We'll Never Be Apart (25 page)

What is he thinking? He's offering to go with me? He knows now, since our fight, what I'm planning. If I let him help me, he'll be an accomplice. Does he know? Does he understand the consequences? “Are you sure, Chase?” I ask. “You don't have to help me. I can do this on my own.”

He finds me again in the dark, runs his hand over my head, catching some of my jagged locks in his fingertips, and for a moment his touch feels so much like the phantom hand of Jason. “I know what I'm doing, Alice. I know what this means. I said I would help you, and I will.” His voice is full of resignation. “I think it's the only way.”

“It's me or her,” I whisper.

“It'll be you,” he says, so sure, so confident. “I promise I'll make sure you come out okay. I won't lose you.”

He takes my hand and using the keycard, he opens the door, just a crack. He takes a deep breath, determines that the coast is clear. Then we're running. I take the lead. Through the hall, to the emergency exit, and down a zigzag of stairs. The door at the bottom of the stairs bangs open and we're outside.

As we sprint across the grass toward the barbed-wire fence, I know finally what it is that I want. I want what Cellie has done to me to be done to her. I want her to feel the sting of lost love, the icy fear of being hunted. I'm going to cut her heart out.

F
ROM THE
J
OURNAL OF
A
LICE
M
ONROE

 

Jason and I burst through the visitor room emergency exit. All at once alarms blared and lights flashed. We took the stairs two at a time. Twice I stumbled, but Jason caught me. When we got to the door leading to the outside, we paused.

“No going back,” he said.

“No going back,” I repeated.

Together we opened the door to the outside. Our eyes widened against the sudden darkness. All around us alarms continued to shriek, but the searchlights hadn't been turned on yet. For a moment we were sheltered in the safety of the night. Earlier that day a heavy rain had fallen, and the grass we sprinted across was muddy and sodden. It felt like I was running through sand, my legs and lungs burning with the exertion, but Jason kept a tight hold on my hand, pulling me forward almost painfully. Shouts rang out in the distance, techs calling my name, begging me to stop. Earlier, Jason had cut a hole in the barbed-wire fence that surrounded the hospital. He ducked through it.

“C'mon, Allie,” Jason yelled. We approached the edge of the forest and kept running. Through the brush and trees we went. Jason did his best to shield me, but branches whipped at my face and cut up my arms.

It felt like we'd been running forever by the time we made it to the edge of the lake, but time moves differently in a dark forest, and it had probably been only minutes. Jason crashed into the water, distorting the reflection of the moon that played across its mirrored surface. He let go of my hand and dived in. As I plunged into the icy water, I had to stifle the urge to cry out. Cold gripped my spine and something slithered against my legs. Jason called to me, treading water in the middle of the lake. I swam toward him, my body weighed down by terror. As soon as I closed the distance between us, he began to swim again, and I followed in his wake.

Jason gave me a frantic kiss as we stumbled from the water. We looked over our shoulders and across the lake, to the other side of the shore, where the techs had paused. Their bright flashlights were swallowed up by the black water, unable to search us out. We were lost to them and finally free. Jason and me.

We walked, our bodies unwilling to do anything but move sluggishly. The temperature dropped and my teeth chattered. Suddenly I was in my grandfather's house again, struggling to stay warm and eating bits of cake. A wave of panic washed over me, and I fell to my knees, unable to go on. It felt as if I'd never be warm again.

Jason was beside me in an instant. “C'mon, baby.” He put his arm around my waist and hauled me up. “It's not that much farther.”

Together we made it to an old abandoned barn, where Jason had stowed clean clothes and a gas lamp the day before. We would spend the night there.

Jason led me to a rickety ladder, and I climbed up into the hayloft. It smelled like horses and old machines. While I changed clothes, Jason made our bed out of hay and a wool blanket. We didn't light the gas lamp. We were afraid its glow would act like a beacon. Instead we let a sliver of moonlight guide our movements, and soon we lay together. Jason's body was slick with lake water and sweat. He took off his shirt and I traced the line of his tattoos. The unicorn. The set of trees. The letters reading
God's Will.
When he pulled my shirt off and asked, “Do you want to?” I didn't hesitate.

