moving, and new schools, and more moving, a whole life of never feeling like she belonged, she was here, in his room, just one month into her newest school. She was older now, and fifteen, and she was pretty, and she was going to make such great friends this year, and here was the proof. This time, she was going to belong.
She would remember making the decision—this was the new Amelia. She had the power to decide for herself, so she did. Yes, she decided. Yes, she would. Yes, of course she would.
And she would never forget the door opening. The cluster of faces in the doorway. Those smiling faces in the doorway. The laughing.
She was on her knees, and the door was open, and she looked up at Benny, and he didn’t run over to close the door, and he didn’t tell them to close the door, either. He laughed.
And she froze.
And he told her to get back to it.
Later that year, when her mom got transferred again, Amelia collapsed in tears.
“I’m so sorry, sweetheart. I know you’re upset. I thought this was going to be our forever home, too. I know Houston isn’t California, but we’ll make it up to you. This is our last time, I promise.”
Her mom held her close, and the rush of relief was so strong that Amelia couldn’t fight it. She let herself melt. It didn’t even matter that her mom didn’t know what her tears meant.
37
“What the hell were you thinking?” She’s whispering because talking in a normal voice after what just happened would be insane, because there’s nothing normal about any of this.
They huddle shoulder to shoulder in the main room of this ridiculous cabin in the middle of nowhere, looking down at the piece of what has to be gold in Santi’s hands. A gnarled chunk the size of a plum, bulges all over like it’s an enormous wad of used chewing gum.
“I don’t know,” he says. “I was pissed. I just grabbed it.”
“You have to put it back.” She can feel the dampness of her ponytail swinging against her shirt. Still damp, after all this time.
She had thought everything was going to be okay. In fact, she’d counted on it. As long as they made it to the cabin, they’d be okay. They’d dry off, they’d rest, they’d find water. They’d use the satellite phone to call for help. Everything would be okay. Everything would be okay. The only thought that kept her going.
But everything is not okay. Somehow, everything is worse than it was. There’s been a fight. There’s no phone.
“Before he comes up here,” she says, “you have to go put it back.”
She and Santi turn at the sound of footsteps behind them, just in time to catch a glimpse of Victor running downstairs.
“Do you think he saw anything?” she says, but Santi isn’t next to her anymore. He’s reaching for his raincoat and there’s nothing in his hands.
“Come on.” He snatches his coat off the hook on the center post and jams his arms through it, zips it up.
“What do you mean, ‘Come on’? Where’s the gold?”
“We have to get out of here,” he says in a whisper that sounds nothing like a whisper.
“What are you talking about? Did you put it in your pocket?” Things are happening so fast that she can’t seem to catch up. The present moment is always just out of reach.
Santi winces as he jams his feet into his boots. “You saw him. He’s lost it. There’s no phone up here. He’s been lying to us this whole time.”
“We need to stay—”
“For what? There’s nothing for us here—”
“We’ll get dry. You can apologize. We’ll get out of this.”
“Look, we need to go. Now.” Santi comes over with her boots and motions for her to put her feet in.
“My arm hurts,” she says, and though she doesn’t want to sound like she’s whining, it’s the truth. “I don’t think I—”
“Why did he bring us up here if there was no phone? What was he planning to do? Who do you trust? Him or me?”
Neither of you, she wants to say. But instead she lets him slide her feet into her still-damp socks and then her still-damp boots, and now he’s tying the laces for her. “I don’t know where my jacket is.”
He stands up and hands her a red poncho. “Here, you can wear this.”
Leaning against the side of the small table is Jerry’s backpack. Santi lifts it onto the chair and begins stuffing the food inside. Food they’d taken out on purpose because they were supposed to be here in the cabin for a while.
Victor steps into the room. Holding a rifle across his chest. Amelia yelps. The poncho flies out of her hand, a fresh pang of agony in her arm.
“Nobody was supposed to come with me,” he says. “I told you to stay at the campsite. I tried to get you to stay.”
“Victor,” she says, “this isn’t you.”
She feels like an idiot saying it. What the hell does she know about who he is? She steps toward him anyway, and strangely enough, the look of panic in his eyes doesn’t make her afraid. She sees him, sees that he doesn’t want to be doing this.
It’s clear to her now. So clear. Victor doesn’t know what he wants.
Everything is still going to be okay. Santi will give the gold back, and Victor will put the gun away, and they’ll sleep tonight and regroup, and then they’ll go down tomorrow. They’ve been through a lot. All Santi has to do is to give back the gold.
But the panic in Victor’s eyes spreads, takes over his body. He waves the gun at them, back and forth, as if he’s playing with a sparkler. She flinches each time the gun passes by her; each time, the pain in her arm builds on itself. The fear builds on itself, until finally she can’t hold it in.
“Stop crying!” he says.
Amelia presses the heel of her good hand against her eye sockets in a futile attempt to stop the tears, and when the room comes back into focus, she sees that Santi is now standing between her and Victor.
And he’s holding a knife.
She’s going to have to choose. She doesn’t want to choose. She just wants to be dry again, to have no pain in her arm, to sleep.
