I trust Luke. I do, but I can’t rely on just him. I can’t rely on a man who’s entwined with all the legal trappings that come with wearing a badge. He’ll never win against a man who isn’t.
I’ve got to talk to Zachary.
But that will worry Luke. He wouldn’t understand that Zachary would talk to me. Probably. Maybe. So I tell Luke I’ll make myself some chamomile tea and get into pink fuzzy jammies and read until he’s off his shift and can come over. I bury my face in his chest. I spoon-feed it to him.
But once he’s gone I stuff my phone into a bag, slip on some flip-flops and jeans, and book it to Zachary and Rashid’s.
It’s getting dark. That cool autumn smell of evening is coming and the air has hints of smoke from billowing fireplaces. Families and friends huddle around warmth while my breath fogs the air.
Mandy is missing. Everything is foggy.
I have to talk to Zachary.
I turn the corner. I’m about to rush up to their door, but Zachary is in the distance. His tall and lanky figure walks away from me. He has a huge backpack. He’s in all black, which strikes me because he’s normally a jeans and alligator shirt type of guy.
I almost yell to him, but I clamp one hand over my mouth. And then the other. Insurance. Wearing a mask of hands, I stand, shaking, as the idea curls up into my mind.
I should follow him.
Maybe he’ll lead me to wherever he’s keeping Mandy.
I take off my flip-flops. They weren’t doing much to keep my toes warm in this weather anyway, and they smack against the brick walkway. I don’t want him to hear the smacking.
The cold bricks connect with my heels and the shivers itch their way up my bones.
I’m impressed with how silent I am, my jeans just brushing the ground, until someone says my name.
And of course Zachary notices. He looks back as Conrad crosses the street to talk to me, all smiles. He’s always all smiles. Even after a life-threatening experience.
“I like the no-shoes look,” he says. But then his eyebrows lift up into a slight triangle. There’s something stormy in his eyes. “Have you been crying?”
I nod. I must be quiet because Zachary is walking away. His dark shadow hovers over Conrad’s shoulder.
“Mandy’s missing,” I whisper. I work hard to keep my jaw straight enough to say the words.
Conrad puts a hand on my shoulder but turns to see what I’m staring at, the figure floating down the sidewalk into the mist. The figure turning a corner. I’m losing him.
Conrad’s hand tightens, he grips me. He looks at the ground. “Stay safe.” A little water sprays on me as he steps in a puddle while he pivots to walk home.
I can’t lose any time. And I won’t catch Zachary by walking down the sidewalk. I take a direct route, between houses, ducking through clotheslines and stepping over carrots in gardens. The grass brushes my toes.
When I get to the street Zachary had turned onto, I see him walking away from town. It’s a long stretch of road that wanders through miles of woods, Allan County’s nature reserve. I’m about to start following him directly, but he looks back and I dart behind a bush before he sees me. I squint so that my slightly luminescent purple eyes don’t give me away. His eyebrows furrow and he grabs his backpack straps more securely. He hunches, as though he’s looking for something. He is. He is looking for me. My crouch is uncomfortable. My legs fall asleep and I have to hold on to the bush so I don’t teeter over.
Just when I’m sure he sees me—when I’m sure I’ll have to tell him that I’m studying bushes at night for my next art project—he runs his hand through his hair. He adjusts his weighty backpack. He continues on.
I skirt into the woods beside the road. I have to maneuver sticks and rustling leaves while also keeping Zachary in my sight. Every time I step on a twig—the sharp wood thrusting against my bare skin—I freeze, breathing fast, heart thumping. Then I keep walking.
We walk forever. The moon shimmers through the sinewy tree branches. Limp leaves hang as the wind tickles them. It’s not quite their turn to fall into the mess of dead, dry leaves below. Where could Zachary be going? This is all woods. Is Mandy alone and scared in some deep pocket of the forest? We could hit the quarantine line.
Zachary stops. He turns ninety degrees to stare into the woods. I get as skinny as possible behind a tree. His footsteps rub against the gravel of the side of the road and then pad on the soft grass before, finally, they crunch into the leaves on the forest floor. I clench my teeth and tell myself to stay still. Just stay still.
The crunching against the leaves grows deeper, closer. As the steps come toward me, I have one thought: I am an idiot.
This was all a trick. He lured me here so he can kill me. One less purple-eyed student. Even better, one less purple-eyed student who knows he’s the one who caused the purple eyes. I am alone in the middle of the woods. Hell, I don’t even have shoes on. My greatest weapon is my flip-flops.
He stops. He must be about ten feet behind me. I hear his backpack slide off his shoulder. It crunches the leaves as it plops to the ground. Zachary’s hands hit the fabric of the backpack as he rummages around for something.
My eyes shut and I feel the water coming through them. Hot tears streaming along my cold face. Shit. Shit. Shit.
I tried so hard to save Mandy, I didn’t think of saving myself.
I’m certain, absolutely certain that he is about to come at me. Will he hold a blade to my neck, teasing me, before he cuts my throat? Will he hold me down before he decapitates me?
Not if I can run.
My blood rushes and my body says flee, flee, flee. But my mind says to wait.
Fucking mind.
Having retrieved whatever he was looking for, he picks the backpack up and shifts it onto his back with a groan.
His footsteps come toward me. I have to run now. I tell myself this over and over and over. Run. Run. Run. But I can’t. I can feel the cold ground below me and the bark under my fingertips, which are clutching at the trunk of the tree, but my muscles won’t listen. Or my mind will not give the order.
His footsteps are so close, and then he’s next to me. I hear him breathing. I smell the cologne that always let me know when he was over. And then I see his back. Then his back gets smaller and smaller. His backpack bounces along as his footsteps get softer and softer. He’s walking farther and farther away from me.
He walked past me. He didn’t see me.
He stops about thirty yards from me, and looks at something in his palm. He circles and moves like a dog trying to figure out where to bury a bone. Or, wait, like a man trying to read a compass by moonlight. He shifts direction slightly and continues.
I breathe in the tree. I breathe in the stars and the leaves and the October dust until I can move. I follow Zachary.
We tumble along, me tumbling as little as possible, until he comes upon a field. As he walks out into it, I stay back. If I leave the trees, I’ll be exposed. But if I don’t leave, I’ll lose him. How can I not lose him? How can I make sure to know where he’s going? How can I save Mandy, without offering myself up to the open field?
Shouts disrupt any good idea that might have gurgled to the surface. A large flashlight beam comes from across the field, illuminating Zachary. In the white light, he looks almost like a fallen angel. Men run toward him, more flashlights bobbing and bouncing, shovels and shotguns clenched in fists, roaring shouts cutting through the night.
“Freeze!”
“Drop the bag.”
“No sickos are infecting our town!”
Zachary was trying to leave the quarantine.
And now we’re both stuck. My fingers claw at my hair.
After he freezes, he squints into the light. He lifts his hands slowly, toward his backpack strap. Like he’s going to take it off. But he doesn’t take it off. Instead he sprints out of the beam. But he isn’t fast enough.
A man with a scraggly beard and too-big overalls clutches Zachary’s shirt, twists him around and punches him in the jaw. Even from where I stand, I can see how the blood squirts onto the moonlit blades of grass. They continue to punch and kick. One man slams Zachary with a shovel handle.
“Stop! Can’t you see he’s down?” I am screaming. I am running toward Zachary.
I am an idiot.