Page 42 of If Anything Happens To Me

Iris struggled away from him.

I shoved Fitch as hard as I could, kicked him in the shins, and screamed for Matt.

Matt did nothing—it was as if he didn’t hear me. The Jeep doors were closed—but he was rightthere, in the driver’s seat. I saw him staring down at his phone, completely ignoring my cry for help. Was he pretending he didn’t hear it?

Fitch had lost his balance when I’d pushed him, and my kick had tripped him right off the curb. I pulled Iris away and the two of us ran as fast as we could down the alley toward the river. I knew it would take Fitch only a few seconds before he and—unbelievably—Matt came after us.

When we rounded the corner onto the service road, I looked wildly for a place to hide. A row of large rocks lay atop a seawall that slanted down to the water—but it was too wide open and visible. There was the spot tucked off the road where the blue van was parked.

I heard tires on the cobblestones. Maybe it was a stranger’s car, or maybe it was Matt’s Jeep, but it would round the corner in just a few seconds, and my strongest survival instincts kicked in. There was that row of ancient wooden doors in the brick wall, next to one of the ghost signs. I had tried a few earlier and they were nailed shut. They all looked as if they hadn’t been opened in years. I rattled the rusty knob on one. No luck, it was locked, but the lock felt loose, and the door was splintery.

This wasn’t my property. I knew I was doing something wrong, but I rammed the door with my shoulder once, twice. It hurt, but I did it again, and this time the door creaked open. I grabbed Iris’s hand, pulled her into the dark space, and shut the door behind us. It smelled musty, as if it had been closed off for years. I realized we were in a damp and chilly cellar.

The only light came through cracks in the door, and there were cobwebs everywhere. They clung to my face and arms; I felt a spider in my hair. An animal scuttled across the floor, claws scrabbling on the cement. I held my screams inside and stood right against the door, my eye pressed to the slit in the old wood.

How was it possible that Fitch had taken Iris? And Eloise?My friend Fitch?

The terror I was feeling was not only because of that.Matthad been tricking me. Matt was involved in taking and hurting girls—hurting Eloise.

Killing Eloise.

Now the sound of the tires was louder. I heard the vehicle bumping over the cobblestones, getting closer. I peered out, and I saw Matt’s Jeep drive past very slowly. The brakes squealed, the Jeep stopped, and I heard one door open. Male voices spoke quietly to each other.

“They ran down here,” Fitch was saying.

“Well, I don’t see them,” came that voice, Matt’s voice, that had always lifted my heart, made me tingle, and now made my eyes burn with tears.

“We have to find them,” Fitch said. “Iris was acting irrational. That’s a sure sign of a head injury.”

“Definitely,” Matt said. “Let’s split up and look for them.”

I was still staring out the narrow crack. I couldn’t see clearly, but there was a glitter of water in the harbor, the shadow of a passing ship, and, then, Matt. He walked one way down the service road, stopped right in front of the ghost sign depicting the Sibylline sisters. Then he turned and walked back in the other direction—as if he was pacing.

“Oli,” he called out. “Can you hear me? Oli, please talk to me—this doesn’t make any sense. I need to find you!”

Of course I didn’t answer. But my heart hurt at the sound of his voice, and I was filled with longing for how it used to be—or how I had thought it was, just a few minutes ago.

“He’s right there,” Iris whispered in my ear.

“I know. Shhh,” I whispered back.

I didn’t want to believe it. Matt?MyMatt? AndFitch? Sweet, smart Fitch?

I looked at Iris. I wanted to doubt that she could have recognized Fitch on the street just now. But his reaction upon seeing her—the way he had grabbed for her—made it obvious that she was right. He had been her captor.

But even without all that, I knew. In that instant, all the clues I’d been trying to put together came to the surface. Minerva’s mention of the family foundation: the Agassiz Foundation. The one Fitch was a member of. Fitch, the cousin who drove the blue van.

“Oli,” Matt called again. “Oli!” Then, more as if he was talking to himself instead of me, “Where did you go?”

I heard him walking on the cobblestones. He headed one way, then the other. But now I wondered if he wasn’t pacing: Maybe he was a hunter stalking his prey.

I had never felt like prey being hunted, before. Especially not by Matt.

After a few minutes, the sound of his footsteps receded. He had left the service road. For now.

“I think he’s gone,” Iris whispered. “Should we go out?”

“We can’t chance that,” I said, my throat aching with the tears I was holding inside.

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