Deadfall (17 page)

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.

“I DON’T WANT
to do this,” Ben says.

“We don’t have a choice.”

You are standing around the corner from the courthouse. There are cameramen all over the stairs. Reporters jammed behind metal guardrails, waiting for more people to pass. Celia texted saying Devon and Salto were already inside. Today the remaining targets are testifying in front of the grand jury—you can only imagine what it’ll be like for the actual trial.

“Are you going up to Fresno when you get back?” he asks.

“I’m going to try. I want to see his grandmother . . . she said Rafe’s buried ten minutes from the house. I have to do family stuff first, though. See my brother, my aunt.”

“He was a good guy.” Ben doesn’t look at you when he says it.

“What are you even talking about? You two hated each other. Please don’t do that bullshit thing where you pretend you’re best friends with someone just because they’re dead.”

“I’m not, Lena.”

Ben leans against the wall. You both stare ahead. There are two kids you don’t recognize starting up the steps, a police officer behind them. You wonder if they’re the other targets flown in from LA. More came forward from Chicago, one from Miami, and another from Seattle.

“It’s just . . .” he starts. “He was with you on the island. He helped you when Cross was after you, when Cross kidnapped you.”

“We helped each other. We were a team.”

“And I liked him for those reasons,” Ben says. “I know he meant something to you.”

Everything. It feels like he meant everything. He is in your dreams, the memories more vivid than before. Rafe leaning over, letting the waterfall wash his hair, his back. He turns, wipes the water from his eyes. He is standing right in front of you. He smiles.

It makes you hate waking up.

“I’m just . . .” Ben starts. “I wish it was different.”

“Me too.”

You stare out onto the park—the same one you were in just two weeks before, when you were waiting for Cross to show up. Gray clouds blot out the sky, dropping the occasional
spray of rain. A cluster of businessmen streams past on the sidewalk. No one bothers with umbrellas.

“Your brother,” he says. “How is he?”

“He’s with my aunt in Cabazon. He’s picking me up once I’m back in LA. After I see Izzy.”

“And after that?”

You turn, studying him. The suit doesn’t look right. It’s too formal, his hair combed back, the curls glossed with product. You know you probably look just as strange. Celia bought you a black dress and flats for the courtroom. Neither of them fits you right.

“What do you mean, Ben?”

“When can I see you again? I was serious before, Lena. I love you.”

“Please don’t say that.”

“Why? I hate that you’re going through this—I don’t want you to go through it alone.”

You could be with him, you could be without him. Either way you’re alone. It’s hard to explain that to him, though. Hard to make him understand that you’re only now getting your life back. And that life, with all its memories and mistakes, is complicated.

“It doesn’t feel right anymore.”

“I’ll wait.”

“I need space to get back to myself, to remember. To figure out who I am and who I was before this.”

That stops him. He turns, peers around the corner, watching the crowd file up the steps. Cameras flash. Celia has just come out the front doors. She looks around, scanning the sidewalk for you.

“I guess we should go,” he says.

“I guess so.”

They’re reading the last of the names. You sit in Izzy’s room, listening to them finish. Every three names is John or Jane Doe—remains they found on the island but couldn’t identify. Hundreds of targets—of
people
—that might never be found.

“I understand why you didn’t want to go to the memorial,” Izzy says.

“I just wanted to get back here. To see you. See my family.”

“Ben went?”

“He felt like he should. The reporters are going to be all over him. I already saw Devon on the news on the way over here. Some guy shoved a microphone in his face.”

Izzy sits back in bed. The shaved part of her hair has grown in a little bit, and she’s dressed in clothes her grandmother obviously bought her. But otherwise she looks like herself. You can just see the outline of the bandage on her right side, just under the fabric of her T-shirt. The wound got infected in the past few weeks. She was in and out of
the hospital, staying in Los Angeles a month longer than she’d planned.

Francesca DePalma, Misty Williams, Aaron Isaacs, Jane Doe, Chrissy Park . . .

The television on Izzy’s dresser announces the names. They got the mayor of New York to read them off. He pauses after each one, looks up, as if he knew them personally.

Joy Frias, Paul Simmonds . . .

You’ve learned how AAE got its start. When the hunts began on the wealthy game hunter Michael Thorpe’s island fifteen years before, it had been a standard outing, a group of friends going to a place that was unpoliced, no one worrying about endangered species or strict regulations. When hunting the indigenous animals became too predictable, they began smuggling exotic game to the island. And when that no longer held the thrill, one of the hunt’s most dedicated original members, Theodore Cross, raised the idea—at first only a whispered joke, or so he made it seem—that the hardest thing to kill would be other humans. The idea took hold.

At first they’d found homeless people, prostitutes . . . anyone they thought no one would miss. But the runaways were the ones who lasted. Hunters would leave and come back weeks later to find them still there.

