Page 67 of No Place Left to Hide

Did anything else happen that night? Anything the stalker robot might know about?

Tell the cops whatever you have to say to get us out of this, and then take it back later.

She’s brought up the party every step of the way. Asked about Claire. Told me not to fight back. Told me toconfessinstead. The expression on her face when I brandished the cans and told her my plan to break their windshield is suddenly all I can see. The concern on her face…for the driver—drivers—in the car behind us.

What if you make him crash?

Jena’s the one who dragged me out of the house to go to this party in the first place. She wouldn’t take no for an answer, like my whole life would be ruined if I didn’t celebrate Yale with everyone.

What better time to reemerge onto the social scene than a party celebrating one of the most amazing achievements of your entire life?

Jena is the whole reason I’m here tonight.

She also had my phone in her hand when we lost service. She easily could have erased my call log and all those voicemails to cover her own ass.

I let my foot off the gas. I feel like I’m floating out of my own body.

“Jena,” I whisper. “What the fuck did you do?”

Twenty-Five

Before

September 2nd

I twist around to make sure there’s nothing behind me, and back the boat to the right so I can head into deeper water. Claire tries to get her feet beneath her.

I can feel the panic radiating off her and it brings a smile to my face. If she won’t leave me the hell alone, she deserves every ounce of fear this boat ride brings her. After all, she could have been safely onshore, or stayed the fuck home tonight. But no. Once again, she stuck her nose in my business.

Sucks to suck.

Maybe a couple quick laps around the lake will scare her so badly she’ll never talk to me again. That would make my entire senior year adream. I can’t even imagine what a life without her would look like. Utopia, probably.

I throw the boat into gear and punch it. The wind throws my hair out of my face, and I’m sprinkled with the spray of lake water. I laughinto the wind. With the wheel in my hands and the cold air biting at my cheeks, I finally feel free.

The boat hits a wave and rises. When it comes back down, it sprays the whole bow of the boat with water. Claire screams when it hits her, falling to her knees in the narrow aisle and crawling toward me.

“Slow down!” she yells.

I ignore her and push the throttle instead.

She looks at me in terror and lunges for the boat keys. I yank the wheel to the right and she falls back onto one of the seats, but she rebounds quickly. Then she’s right there beside me. She grabs at the wheel.

“Brooke, cut it out!” She tries to hip check me out of the way. “You’re going to get us killed!”

When she reaches for the throttle, I plant my feet and knock her hand away. “You’re the one grabbing for the wheel. Stop!”

She wrenches it to the left. The boat swerves in a big arc and I straighten it out again. We’re a scramble of hands and elbows trying to get purchase until I’m so fucking angry I want to scream. I just wanted to get away from her. I wanted a break. I wanted some space. Why can’t shego? Why is she everywhere I am? I can’t even take out my own boat without her ruining it.

I plant my forearm on Claire’s chest and shove her back. “Get away from me!”

She steps one leg in front of me and uses her body to shove me back, but I don’t let go of the wheel and neither does she, each of us wrenching it in a different direction with every tug. The back-and-forth rocks us closer and closer to the shore until moonlit trees hang over the water maybe fifty feet in front of us.

I try to turn us back toward open water, but fingers sink into theback of my hair, and suddenly I’m ripped back so hard that I land flat on my back between Claire and Jena’s sleeping form with a yelp. My arm comes down hard on the fiberglass deck, and pain flares through my bones and around the back of my shoulder. My scalp scalds from hairs most certainly yanked out at their roots.

I cradle my arm against my chest and close my eyes against the pain. The boat slows. I open my eyes and find Claire in my place behind the wheel, throttle pulled all the way back. When we come to a full stop, she whips around to face me. “Are you trying to kill us?”

“Me? You’re the one who attacked me and almost drove us into the shore!”

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