by C
Chapter Twenty-Three
What Is Truth?
The crackling and popping of the fire filled the downstairs room. Amanda sat near the source of heat, keeping watch for the others who slept upstairs. Just a few more hours until dawn. Just a few more hours until they could leave. No—to be more precise: a few more hours until they could escape.
She held her painting in her hands, mulling over Morgan’s words. Could she create it anew? Maybe the destruction wasn’t permanent, the damage not irreparable? The lost can be found; the wounded can be healed; the weak can be made strong … stronger than ever before.
Perhaps none of this was ever really about Ethan. Amanda had searched for love and settled for a flimsy shadow of what it could be. With him, she’d emptied herself. She poured herself out for him, gave him everything in her heart. But her heart did not belong to him; God had formed her heart and only He could satisfy the longings inside of it.
Ken’s shaky breathing grabbed her attention. She knelt beside him. His face looked ghastly pale, and beads of sweat dotted his forehead. The tight wrapping of the bandage covered his chest and shoulder.
She placed her hand over his and whispered, “I’m sorry, Ken. I never wanted this to happen.”
Amanda then tiptoed to the front window and peeked under the corner of the curtain. The sky had cleared, the snowstorm having finished and moved on. A crescent moon illuminated the scene, casting black shadows across the drifts of snow. Nothing stirred. Everything seemed to sleep under a thick blanket of white.
She put on her coat and scarf and then grabbed her book bag as quietly as possible. Yes, it was the middle of the night. Yes, it was cold outside, and the snow would probably come up to her knees. But Boots was out there—had been out there the whole duration of the storm—and the least she could do was to check on him and take him an apple. This would take just a minute. No one would even need to know that she left the cabin.
Outside, her feet sank through almost a foot of snow. She turned the corner of the cabin but stopped short. Boots was gone. She glanced around. No hoofprints … no sign of him whatsoever. Maybe she didn’t tie the reins as well as she thought? Her stomach was a heavy pit. That horse saved her life. He was Chiara’s beloved pet. What if he was hurt or lost?
She started walking toward the stream. He might have gone there for water. “Boots!” she called, as loud as she dared, into the stillness of the night.
Amanda reached the stream, and in the cold light of the night, she searched for Boots up and down the bank. She saw no sign of him anywhere. Then a sound—a kind of rustling and crunching of snow—came from behind the trees. She stood, transfixed. The branches of an age-old pine shook in her periphery, toppling snow that had lain there precariously. A human figure appeared, stooped and shuffling through the brush. Her heart pounded at breakneck speed. At last, the inevitable had happened: a JPD officer found her. Her long and storied flight from danger ended where she’d started: cornered and alone. She had reached the end. … She would never see her family again.
The man, free from the trees, fully stood. Looking around, he jumped and cried out, apparently taken aback by the unexpected sight of her before him in the moonlight. A heavy hood shadowed the individual’s face.
“Amanda?”
A chill seized her. He let down the hood, his face revealed. But she already knew who it was the moment he’d spoken. His voice pierced Amanda like ice to her heart, a knife to a wound not nearly healed enough.
“Ethan.” She could barely say the name, an avalanche of emotions surging through her.
He stood just feet away, staring back at her. It was him, but not as she remembered. He had changed: his face unshaven, his hair matted and in need of a cut, dark circles piled under his sagging eyes. But the change went more than skin deep. Those keen, self-possessed eyes looked dull. He seemed like a ghost of his former self.
She took a shaky breath. “Whatever you’re here for, it has to do with me. So leave everyone else alone.”
“The others? I don’t care about them.”
“Are there JPD officers with you?” She scanned the trees behind him, anticipating a growing force.
“There were three of us. You guys killed one of them. I took care of the other one.”
“What? … You … You killed him?”
“It’s nothing he wouldn’t have done to me, first opportunity he got. I had to get to you first. Alone.”
“And why’s that? What do you want from me? Didn’t you already take enough?”
