His face looks pained in the moonlight. “I thought you wanted this.”
“I do. But did they?”
Jack’s quiet. His clothes hang loose and his face is drawn, as if he hasn’t been eating or sleeping. “We needed their strength. Enough to get us out of the gates. You and I would have been too weak to do it on our own.” He shakes his head. “We needed them, Fleur—all of them. We couldn’t have done it alone.”
He stares out over the water as if he can see what’s on the horizon. “You heard Woody. So far, everything’s working exactly the way we thought it would. All we have to do is make it to the safe house and lie low until things blow over.” But I don’t know who he’s trying to convince, himself or me. Our plan relies entirely on evasive maneuvers. Run. Hide. All the things Jack’s become good at. But what if Marie’s right and it comes down to a fight?
“And after that?”
“After that, we head west. Amber wants to see her mom in Arizona. Julio’s been talking about a trip to the coast. Chill, Woody, and Poppy have a whole list of places they want to go.” He smiles to himself, as if that thought makes him happy. As if this is how he’s made peace with what we’ve done. “And I thought maybe the two of us couldgo to the Grand Canyon. Alone,” he adds, with an uncertain sideways glance at me.
“The Grand Canyon?” It comes out on a breath of laughter. My Make-A-Wish trip. The one cool place I never got to go. “Are you asking me out?”
There’s a gleam in his eye. “I guess I am.”
“I guess it’s a date, then.”
He grins. Bites his lip to keep the smile from spreading across his face until he can’t hold it back anymore.
I pull myself up by the rail. “And what about you?” I ask, letting instinct and peppermint and pine draw me to him. I shut my eyes, blocking out the image of Doug’s face, telling myself this will get easier over time. “Where do you want to go when the dust settles?”
His smile softens as I come closer. His lips part, as if they’re holding back a secret. The air between us feels so thin.
“Can I try something?” I ask, a little breathless.
Jack nods, his expression both curious and cautious as I reach around his neck and rest my head against his chest. Hesitantly, he wraps his arms around me, too. There’s no jolt this time, just a hum, a gentle vibration where our skin touches. He’s cool. Solid and tender. All my fear and guilt and doubt slip away when he whispers against my ear, “Anywhere. We can go anywhere.”
24
Landfall
JACK
There’s a soft splash as Julio drops the anchor. The black water’s indistinguishable from the dark smudge of charcoal sky, and I draw the brisk autumn air deep into my lungs, certain this is the first full breath I’ve taken since I came out of stasis.
Julio swings down from the upper deck. He surveys the shoreline, a little unsteady on his feet. Virginia Beach glows in the distance, hotels and boardwalk lights glittering to the north and the buoy lights of Rudee Inlet flashing just beneath.
“Those lights to the south,” he says. “That’s Dam Neck Naval Base. We’ll need to stay north of it, out of sight. We’ll come ashore there.” He points to a darkened strand of shoreline. “That’s Croatan Beach. There’s a neighborhood behind it. Mostly vacation homes. This late in the season, it’ll be a ghost town. We can grab what we need and hit the road while it’s still dark.”
He shivers. The cold’s already wearing on him and daylight’s only a few hours away. The sooner we move, the better. “I’ll round up the others,” I tell him.
The cabin is pitch dark, a bustle of activity and a barrage of smells. Woody folds his maps into his backpack by flashlight. Chill, Poppy, and Fleur load our camping gear and supplies into duffels. Slinky’s iridescent eyes are visible where he weaves between the rolled sleeping bags and backpacks Amber and Marie have carried up from the berths.
“The lifeboat’s ready,” I tell them. “Load as much as you can. Anything that doesn’t fit goes down with the sailboat. Everyone grab a life jacket and meet on deck in five. We’re swimming in.”
The whites of Chill’s eyes find mine in the dark, the outline of his life jacket painting a false silhouette around him. The others shuffle past me toward the deck, their arms loaded down with duffels and supplies.
“I can’t,” he says when we’re alone.
“You have to. In five minutes, we’re jumping.”
“I’ll ride on the lifeboat.”
“There’s no room.”
“But the water—”
“You have a life jacket.”