“Stop,” Victor says in barely more than a whisper.
But Santi doesn’t stop. He keeps shuffling his feet, shrugging to bring the backpack higher onto his shoulder, closer and closer to the door.
Victor raises the rifle and points it directly at Santi. “Please stop.”
They just need to breathe, Amelia thinks. This is so far past normal that none of them have any idea what to do next, how to get out of it. Breathing is the first step. Breathe, lower the gun, put down the knife. If they can just get that process started.
But a high-pitched pop fills the room. The mirror behind Santi explodes. Fragments clatter to the ground, but she can hardly hear them through the sudden ringing in her ears.
Santi leaps toward the door, covering his head as if anticipating another shot, but there is no other shot. The rifle rests loosely in Victor’s hands, aimed at nothing. Victor stares at the shattered mirror, terror in his wide eyes as if he’s just seen a ghost.
Amelia snatches the red poncho from the ground and takes two huge steps to the doorway. Santi’s still on his hands and knees, so she half-kicks, half-pushes him off the floor. She yanks open the door, and they burst through the mud room and her shoulder crashes against the heavy outside door and now they’re into the rain and the darkness.
It’s too dark, and the ground is too uneven for running, but enough light from the cabin’s living room streams downhill that Amelia can pick out a path without falling, at least for the first dozen steps. No time to check a map; all she can think is that they need to hurry.
She doesn’t dare stop to put the poncho on. She needs her good arm out for balance, so she can’t even hold the poncho over her head as she runs. Puddles splash her bare shins. Within seconds, she’s soaking again.
“Santi!” Victor yells into the darkness.
They don’t talk. They don’t look back. They just keep moving. Downhill, one step at a time. The rocks underfoot are slick from the rain, but soon her eyes adjust well enough to see their outlines on the mountainside.
After what seems like ten minutes, Amelia stops to catch her breath, but when she looks over her shoulder, the cabin is still so close behind them.
“Santi!” Victor yells again. The sound carries even through the rain.
A gunshot. Amelia and Santi hide behind the trees.
Another gunshot, but there’s no way he sees them. Who knows if he’s even aiming downhill.
She pulls the poncho over her head now. “We have to keep going.”
Her arm doesn’t even hurt, not like it did before. The pain will come back, she knows—it’s probably just the adrenaline. And she’s not even afraid. She’s moving faster, yes, almost running now that her eyes have adjusted, but it’s not fear that’s making her move so fast.
It’s anger.
She and Santi walk for a long time before Amelia stops again, under the canopy of an enormous tree.
“What do you want to do?” he says, joining her in the relative dryness.
“Not talk to you any more than I have to.”
She’s angry with Santi, sure, but not just him. Angry with herself for believing him. For almost believing in him. Believing that he was as innocent as he claimed to be. That the car wasn’t his fault. The drugs weren’t his fault. That he was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
He unshoulders his pack and pulls a headlamp from the top compartment.
“And not get shot,” she continues, nodding at the light. “You really think the headlamp’s a good idea?”
“He’s not following us.” Santi zips the compartment closed and pulls the headlamp over the hood of his rain jacket.
“You don’t know that.”
“We would have seen his light. He doesn’t know where we are.”
“We don’t know where we ar
e.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I missed the part where you being sorry changes any of this.”
The tone of her voice surprises her. She’s not whining, not apologizing, not doubting. In place of the usual deference is something more focused, something stronger. It’s not all there yet, but for the first time in her life, she gets the sense that it could be.
It doesn’t look like she’s the only one who notices, either. Santi cocks his head slightly to the side before turning away. He can’t meet her gaze.
She adjusts the sling underneath her poncho, allowing herself to sit up straighter, holding onto that tone.
“Give me the headlamp.”
“Why—”
“Santi.”
She holds out her palm. No explanation necessary; she’s prepared to wait like this until he hands it over, which he does without further protest. She manages to strap it over the poncho with one hand and turn it on.
“We’re going to find a place to sleep now,” she says. “And don’t fucking tell me you’re sorry again.”
It’s only now, after the excitement of the chase wears off, that Amelia lets herself accept how much trouble they’re in. The temperature has dropped to a level they haven’t felt yet on the trip. They’ve only got one backpack between them, and who knows how much food and what gear Santi jammed into it.
She pushes herself to her feet, figuring that if they continue downhill, they’ll have to run into a trail or a river eventually. Either way, they’ll be able to follow it. If they can get down, they can get out.
Mercifully, the terrain becomes less steep, level enough so that they can walk directly downhill rather than having to zigzag. And even though the rain hasn’t let up, the clouds in the distance have thinned, letting a hint of moonlight through.
The slope wants to funnel them to the right; the left is blocked by a long hill about two hundred feet high.
“Wait,” Santi says. The first word he’s said to her since she took the headlamp from him. “Over there. What’s that?”
She turns the light, following his outstretched finger. Visible against the side of the hill about a hundred feet away is a shape that doesn’t make sense among the trees and bushes and rocks: a rectangle, darker than the hillside around it.
On the Free Page 16