His face became creased with fury, his nostrils flaring and a vein in his temple throbbing. “You owe me something—”
“I owe you nothing!”
“Listen!” He stepped closer, his jaw clenched. “I went through hell just to get here to you because I want the truth. I want an explanation from your own lips. Everyone around me is convinced they know what happened, and they’ve almost convinced me too, but …” He stared wildly at her, his old confidence and self-assurance gone. “That night you left, I went back to my apartment. I needed you at that moment—more than ever before …”
Her jaw dropped. “You can’t be serious. You needed me? What did you think I’d do … praise you for your work at St. Patrick’s? For your murder of innocent people?”
“I didn’t know about that, okay? I didn’t know about the bombing!”
“And I’m supposed to believe you’re telling the truth?”
“What is truth anymore?” He rubbed his eyes. “Look, I didn’t know! When I first joined the NCP, no one ever said anything about killing people. And when they told me the NCP had a big, secret project, I never pictured murder! I knew nothing about the planned bombing or that people would be there at the time. I arrived at St. Patrick’s that night, and Nikki told me what was up. I felt numb. I didn’t want to be part of that. I’m not a murderer.”
“Didn’t you just tell me that you killed a JPD officer?”
“That’s different! He would’ve killed me.”
“It’s still a life.” Amanda crossed her arms. “But I forgot. Things aren’t black and white with you, are they? You live in the world of gray, the world of shadows.”
“I don’t know. I’ve only seen darkness for a long time.” He sighed and frowned. “After St. Patrick’s, I felt shocked and alone. Everyone I knew belonged to the NCP. Except you. I needed you. You were the only one who wasn’t part of this … this evil. Everything in my life was falling apart. I needed something to hold on to, something that was real. So I went back to my apartment to find you.”
“Wait.” She held up a hand, her mind spinning. He wanted … needed … her? This had to be just another deception.
But he continued, as though he didn’t hear her: “You were gone. My office was totaled, everything destroyed. I couldn’t find the most valuable item: my laptop. Do you want to know what my first thought was?”
“You were worried how much trouble you’d be in with the NCP, right?”
He stared at her for a long moment. “No. I was worried about you. I thought you were in danger. I thought the opposition party abducted you from my place, or took you for ransom … or something like that. It never occurred to me that the perpetrator could have been you.”
“But you suspected me all along. That’s why you had the JPD tracking me.”
He shook his head. “No. Nikki did. She was positive you were an operative for the opposition. I told her that was impossible.”
“Why?”
Ethan glanced away and ran his tongue over his dry, chapped lips. “I told her that you loved me.” He hurried on, “But you were gone. The JPD trackers immediately alerted the NCP. Nikki blew the whistle that my work computer was missing too. The NCP held me as a suspect until they could verify the facts. The JPD found you at your family’s home and then lost you in this wilderness. Still, I stood by my story. You must have been abducted. You couldn’t have done it. I waited, convinced that I would hear from you. Then what seemed impos
sible became possible. The opposition ravaged the NCP’s computer network and attacked one of the captivity sites. And they did it all thanks to my computer.”
She swallowed. “So the NCP knew it was your fault?”
“Of course. The NCP put me in a private prison. The JPD interrogated me multiple times, usually using torture. They confiscated all of my possessions. Any phone conversations that could be retrieved, any messages, email correspondence—they reviewed and inspected everything for any sign of treachery. I have nothing left. I am now classified as an enemy of freedom.”
She stared at him, then asked, “How did you end up here?”
“They gave me an ultimatum: my life or yours. They ordered me to find you and the stolen computer—or face the punishment of death. They didn’t send me alone, of course. Two JPD officers were in charge of me. We tracked you to this mountain. Now they’re both dead. It’s you and me.” He stepped closer, his fists clenched. “You’ve put me through unimaginable hell. I’ve been tortured, imprisoned, prodded along at gunpoint across this frozen mountain wilderness. I’ve lost everything: my apartment, my car, my career, my reputation, my friends … all because a certain Amanda Burrow came into my life. And of course I lost you too. Or maybe I never had you. Now, before the end, I want to hear it from you: Was any of it ever true?”