Some of the hunters tried to stop it—at least, they claimed they had. Cross was the one to draw a line in the sand. If
you were against the hunts, if you were a threat to AAE, you were killed. If you turned, they found you. If you told anyone, they found you.

Connor Rinsky, Albert Aguilar, Rafe Magnuson . . .

You grab the remote from the bedspread and turn off the TV. They haven’t finished the names but it’s hard to listen anymore. What separated you from them? Why did you survive when they didn’t? People had all kinds of things to say.
You’re alive for a reason. You survived for a reason.
What was all this
reason
that people talked about? Sure, there would be trials and settlements, and Cross would never get out of prison. But the dead were still dead. Their lives had meaning, too.

You hear a car pull up outside. You go to the window and pull back the curtains, noticing the rusted white Toyota by the curb. There’s a boy in the driver’s seat. He’s checking his reflection in the visor mirror before he gets out.

“Your ride, huh?” Izzy smiles.

She grabs your hand, pulls you into a hug. You tell her you’ll keep in touch, you’ll write, you’ll call. And this time you mean it.

You make your way to the front door. Chris is already out of the car. He stands by the curb. Sixteen and in that weird in-between stage—thin, gangly, with an Adam’s apple that looks out of proportion with his neck. He holds a bouquet of daisies.

“My chariot awaits?” You laugh, but you have to blink
back the sudden rush of tears. Chris stares at the pavement. He doesn’t say anything.

You’re the one who steps forward. You hug him first. He’s a foot taller than you, at least, and with your head against his chest you can feel his breath choking up. He wipes his eyes.

“I’m glad you’re back, Lena,” he says. “I’m glad . . . I’m just glad.”

He hands you the flowers, turning away before you can see his face. As he climbs into the car you turn back, just once, looking up the street, past Izzy’s house, past Ben’s. A flock of birds has lifted off from a nearby tree. They move together, darting one way, then another.

Rafe is there, on the sand, kneeling as he cuts the fruit open on the rock. The inside is a deep, gorgeous pink. He passes you half.

“You’re sure we can eat this?”

“I’m not sure about anything anymore.”

“I guess I’ll take my chances.”

You bite into it, the tartness puckering your lips. He sits down beside you and bites into the other half. “Lena,” he says—not to you, just into the air. “Lena Marcus.”

“That’s me.”

“I’m starting to think you’re the only good thing here.”

“We just met.”

“I know.”

He eats his half, biting down, letting the juice spill onto his chin. He abandons it when he’s only halfway through.

“I want to go home.” Just saying it makes your eyes wet. “I want to go back.”

“We can’t. We just have to stay together. We have to stay alive.”

“That seems impossible.”

Somewhere behind you there’s a rush of leaves. You turn, waiting to see the hunters. How many of them this time? You’re trapped on the beach. There’s no way out.

Rafe senses it, too. He moves in front of you, waiting for them. But as the sound gets closer you see the first sign of the birds, flying low beneath the thick tangle of branches. There are hundreds of them. They move out toward the ocean. As they come beyond the shadows their wings catch the light. Blue iridescent. Their stomachs are a perfect white.

They fly out, over you, the air changing in their wake. Then they are gone, darting away, toward the endless horizon.

You still have your hand on the passenger door. You’re staring at the trees, watching the last of them go. The car engine is running.

“What’s wrong, Lena? Are you okay?”

You climb inside. Shut the door behind you, savoring it—that day on the beach. The birds. Rafe’s favorite memory.

“Nothing,” you say as the car pulls out. “I’m ready.”

AS ALWAYS, A
big hug and thank you to everyone at Alloy Entertainment. To Les Morgenstein and Josh Bank, for continued faith and support. To Sara Shandler, for the big picture edits that improved this, and every other book I’ve written. To Hayley Wagreich, for talking plot and characters, and for giving every aspect of this series so much love and care. To Lanie Davis, for long-distance phone calls. And to Joelle Hobeika, editor and friend, for meticulous line edits, character notes, and reassurance.

To the good people of HarperCollins: Jen Klonsky, for all-around awesomeness. To Emilia Rhodes and Alice Jerman, for the insights that helped sharpen this book page by page, line by line. Gratitude to all the brilliant women who promote these books, but especially: Gina Rizzo, Kristin Marang, Heather David, Margot Wood, Aubry Parks-Fried,
and Christina Colangelo. To Heather Schroder, agent and friend, for her good work and guidance.

I’m grateful for all my friends, in so many cities, for their kind words about this series, and for lending me optimism whenever I need it. I’m especially indebted to the few who read drafts of this manuscript, sometimes with a twenty-four-hour-turnaround. Hugs and gratitude to Aaron Kandell and Connie Hsiao for their outside perspectives. As always, gratitude to my family in Baltimore and New York, for reading each book and cheering me on. Endless thank-yous to my brother, Kevin, and my parents, Tom and Elaine, for love and support.