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“‘I love you,’” she read. “‘Tristan.’”
The page fluttered as Lauren handed it back to me. I pocketed it quickly, hugging myself as tightly as I could to stop the shaking, and glanced up at Joaquin. He looked as if he’d just seen a ghost.
“He didn’t risk coming here to get his stuff,” Bea said, her voice barely a whisper. “He risked coming here so he could leave that for you.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Lauren said firmly. “He’s trying to fix things.”
“You don’t know that.” I didn’t mean to snap, but I did. A by-product of the tension that was begging for any kind of release. “You only want to believe it.”
“Look at the note again,” Lauren said, gesturing at my pocket. “He didn’t mention your sister.”
“So?”
“So, if he was doing this, he’d know your sister had gone over, too. He’d have included her,” Lauren asserted.
“Not if he was being smart,” Fisher pointed out. “Not if he realized a person who’d fled five days ago wouldn’t know about Darcy.”
“I can’t take this anymore,” I cried, holding my hands to my head, feeling as if it was about to split in two. “I can’t.”
“We have to find them,” Fisher said.
Bea sighed. “But we’ve looked everywhere. We’ve searched every inch of the island. It’s not like he went back to the mainland,” she added sarcastically. “So unless he’s hiding underwater somewhere…”
I felt something catch in the back of my mind. We had searched every inch of the island, because the island was the entire world in this in-between. Except, of course, that it wasn’t. There was the water. And the things that traveled over the water. Like the ferry, the Jet Skis, the surfboards and kayaks and canoes. And there was also one particularly foreboding structure that stood above the water. A place where no Lifer would ever think to look, because no Lifer had ever stepped foot on it for more than ten seconds.
There was the bridge.
“You’re out of your mind, you know,” Joaquin called aft
er me as I trudged through hollows and puddles toward the bridge. I had climbed up the cliff in record time, my adrenaline spurring me to inhuman feats of strength and daring, but Joaquin had stayed right on my heels. If any of the others had decided to follow us, they hadn’t yet made it to the top. “What, exactly, do you think this is going to accomplish?”
I ignored him and kept walking. Up ahead, I saw that Officer Dorn was stationed at the bridge with Liam. They did a double take when they saw me coming and moved to intercept me.
“Hey,” Liam said, lifting a hand. His new Lifer bracelet was caught on the end of his sleeve, the leather hard and pristine. Last night, after Darcy had gone missing, Joaquin, Lauren, and Bea had given him what I’d heard was the quickest initiation ever.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Dorn asked, stepping in front of me.
I lifted my face, letting the rain sluice down it and along my neck. “I’m going to find the entrance to the Shadowlands.”
Dorn laughed. At that moment, Joaquin caught up to me.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked, his dark eyes desperate. “You can’t do that!”
“Why not?” I demanded. “Has anyone ever tried?”
Joaquin crossed his arms over his chest, the rivulets of water forming new patterns down his sleeves. “Not that I know of. I mean, I’ve gone a few steps into the mist when a visitor is giving me trouble, but that’s about it.”
“So? Then how do you know I can’t do it?” I gritted my teeth and took a breath, trying to stay calm. If I got hysterical right now, they’d never let me cross. “We’ve searched the entire island for Tristan and Nadia, right?”
“Yeah,” Dorn replied. “Two or three times already.”
“So what if they’re on the bridge?” I asked, my heart skipping erratically. “It’s the only place no Lifer ever goes, and I’d bet that Tristan is counting on that—counting on our fear of the unknown to keep him safe. What better place to hide than the one place no one in their right mind would ever look?”
Liam raised his hand as if he were hoping to be called on in class. “I know I’m new to this stuff, but that does sound about right.”
Joaquin’s whole expression shifted. He looked at me as if dumbfounded and impressed at the same time. Which was kind of nice.
“Rory,” he said slowly. “You’re a genius.”
