Page 74 of If Anything Happens To Me

When I let it out, I felt it escape my body, along with the biggest shiver ever.

“Are you okay?” Matt whispered.

“No,” I said, not in a whisper.

“We’re going to get through this. We are. We’ll do it together.”

Together, he said.

“But you’re withhim,” I said.

“You don’t believe that,” he whispered. “You know I’m not.”

“I saw you with him. On the waterfront.” I shoved him away. “When you pulled up outside Minerva’s store, he tried to take us—and you just sat there! You didn’t do anything, try to stop him!”

“I didn’t know what he was doing!” Matt said. “I feel like an idiot—I didn’t even see what he was doing. I was trying to get a song from my phone on the Bluetooth for when you got into the Jeep.”

“A song?”

“Yes,” he said. “?‘Lost in the 16th’ by Margot François.”

The song we’d listened to once. The song about change, the feeling about love.

He squeezed my hand, and after just a few seconds, I squeezed back.

“Oli, you’re still wearing my bracelet,” he said, one finger touching the woven rope around my wrist, then lightly tracing my skin, his voice so low I could barely hear. “You wouldn’t be wearing it if you didn’t know, deep down, that I’m with you. That all I care about is you, getting you out.”

I glanced down at the bracelet, and his words, spoken in his gentle, familiar voice, ran through me, and I knew he was right.

He held me even closer. We were pressed against each other, his mouth against my ear so no one else could hear him when he spoke.

“We’re going to escape, but we have to move fast,” he said.

“With Hayley and Abigail,” I said.

“Of course,” he said.

“We’ve lost Iris,” I whispered with a ripple of grief.

“No, we haven’t. Iris is fine. I’ll explain in a minute. But for now, we’ve got to make a plan to get out.”

“How?” I asked.

“Through the window on the left. The one with the fire escape.”

“It’s hurricane glass, but there’s a tiny crack,” I said.

“It’ll shatter,” he said. “But the timing is what counts. We have to do it fast. Fitch doesn’t know I’m up here, but he’ll figure it out eventually. He thinks I’m getting something out of the van.”

“For what?”

He paused. “For some new type of test he’s planning for all of you.”

That was a punch in my gut. “Why would he tell you that?” I asked. “If you’re not part of it?”

“You’re going to have to trust me on this,” Matt said.

“But how did he even let you in on the fact that he had us up here?” I asked, stubborn and needing to know.

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