He blew into his hands, warming them, and crushed his mouth to mine. He was desperate that night. I loved him so much then that it exploded out of my skin and manifested as a physical need—a need to be close, as close to him as possible. When Jason moved in me, it felt as if the world was moving, too, perfectly in sync with his body above mine. When it was done, he wrapped me up in a dry T-shirt, kissing my stomach as he did. Then he kissed my eyelids, my collarbone, and the skin right above my pounding heart.

That night I spread all my dreams at his feet, wove them into the hay and the wool blanket and through the wooden slats of the old barn that would burn so easily.

CHAPTER

C
HASE AND
I
RACE TOWARD THE SKYLINE, TOWARD THE HORIZON,
where the stars melt into the orange of sunrise. We pass the D ward, the hole in the gate. The wind whips through my hair, makes it fly everywhere, so it's hard to see. There's the cry of an alarm in the distance. Huge spotlights break the dawn and slash across the lawn, seeking our bodies.

I allow myself one moment to look at the building, the worn façade and blacked-out windows. Chase stops behind me.

“Alice, you okay?” he asks, and places his hand in mine.

I nod and he gives my fingers a gentle, reassuring squeeze as we start to run again. At first my legs are sluggish, unwilling to do what my brain orders them.
Run. Fast. Run. Quick.
And I know it's not just the physical exertion that's crippling me; it's fear. Fear of what we'll find. Fear for Chase. Fear of Cellie. It all jumbles up inside of me, spiking my adrenaline. We come to the barbed-wire fence. The hole Jason had cut has been patched. Our only choice is to climb and risk punctured skin. I put my foot through the chainlink and hoist myself over. In my haste I forget that the coiled wire is spiked, and I grab onto it. I let out a cry of pain as the barbs slice into my burned hands. I tumble to the other side. Chase is at my heels. He's managed to dodge the barbed wire. I wipe my bloody palms on my jeans.

Chase gives me a once-over, his face etched with concern. “Your hands okay?” he asks.

“Yeah,” I say. I look at my hands. They're still bleeding, but not too much. Not nearly enough to stop me. A spotlight crosses the ground inches from us. “Still with me?” I ask him. It's too late for me to turn back, but it's not too late for him. I want to give him an out, but he doesn't take it.

“I'm with you, Alice.”

Then we're running again. The dense forest slows our motions, and it feels as if we've been going for hours, even though I know it's been only minutes. The hospital alarms fade in the distance, and the only sounds we hear are the dry twigs snapping underfoot and the heaviness of our breaths, but this doesn't mean we aren't being followed. When we come to the lake I stop, cold and dead on my feet.

Chase bends and braces his hands on his knees. “Why'd you stop?”

I give a jerky nod to the other side of the lake, where a field stretches and a crumbled, charred ruin of a barn rises from the ground like a tombstone. “I think that's where she went,” I tell him.

“Why there?” he asks in disbelief. “Is that where—”

“Yeah,” I say softly. “It's where Jason died.”

“You don't have to do this, Alice.” He puts his hands on his hips and looks at the ground. “I understand if you want to go back.”

My eyes flutter shut and I walk backwards into the past. It's like I'm watching a movie on rewind.
Go on, Alice. You have to do this.
“No. She's there. She knows this is the only place I wouldn't go. She thinks she's safe there. This is my only chance.”

Before Chase can reply, before I can even see his reaction, I dive into the lake. The icy water shoots a million tiny needles into my skin. The only thing to do is swim, swim to keep warm, swim to stay alive.

I hear the splash of Chase's body hitting the water behind me. He catches up easily, and when he does, we don't say anything. We're too focused on keeping our breaths even, our strokes steady. Finally, mercifully, we come to a place where our feet can touch the rocky bottom. Then we walk, staggering like zombies to the shore. Chase takes my hand, and this time he laces his fingers through mine. We run together, side by side, until the barn gets closer and we can smell its charred carcass. Dew rises from the tall grass, a vapor I almost mistake for smoke, but the building isn't burning. Not anymore. Even if Cellie tried to set it on fire again, I don't think there's enough of it left to burn.

