Off in the distance, she can hear the approach of voices and radios, officers talking to one another as their lights cut through the darkness.
She turns to stare down the shaft. This is her chance to leave it all behind. Grand Central, Lumines—she could forget about her deal with Edward and leave with Ari and they could find their way out of here, go somewhere else in the world. Maybe they can have the freedom that Will claimed they all want.
Sam stares down into the shaft, and in its darkness, she conjures up the video footage of her mother’s final moments, she remembers the last time she ever heard her mother’s voice.
She can’t leave. She can’t do it. Not while Grand Central goes on. Not while the syndicates are still here.
The police are close now. Any minute, the first of them will burst through the complex’s doors and out here into the courtyard.
Sam touches Ari’s hand. “Go,” she whispers.
He narrows his eyes, sensing a change in her thoughts. “We go together.”
“The police need me.” Sam nods at him. “I’m their key witness. They’ve offered me immunity. But they’re not going to give that to you.”
His jaw tightens. “I don’t care.”
“I do.” Sam’s desperation is rising. “If we’re going to have a chance together, you need to gonow.Or they’ll catch you.”
“Sam,please.”
She seizes his arm. “Ari, I was never meant to go with you.”
Ari stays where he is, torn, his heart breaking, his eyes locked on her, not believing her. It is all Sam can do to not weep before him. She clenches her jaw and lets anger rescue her from her grief.
The voices are too close now. Louder, Sam snaps, “Go!”
Ari releases her, tears his eyes away, and jumps into the shaft. He vanishes into the darkness. Sam replaces the door over him, transmuting it back into smooth stone, so that the police won’t be able to tell where the ground below changes into a tunnel.
She is still crouched there when the first police emerge into the courtyard, their boots echoing against the tiles. When one of them addresses her, Sam is already raising her arms.
“Hands up, Miss Lang,” the officer says to her. It’s strange, hearing them say her name, acknowledging her presence here. Overhead, a helicopter roars.
Sam keeps her arms up and says nothing. She pictures Ari, disappearing into the darkness. In some other universe, she is with him, both having taken the chance to escape, both of them with a shot at a future. She tries to imagine it as the police force her arms behind her back. She feels the world tilt around her. Now she is on the ground, her cheek pressed against the pavement, her side throbbing. Now she is spent. Now her strength is truly waning.
As they cuff her, she finds herself admiring the glow of their flashlights against the cement. It flickers back and forth, like the way the puddles around her old apartment complex would quiver with raindrops. The clip of boots around her reminds her of how she used to head up and down her old apartment complex’s steps. She sees dandelions growing from a crack in the tiles, beautiful and alive, their buttery yellow heads tilted up to the night sky, waiting patiently for the morning sun. It’s been a long time since she’s noticed them.
Somewhere in the distance, an officer is reading out her rights. Behind her, she can hear someone say Diamond’s name.
Sam closes her eyes.
In another world, she is at Ari’s side, and they are free.
Is it a betrayal, the pursuit of perfection? To leave your past self behind for the dream of a better life, for what you think you deserve? Can you bear the weight of wasted potential, if you never try? And if you try but never arrive, is the betrayal worth it?
Excerpt from the Journals of Diamond Taylor
