BECKETT
I sat on the floor, leaning against the wall of my room, and rolled a small piece of cellophane between my index finger and thumb. Nothing like a soggy sub sandwich for breakfast, which I’d eaten over an hour ago.
It was morning, finally. Thank the Lord. I’d just spent a majority of the night shifting in and out of bad sleep. Unlike the conference room at the mansion, the room at headquarters offered me visual access to a clock. I could see it through the window, hanging in the hall a few doors down from my room. It was 5:47am EST. Middle of the night for the Pacific Ocean. Middle of the day for the Atlantic Ocean. I wonder where this island they have her on is located.
At 6:59am, Dr. Topless’s heels clacked down the hall. I hadn’t seen the woman since yesterday afternoon.
She wore the same style of white dress. Violet heels this time. Her head poked in through the open door. “Wake up,” she said. “Splash your face. You’re taking a jet to L.A. where you’ll board a helicopter.”
Dr. Topless waited in the hall while I used the bathroom as she instructed. Sage was in my head today, more than any other. The idea of getting to her, seeing her today, it was thrilling and terrifying all at once.
Dr. Topless led me to a black Lexus in the parking garage at basement level. A driver was already behind the wheel. Topless opened the door, and I slid silently into the cool, darkened interior.
“Safe travels,” she said, and shut the door behind me.
And with that, she was gone, her hips swaying away from me outside the tinted window, as if to let me know she was needed someplace much more important than this.
The drive to the airport was silent. The driver refused to make eye contact. At LaGuardia, the private jet waited for me, a smaller unit distanced away from the large commercial planes. The car pulled right up next to it. The driver nodded for me to exit.
I climbed the stairs into the jet and took my place in one of the tan leather seats. A movie played in front of me. The side tray held appetizers.
I leaned my head back against the seat, the weight of the past few days pressing down on me, as well as the reality that I was about to see my dad and Jack again.
I felt responsible. This entire thing was my fault. We should have left Canta years ago, regardless of the threat to Jack’s life. My father wouldn’t have followed through with it. Then I wouldn’t be here in this jet today, trying to get to Sage and Finn. Peg and Jeff and Mrs. Sallisaw would still be alive.
But Dad might have killed Jack anyway and sent someone else to spy on Sage and her family, and then where would we be?
Screw it all. Screw the hypotheticals. At this point, what did it matter? There’s no way to tell what would have happened.
And if Sage did forgive me, and we all got off that island alive, then I didn’t care what the past contained. Not as long as my life from here on out included her.
If and when we ever stopped running, the only girl I wanted to be with was Sage.
If that wasn’t possible, then nothing else mattered.