Her chest was tight, and blood pounded in her ears. “You lost everything? Did you lose your family? Who cares about your car or fancy apartment or high-paying position? I lost my dad and my sister! They were in a detainment center, which is just a fancy word for a concentration camp. But you already knew that, didn’t you? You probably helped put them there!”
His eyes widened. “They took your family? No … I had no idea.”
He was quite the actor. … She almost believed his feigned surprise.
She glared at him. “I can’t believe a word you tell me, not after what you’ve done and how you’ve used me.”
“No—really … I didn’t know about your dad and sister. I heard they were being tracked, but your dad obviously had a huge target on his back. I think the NCP started withholding information from me, once Nikki alerted them. They kept me in the dark about a lot of things toward the end, especially anything having to do with you.”
“Sure.” She shook her head, sickened by his ever-spewing lies. “And how much did you withhold from me? That day I met you in the lounge, at the Masters Academy … that wasn’t mere coincidence, right?”
“Of course not. The NCP assigned me to you. It was my side job. I liked the game of trying to get information from our opponents without arousing suspicion while keeping an eye on possible spies. … But why don’t we just lay all the cards on the table right now? That’s what you were doing too. The NCP is right, aren’t they? You were working as an infiltrator. We played each other all along, didn’t we?”
A lump rose in her throat. “No, I wasn’t working for anyone. I wasn’t acting. I would have done anything for you. I basically did.”
“That’s a lie!” His shout reverberated through the silent woods. “How could you have felt one shred of anything for me? If you did, why did you betray me?”
She drew back. “Betray! I was entirely loyal to you—to a fault. I cared about you so much that I gave you the one thing that meant the most to me. I stole your computer only because you stole something even greater from me.”
His blank expression gave her greater fury.
“My painting! You destroyed the most precious, most valuable thing to me. You knew how much it meant to me!”
He pursed his lips, then let out a slow breath, the vapor trail drifting off as he said, “It’s less painful to forget the truth, isn’t it? … You have it all wrong. I didn’t steal it from you and destroy it; we did it together. You and I both shredded the canvas. I told you that I thought it was best—that the painting represented all your childhood fairy-tale dreams. … Talk about grandiose fiction. That juvenile image was a yoke preventing you from moving forward in full freedom. Destroying the painting liberated you. I didn’t do it alone. You may not remember all of this because of the drugs, but you and I did it together.”
“That’s … That’s impossible.”
He scoffed. “It’s very possible … because that’s what happened.”
Amanda bit her lip, doubt beginning to seep around the edges of her version of reality. Perhaps her drug-induced state had in fact kept certain aspects of that night conveniently hidden. Perhaps she remembered what she wanted to remember and ran from all the rest. Her heart sank: deep down, she admitted the truth she had long denied. He was right: he hadn’t done it alone. The blame fell on both of them.
She wouldn’t abandon her cause this quickly, though. He couldn’t be let off the hook as though he had done no wrong. “Even so, who were you to decide what was best regarding my painting? You had no right to determine what I needed or what the painting represented to me. You may pretend to be your own deity, but you aren’t my god!”
He shrugged. “At one time, you valued my opinion. I didn’t force you to adhere to it. You were free to do what you wanted. You can’t blame me for what followed.”
“Free? I couldn’t have been more a slave—a slave to my desires, to my passions, to pleasure, to the pill … to you. For all your great proclamations about total liberty, you and your political party have no idea what freedom truly is.”
“It’s not my political party.” He growled the words, hatred laden on each syllable.
“Oh, so you renounce their ideology, then?”
“No, not the ideology. There is nothing wrong with the philosophy that I’ve lived by. It’s how the NCP has gone about implementing it in society—that’s where they went all wrong. I’m not to blame for the false execution of the truth.”
