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At first, I couldn’t find her, but then I felt her fingers brush mine. She was reaching for me, and I held onto her with everything I had in me.
He rubs his lips together. “We still don’t know that for sure.”
“Don’t we?” I question with doubt as I lean forward and rest my overlapped hands on my knees. “She looks like her, you know. I’m not sure how much about her you remember, but she had the same color of hair. I noticed that the first moment I met Raven—that she had hair like Willow’s.”
He doesn’t say anything right away, and that’s when I know …
“You thought that, too, didn’t you?”
He shakes his head. “Even if I did, what does it matter? Just because they have the same hair color, doesn’t mean they’re the same person.”
“What about the photo?”
“I’m not sure, but maybe Raven isn’t who we think she is. Perhaps she’s playing us.”
“We don’t know who she is and neither does she, really.”
“She could be lying about the amnesia.”
“She could, but I don’t think so.” When he opens his mouth to argue, like he almost always does, I talk over him. “Look, I get that you like to be cautious—I do—and I understand it. And I know we need to look more into this, but … I’ve had this feeling from the moment I met Raven that I knew her. It came out of nowhere.
“And I know you don’t believe in souls or whatever, but I do. And I really do think that the feeling was coming from my soul, because it remembered her. Willow … she was my best friend, my other half, so let’s do what we need to do to figure out her past. But don’t tell me to stop believing this soul-wrenching feeling that the only girl I’ve loved and thought I killed never died.” By the time I’m done, my heart is thrashing so forcefully in my chest that I swear it’s going to crack my ribs.
Zay remains quiet for a bit, silently contemplating what I’m assuming is a counterargument. So, he throws me off when he says, “She wasn’t just your best friend. Willow, I mean. She was all of ours. And we all played a part in letting her die by not being there for her and plotting that stupid escape.”
“I know that,” I say, trying to figure out where he’s going with this. “So, are you saying you think Raven is her?”
He shrugs. “I honestly don’t know, and I’m not going to let myself think that until I know for sure. I’m not like you—I don’t have a soul and don’t believe in them, so all I have to go by is the knowledge I have, which right now isn’t much.”
“But we’re going to figure it out.” Hunter enters the room then, his hair sticking up all over the place, due to the fact that, when he gets stressed out, he drags his hand through his hair repeatedly. “We have to.”
“I know,” Zay agrees, twisting around on the table toward him. “We were already looking into her anyway.”
Hunter leans against the wall with his arms folded. “For our fathers. This, though … They can’t know we think she’s Willow.”
“He’s right.” I sink back in the chair. “Although, I wonder if they know already … or have a suspicion. I mean, if she is alive … they’d have to know since they’re the ones who staged her death.”
“Not necessarily,” Zay says. When I give him a puzzled look, he adds, “The day she fell into the river, I overheard Willow’s father talking to some random guy about an escape plan. I thought he was talking about an escape plan for himself if the police ever busted the operation, but I don’t know … The fact that Willow died that same day … sometimes I wonder if he staged it to get her out of there.”
I fold my fingers inward, stabbing my fingernails into my palms. “Why did you never say anything about this before?”
“Because I didn’t want to give you false hope,” he tells me, scrubbing his hand over his head while letting out a sigh. “And it still doesn’t mean anything.”
“No, it meanseverything.” I shake my head, pissed off yet … hopeful? Yeah, I think that’s what I’m feeling right now. It’s been a long time since I’ve felt it. A long damn time.
For the next few minutes, all of us remain quiet as we sink into our thoughts. My mind is centered on Raven. Apparently, Hunter’s is, too, since when he breaks the silence, it’s to talk about her.
“Did you guys see the scars on her side?” he asks with a frown.
Through all the chaos, I’d almost forgotten about what I’d seen on Raven’s side, and the reminder sends the same anger thrashing through me as it did when I first saw those marks on her.
“I saw them,” I tell him. “And I’m pretty sure someone put them on her.”
“I saw them, too,” Zay utters. “How can you be so sure she didn’t do that to herself? She might have the same issues as you.” He offers me an apologetic look.
“Maybe she does,” I say, “but at the angle those words were on her side, it’d be really hard for her to put them on herself.”
“Then that means someone put them on her,” Hunter states, horrified.
