THE CRUSH OF the leaves beneath you. The wind as it musses your hair. Everything feels different as you run now. Lighter. Freer. The fear that held you for weeks is gone.
You’ve crossed the river and are headed south; only a few more hours of daylight are left. You’re coming through the trees when the light hits your eyes, catching on the thick cover of leaves above, and triggering a flash of the island.
She is after you. You hear her running through the forest behind you. Rafe is in front, cutting at the dense brush with a long, rusted knife. He nods to his left, where the hillside slopes, the ground too slick to walk on. Instinctively you know what he means: Go that way. We have to slide down.
You make a sharp turn down the hill as a bullet zips past you. When your feet slip you lean forward in a somersault, your chin to your chest. The back of your shirt rides up and your skin is rubbed raw. Rafe follows you, a graceless, frantic tumble down the hill.
You land, hard, at the bottom. Your scar has ripped open. Your neck is bleeding. You help Rafe stand and move deeper into the woods. The beach is somewhere ahead.
You can remember the rest, but you don’t want to. It all comes back: the part when you reach the break in the trees, the open ocean before you. Rafe’s shirt pressed to your neck. More shots fired from above.
It is as he promised it would be: a rush of feeling and sights and sounds. It’s not all there, but something has broken open.
You are arguing with your brother. He’s younger, no more than nine or ten years old. The house is cramped and dark. Every surface is stacked with newspapers and unopened mail. When he gets angry his brows draw together. He reaches out, yanking the remote control from your hand. He throws it across the room, and it smashes against the corner of the coffee table. Plastic pieces on the carpet. When you look up your uncle is in the doorway, his fists clenched. Your brother gets up and runs.
Then there is the simple, still memory of a worn corsage on your nightstand. Another of a football field surrounded by orange mountains. The image of a gutted Victorian house on a steep hill, the insides stripped down to the studs, trash inches deep on the floor. Two people sleep on a stained mattress.
You run and it comes back, pieces of it. Your mother’s laugh, heard as if she’s right there—right beside you. Your father in a hospital bed, his eyes open, covered with a thin gray film. The aboveground pool with the ripped plastic siding. The way you chased your brother around it, running to create a current. That subtle whirling funnel in the center.
It’s coming back. It will all come back. You run, your steps light. As you move through the trees, the exhaustion lifts.
The phone buzzes in your pocket. An alert.
When you look at it, everything feels different—it’s finally over. It’s done. You’re back within range of a tower. There’s a signal when there wasn’t one before.