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Fia saved me. She set me free.
But she also abandoned me.
“Fia’s not coming.”
FIA
Four Days Before
I WAKE UP JUST BEFORE DAWN, AND I CAN’T—I can’t—I can’t—I can’t do this, I can’t feel this, I can’t be me right now. Clarice’s face, her ruined face, then blood on my sister’s hand. I thought I’d have the good dream tonight. Not this.
I stumble down the hall, into James’s room. Crawl into his bed. He wakes up with a start. He is not like me: his first instinct is not to fight but to pull me close. He holds me until I can breathe again.
“It’s okay.” His voice is soft and sweet with sleep as he strokes my hair. “It’s okay.” His arms keep me from shaking apart. Sleep is okay when James is anchoring me, and here, now, there are no lies between us.
Whatever else he is, James is my one safe place in the world.
“Where did you go last night?” James asks, leaning against the wall as I finish flinging clothes into my suitcase.
“Hmm?”
“You sneaked out last night. I woke up at four and you were gone again.”
“Didn’t I tell you? I’m having an affair. With an accountant. He reads tax code aloud by candlelight; it drives me wild.”
“Fia.”
I shrug, shoving my clothes down so I can get the suitcase shut. I wonder if I should be sad to leave this city, if I’ll ever come back. I don’t care about taking anything with me. Nothing here is mine.
I remember the quilt on my bed when I was little. It was blue with white clouds, worn threadbare, warm but light enough to burrow under without feeling like I was suffocating. I remember the knotted rug by my parents’ bed, beneath a battered wood chest my mom kept our memory boxes in. (My mom, my mom, I don’t even remember what she sounded like anymore. She is a picture, a home movie clip, a ghost of a person in my memories that are so small they wouldn’t even fill the box anymore.)
“Are you going to answer me?”
I look up, startled that James is still here. No, I will not miss this city. A place is a place is a place. I don’t care. James and I together, that’s what matters. We’re on our way to destroy his father, dismantle Keane Enterprises, and then be free. I am sharp and ready. “You’re the one who told me it’s good to keep secrets.”
“Not from me.”
I grin, pointing a finger at him. “Especially from you.”
He sighs and rubs his forehead. “Anything illegal?”
“Me? Never.” I woke up and his arms weren’t around me anymore and he was asleep and so far away, and the emptiness was too big, too scary, the waiting too much, so I went running.
He walks into the room and sits on the couch, pulling me into his lap. “Just how many secrets are you keeping from me?”
“I’d tell you, but it’s a secret.” I lean my forehead against his, letting myself feel quiet, looking for the thing inside me that tells me what we’re doing is right. It’s been so hard to find since I gave up Annie. “This is what we’ve been waiting for. This is what everything has been for.”
“Of course. This is the biggest vote of confidence my dad has ever given me. We’re finally sliding into place.” His eyes get distant, and something nervous twists in the pit of my stomach.
“You’re having second thoughts.”
He shakes his head, focuses on me. “No. You and me, that’s the way it has to be. We do what we’re supposed to and no one will see what’s coming until it’s too late.”
I scratch a finger under his jaw, my nail catching on his stubble. “Not even us.”
“Not even us.”
“What do you mean, I can’t go in to see Mr. Keane?” I sing the Beatles’ “Yellow Submarine” in my head over and over again, because I can’t think about what I need to think about, which is not a what but a who. The girl behind the desk glares at me.
