Which means Cal might be right.
And it means we should try to do something about it.
I don’t say anything at first. Instead, I let Andrew and Cara enjoy the morning feast. They talk to Amy and agree to leave the next day. It isn’t until halfway through the afternoon that I finally have the nerve to talk to them. I tell them to come outside with me and we walk down to the lake.
“Should we invite Rocky Horror to come with us?” Andrew asks. “I’m not sure if he will, but he may not want to stay here without any other queer folks.”
“Denton and Nadine are both gay,” Cara says.
“No shit! Wow, they really were dummies for staying in Fort Caroline for so long. I’m not sure if that makes me madder or if I feel bad for them now. Dammit, Cara, why do you have to make me feel solidarity with them?”
I take a deep breath and say what I’ve been gearing up to all afternoon.
“I’m not going to Henri’s with you.”
Andrew
I STARE AT JAMIE, TRYING TO FIGUREout when the bit is supposed to get funny. Like, oh, I’m not going to Henri’s with you because I’ve decided we should all hop on a boat and go where the wind takes us. Which still isn’t funny, so I’m hoping he’s got something better.
“I was talking to Cal,” he says. “He’s worried that Danny Rosewood is just going to keep sending people after us. And I think he’s right.”
“How?” I ask. “They went down to the Keys and we weren’t there.”
“Trevor said he’d tell them where we were going. Once they regroup after the Keys, they might head there.”
“Or they could give up,” I say, looking to Cara for help. But she seems worried. “And we talked about this. We get Henri and Amy out, and they hide somewhere until Fort Caroline gives up looking for us.”
“They’ve been broadcasting about me for months, Andrew. There are wanted posters—”
“One! One wanted poster; we haven’t seen any others.”
“Because we were on the western side of Georgia. They probably plastered them up and down the East Coast. Which is why we can’t stay here, we can’t go to Henri’s, and we can’t go to the cabin. Not until this ends.”
Ends. I stare at him, trying to figure out what the hell he’s talking about. Because he’s not seriously considering sacrificing himself for our safety. That’s insane, even for Jamie.
“Ends how?” Cara asks.
“Cal thinks they sent an army to get me in the Keys. I guess to intimidate them and because, as we already knew, there’s no way Fort Caroline is helping anyone else. So they might be vulnerable now.”
“You’re going to attack them?” I ask. This plan sounds worse every minute.
But Jamie shakes his head. “Based on what Denton said about things falling apart, Cal thinks it’ll be possible to start a revolution. Then, when their army gets back from the Keys, there’s already new leadership in place and it becomes a democracy.”
“That’s stupid. No, you’re not going based on months-old intel from Grover Denton and some random guy from California.”
“Cal was in the CIA.”
“I don’t care if he kissed the president on the mouth at holiday parties. Jamie, you can’t be serious about this.”
“I’m tired of always looking over our shoulders!” he says. “I don’t want to have to worry about everyone for the rest of my life.”
I step closer to him and take his hands, even using my bad one, which hurts so awfully it brings tears to my eyes. Or maybe the tearsare because of how scared I am of him doing this. “You don’t have to worry about everyone. Just worry about us. They don’twanteveryone else. They just want the two of us.”
He puts his forehead against mine. “Which is why I’m going. If they have me, they won’t come looking for you or anyone else. And if we get there soon enough, everyone else in Fort Caroline will see what a waste this all was, and that whatever kind of villain Rosewood made me out to be, I’m just a kid that they spent months and who knows how many resources hunting down. All that time and energy spent on a revenge mission instead of making sure their settlement could be sustainable. And that’s how Danny Rosewood is taken down.”
“What if it isn’t?” I ask. He seems confused by my question. “What happens if you show up and they kill you? Then they parade your corpse around town claiming the teenage boogeyman who stole seven cans of food and shot their leader’s son is dead. What happens then?”
He shakes his head. “It won’t happen like that.”