Now Amanda scoffed. “You can’t even see it! It’s your philosophy that led to these actions. The ideology you’ve subscribed to for so long has caused all of this! This is their natural end. … You know what? You claim that you’re free to do whatever you want, yet we weren’t even free to love each other. We didn’t know the meaning of freedom.”
“And you do now?” Arrogant mockery tinged his question.
“Yeah, I do. … The battle isn’t between the NCP and the opposition. It isn’t even between you and me. It’s here, within our own selves. The battle raging right now is within you, within me. … We are all fighting the same war.” She took a deep breath and met his gaze. “And I’m not going to be held prisoner any longer. I forgive you, Ethan.”
“You forgive me?” His abrupt, forced laughter sounded scathing. “Did you not hear the story I just told you? Did you forget the ultimatum placed upon me: my life or yours? Keep your forgiveness … your pity. I don’t want them.”
“So what are you going to do? Are you going to kill me?”
A long pause followed. Ethan stood perfectly still, as though listening. He turned his head, staring into the dark woods near them. “There’s something over there. Something’s here with us.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
In the Light of Freedom
Amanda stared into the pitch-blackness. From the recesses of the trees came the unmistakable sight of two burning red eyes staring at them, unblinkingly fixated.
“Go!” Ethan lunged toward her, shoving her forward. “Get out of here!”
Even with no idea of what she was running from, she obeyed, stumbling forward through the snow. A few yards on, she glanced back over her shoulder. The fearsome, stalking form of a mountain lion emerged from the shadows. It all happened in an instant: her eyes widened in recognition of the predator, her breath caught in her chest, her legs scrambled, pounding her forward in the thick snow. Her body was full of frenzy, but her mind blank, save one thing: flight. She could hear Ethan behind her, fleeing as well.
The snow had caged the beast, wrapped around his tree, yet the storm had now passed, leaving him starving and restless. The lion prowled about the mountain, seeking something to dev
our. Tonight it had chosen them.
Amanda raced ahead, pushing the limits of her muscles and limbs. Yet moments later, a horrifying bellow filled her ears.
A clear sound of struggle came from behind. Frightened and feverish screams, human and beast, mingled and filled the night. The sound of unadulterated pain stopped her. She turned around and witnessed the scene.
The agile mountain lion had leaped, its precision and power no match for man. Ethan was now the victim, held captive on the snowy ground, defenseless as the lion continued its attack.
Help me! she prayed.
She flung her book bag to the ground and rifled through it, searching for something she’d stuffed in there long ago. It had to be in there! … She’d tucked it away for a purpose … and … yes—yes! Her fingers closed upon it: the box of matches from home!
Amanda opened the box and tried to strike a match, her hands quaking. A feeble flame shone. She pulled her sketchbook from the bag. Then, dashing over to the nearest tree, she set the sketchbook ablaze and threw it deep into the many branches of splintered wood and brush that lay in a thick pile on the ground, kept dry by the dense overhang above.
The fire sprang to life. She grabbed a dead branch from the ground and immersed it in the mounting flames. Weapon in hand, she rushed toward the mountain lion, her torch of light growing in intensity and the flames behind her spreading from one low-hanging dry limb to another and then from tree to tree on that densely packed slope. With her free hand, she swept up her bag and chucked it as forcefully as she could, squarely at the animal.
The lion darted back, dodging the projectile, its sinewy body turning around to consider her. The persistent hunter roared, revealing a full set of razor-sharp fangs, dripping with blood that looked black in the glow of moonlight. Amanda edged closer, and they eyed one another. Now she sprinted forward, the fiery torch a sword before her, and plunged the inferno into the lion’s side just as it braced itself to attack. Bloodcurdling screams pierced the air, and the beast bounded away from Amanda, veering past her. As it did so, searing pain shot up and down her arm, but with uncharacteristic willpower, she maintained her death grip on the branch. Her eyes remained locked on the wounded lion as it licked its chops, stalking about, hissing and growling.