Page 52 of Bleeding Outside the Lines

“Riley isn’t here,” I tell Rowan gesturing to the mess of bodies at my feet. “She’s with the girls, she’ll take care of them.” And I know in my heart that she will, that she meant what she said. “And because she sleeps in the dormitory with the girls, the high court will never know she’s a sympathizer. She’ll protect them as long as they need it. I know you don’t want to go, but Row, if you don’t come with me, the high court will kill you. You cannot die.” Tears fill my eyes, and fear for the safety of my only friend spurs me into action. Grabbing her face in my hands, I force her to look at me. “I love you. Please, we need to go.”

She stands and it strikes me what magic those words wield. I do love Rowan. I have loved her forever; I just didn’t know what it meant to love until Cassius. Until he showed me that you can know someone’s worst secrets and still love the person they are.

Rowan and I act fast. I grab whatever weapons I can carry on my person while keeping my hands free. Rowan stomps on our phones and pulls out the SIM cards, impaling them with one of the daggers scattered on the floor. Destroying evidence.

“I’ll wipe everything else remotely,” she tells me after I ask about the main systems.

We pause at the door, and I listen for movement, for the shuffle of small feet coming to investigate. The emptiness is eerie, but we don’t have time to waste. I keep Rowan close to me as we walk along the hall. When the door finally closes behind us and the night air touches our faces, we both breathe a sigh of relief.

“You ready?” I ask her so quietly, I’m surprised she can hear me. Rowan nods in response.

We enter the woods to the east of the compound next to a small oak sapling where Rowan created a blind spot for the camera earlier tonight. We navigate the bare woods by moonlight until eventually it’s too dark, and we’re forced to turn on our lone flashlight. Rowan carries it, leaving the beam low to avoid possible detection. I need my hands free just in case. A snap of twigs behind us makes us both spin, but nothing is there.

“It was nothing, the woods like to play tricks at night. Besides,” I reassure Rowan as much as myself, “everyone who would come after us is dead. But we do need to move faster,” I tell her, nudging her in the back. We start to run, no longer worried about alerting anyone to our presence. None of it will matter if we’re late. It will all have been for nothing. Tears sting at the backs of my eyes, already grieving the what if.

Rowan comes to a stop ahead of me and doubles over.

“Row!” I yell, but she waves me off.

“Just a cramp, Rubes, I’m good. But look.” She points in the distance where we can see lights through the trees. I mirror her grin, and we take off again in the direction of the lights. Myshins ache and my chest burns, but I push because my future is just ahead. I can see it beyond the trees, beyond the fence that separates us. Beyond the veil of right and wrong.

When we finally reach the fence, I laugh with relief. Rowan climbs through first and I follow. As soon as both of our feet hit the tarmac, she pulls me in for a hug. The plane sits idling just a hundred yards away. We approach cautiously, because even though it’s my plane, we can’t be sure it hasn’t been compromised. It feels like time is standing still. The air still, the world quiet. Everyone and everything paused with me in slow motion, wishing I could fast-forward. Have time on my side.

When we’re only steps away from the stairs to the plane, the world unmutes itself. I hear yelling and sounds of a struggle and then…him. I try to call out, but cold steel presses against my neck, and warmth trickles in contrast with the cold, flowing down the trail between my breasts. A gunshot echoes through the night and it’s then that I succumb to the darkness that has blanketed me my entire life.

thirty-seven

I shoot. Her bodyfalls. Rowan screams.

I shoot. Her body falls. Rowan screams.

I shoot. Her body falls. Rowan screams.

It plays over and over in my head. A never-ending time loop that I can’t escape.

I thought I missed. For just a fraction of a second, but it was enough.

She dropped and my heart stopped.

Collectively, Garrett, Rowan, and I think shock played a factor. Fortunately, her wound was superficial, and we stopped the bleeding and patched Ember up, keeping to the strict schedule she was so intent on. Currently, we are in the air on our way to an unknown destination that even G and Rowan don’t know.

Ember shifts next to me in the bed at the back of the plane. When I lift my eyes to hers, they’re open.

“I should kill you,” I say. “To be fair, I probably should have killed you in the fucking alley. Then we could have avoided thisentire mess. I could have avoided this.” I touch my fingers to the bandage at my throat. “You almost killed me.”

“I did kill you,” she says softly, her voice scratchy with sleep and fatigue. “I didn’t have a choice. It had to look as real as possible.”

“You could have filled me in.”

“The pain in your eyes had to be real. They would have known.”

“I trusted you.”

Tears well in her eyes. “I know, and I’m so sorry.”

“How am I supposed to trust you again?”

She shrugs and smiles. “You can’t kill a dead man.”

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