I then faced Jessie, realizing this was for her, too. “And you, Jessie,” I said. The conversation I had just had with Hayden reverberated in my mind. “There’s no justification for putting yourself through this. You need to back out now while you can.”
Jessie's eyes widened as she stared at me. “Are you kidding? And leave you doing this alone?”
I wanted to grab her shoulders and shake her. “This isn't about being alone! This is about as many of us as possible beingsafe! You don'tneedto do this, Jessie. Yes, your family’s got a ton of kids to pull together, but at least right now, you don't have an absolute emergency. None of your family is seriously ill. You could withdraw tomorrow and still go on.”
Her expression softened and she paused, biting her lower lip. “I-I know Tani,” she said after a beat. “But I just can't. I can't leave you doing this alone, not after today. Not after what we—” Her voice cracked.
The two men had grown more serious as they’d watched us. I hoped Jessie’s and my exchange would help to impress upon them the gravity of the situation. Although it hadn't been expressly explained to them that the reason I had no choice but to do this was because Anna had paid for my parents to stay in a clean hospital, they probably had enough to go on to paint a basic picture.
I looked at all three of my friends pleadingly. “I just want you to be safe.”
“But it sounds likeyou'renot safe somehow, Tani,” Nico said, his voice laced with concern.
“I agree with Jessie,” Robert said. “You're fighting a losing battle if you think you can persuade us to let you do… whatever it is you're doing… all alone. If anything, you've given us more of a reason to join you.”
I cursed under my breath. What could I say to dissuade them? I had pulled out my trump cards.
“But guys,” I protested.
“Don'tbut guysus,” Robert said, standing up. He took my elbows gently and led me to sit on the sofa. “You look exhausted, by the way. Eat this snack.” He reached into his backpack and pulled out what looked like some sort of flat cake, wrapped in a transparent package. “Mom made it. You can take the baker out of the kitchen but can't take the kitchen out of the baker, or whatever that saying is.”
I tried to smile, but it must have come out as a grimace. My stomach twisted into painful knots. Hayden had just offered to lay down his life savings for the sake of getting me out of this situation, and now two more of my friends wanted to jump right into it? I would have laughed were the situation not so dire.
“But I don't think it would even work,” I said, desperately trying to change tact. “You need to be selected for this. You can't barge your way in. You might even get into trouble if you tried.”
“We wouldn't barge our way in,” Nico said, frowning. “We’d wait with you until one of those reps comes back to see you, and we’ll tell them the truth. Say we overheard a conversation and wondered if we could get in on this opportunity.”
“Yeah, neither you nor Jessie need to do anything. Just let us hang around,” Robert chimed in.
I looked at Jessie questioningly. “Did Gerard say he’s coming back to collect you tomorrow?” I asked.
She gave a pained nod.
That was weird, because Anna said I needed to make my own way up there. Maybe that had been because she was in a bad mood with me. Whatever the reason, I pushed that thought aside for now.
“And you think you're just going to go up to him and speak to him, say you want in on whatever we're doing?” I said.
“Yep.” Robert nodded firmly.
“What if you got us into trouble?” Jessie said. “Gerard might think that we told you.”
“Unlikely,” Nico replied. “He noticed us on his way out, and he looked a little sheepish, so he probably already suspected that we overheard since you weren’t whispering.”
“Yeah,” Robert confirmed. “He gave us a look as he walked away.”
I clenched my fist around the cake and tried to take a bite, but I might as well have eaten wood. I couldn't enjoy it in the slightest. I set it down on a plate and drank some water with unsteady hands.
“Even if you ask, there's no guarantee you'll be accepted,” I said, and the thought gave me a small burst of relief. After all, it looked like all the menteeship positions had already been taken, assuming those thirteen groups were the only ones participating in the current Course.
So perhaps, even if they asked, they would be turned away. Robert was not the most athletic, although as I looked at him I realized he’d lost a significant amount of weight and was probably fitter than when we arrived, from all the manual labor. Nico was definitely physically fit.
I wanted to scream at them everything that Hayden had said to me. But I realized now it would only have the opposite effect. The more dangerous they thought this path was, the more protective of me they’d become. Tears welled in my eyes and my throat choked up. This was what it meant to have people who fiercely loved you. I couldn’t forget that I still had that. Although, I feared it would be both a blessing and a curse.
THIRTY-THREE
Gerard’s aircrafttouched down on the dock of Fraser Isle at 8:30 the next morning. I reluctantly waited for him with Jessie, Nico, and Robert. The two men had stayed true to their word. They insisted on following us out in the morning rather than taking their own route to work. Each of us wore a backpack, though none of us knew what today would entail, or if Nico and Robert would even make it off this island with us.
Gerard looked at the two newcomers with a mixture of surprise and curiosity as he stepped out of his aircraft. “And what’s this?” he asked.
