Fuck.
I’ll find you or die trying.
“Do you see anyone?” Noah says over his shoulder, so I refocus and glance back over mine. There’s nothing.
Just that quiet, eerie silence that happens right before hell unleashes. Like the calm before a storm.
“No,” I whisper, feeling like even that’s too loud.
I duck under a tattered camp flag hung from its post on the porch of a cabin as I wave Goldie closer to me.
We’re near the office, and she knows it, too, because she reaches for my arm.
Fuck, these memories are like machine gun fire, barraging me and wearing me down. I can’t escape them. No matter if this shit ... this campsite, is real or fake. The people who died were real. And my fear is fucking real.
“Eves,” Goldie breathes out.
But she doesn’t need to finish that sentence because I’m already hyperaware of the fact that we’re inthespot.
The one where we were forced to choose the right path between freedom and death.
A crack of a twig makes our feet stop. Halt on instant command. Noah stands in front of me and Goldie protectively, but we turn our backs to him. Each watching to see what or who is coming.
I swallow hard because, this time, I can’t stop the memory playing out in real time as I stare into the darkness.
“Can you tell which ones are fake?” Goldie whispers.
I shake my head as I run my palms over my cheeks. I can’t tell. And the panic is building so fast it feels like I can’t stop it.
“Do you have a designer tell? Look for that?”
My sister’s saying it over and over, and the others are talking at me too. But I can’t tell. I can’t fucking tell.
“No.” I don’t yell it, but it feels like it. “I can’t tell.”
There’s no pulling from the memory. I’m back in it. The present is the past, the past is the present. It’s existing together.
The gravel underfoot gives our movement away as we take small steps, trying to make sure nobody’s coming for us.
Because if there’s one thing I’m sure of, Remus isn’t waiting until the time runs out. He wants us all dead.
We did kill his father, after all.
“We can’t keep fucking standing here. We’re sitting ducks,” Noah hisses. “The voice said they would look for us. We gotta move.”
He starts to take off again, but what he just said hits me like a brick.
My hand springs forward, grabbing his wrist and tugging him back. “Wait.”
“We’re running out of time ...” he counters, but I don’t let him go.
I shake my head. “Repeat what you just said ...”
He huffs in frustration as I drop his arm. “What? That that crazy motherfucker will be coming to get us?”
My mouth opens, then closes as the realization I’ve had sinking into my gut leaves me scared to fucking death.
“No,” I whisper shakily. “The voice said, ‘We ... come find you.’ Who the fuck iswe?”