When Jason and I ran here, there was a huge sliding door that he had to push open with all his might. Now the opening is just a big, gaping hole.

I step over the threshold, my heart hammering in my chest. The morning sun filters through the broken and uneven walls, giving the barn a light, ethereal glow. There's a small, childlike laugh behind me.
Cellie.
I whirl around, but it's only Chase, his shadow cast over me.
Shit, baby. I'm burning up.
It's Jason's voice behind me now. I spin around again.

“What is it, Alice?” Chase asks.

Cellie laughs. The noise ricochets off the walls, zooms in a circle. I put my hands over my ears, shake my head. Little droplets of icy lake water spill everywhere. I shiver but not from the outside. Somewhere deep inside me a cold memory is cracking open. “This can't be right,” I say, mostly to myself. The barn is empty. Frantically I run farther into the barn until I'm at the ladder leading to the hayloft. I climb it. Chase is behind me. I look around the loft. Cellie's not here. I turn to Chase. “But the fire in my room . . .”

I thought for sure she'd be here.

His eyes soften with sympathy. “There wasn't a fire, Alice. You were screaming and crying, and they couldn't get you to calm down, so they put you in the Quiet Room.”

I glance at my hands and examine my palms. They're not blistered, not even pink. There are only the scrapes from the barbed wire and the healed burn—no fresh blisters or scars. “I don't understand,” I say to myself, to the barn, to Chase.

“I think you do,” he says quietly.

“Cellie's not here.”

“You're wrong.” He takes a deep breath. “I think Cellie
is
here.”

CHAPTER

S
OMEWHERE IN THE DISTANCE, A VOICE CALLS ME.
I can't tell if this is a memory or if it's happening right now.

Cellie stands above me, a slow, quizzical smile building on her lips. She seems sad, fragile.

“Cellie?” I reach out to touch her, but my fingers slice through the air. Her face is only smoke, white smoke that shimmers in the moonlight. I roll onto my knees, and there she is again, standing at the top of the ladder that connects the hayloft to the ground floor. She throws her head back and laughs like we did when we were children, when we'd play all day until we were sticky with sweat and our cheeks smelled of the summer sun. I crawl toward her.

“Allie?” It's Chase behind me. But I ignore him. Now I'm following Cellie from the hayloft, down the ladder, and into a horse stall, where Jason left the gas lamp.

I blink and I'm standing next to the lamp, caressing the glass with a hungry desire to feel the heat and watch something burn. Cellie's hand hovers over mine. It dips down and melds into my fingers, until it becomes my palm. Cellie is guiding me, but it's my hand that's moving.

I barely remember taking the gas lamp in my hand, holding it aloft, and looking for something flammable. I hear Jason's footsteps coming down the ladder
,
watch his twisted face as he races toward me.

“Cellie,” he whispers, standing outside the horse stall, a seemingly safe distance away. I look at him and see him through Cellie's eyes.

“This is your fault,” Cellie hisses, though I'm the one who does the talking.

“You're right. This is my fault.”

“You don't love me. Nobody ever does,” we say.

“I love you both,” Jason says. “How could I love one without loving the other?” He reaches for me, for Cellie, and I let him take my hand. His palm is callused and warm. He squeezes my fingertips, grasps them lightly at first and then more firmly. “I love you both. I always have. I did this for us.” He brings his other hand up, cups my cheek, and I lean in. The gas lamp settles next to my thigh, and I don't notice the heat of the flame or the smell of oil, which seems more pungent in this part of the barn. His hand moves down, traces my shoulder, my elbow, my wrist, then wraps around my fingers.

I'm afraid.

Something that is fractured inside me is coming together, like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle. I see myself as a little girl, standing over Grandpa's body, his skin the color of an approaching storm. Over my shoulder, someone blossoms behind me. A mirror image whose hand feels real, whose touch brings comfort, whose voice brings joy. Someone who takes all the love I never feel, balls it up, and stitches it together inside herself to save me from a lifetime of feeling unworthy, unloved, unwanted. My dark partner. My twisted twin.
Me.