Page 250 of Burn Bright
When I turn around, I never even raise the gun. There is no way. There is no fucking way possible.
“How did you find me?” I ask in one iced breath.
“It wasn’t easy. I’ll give you that.” Charlie approaches in a black durable winter coat, thick-soled boots, a scarf up to his neck. Even a black beanie covers his ears, and for a moment, I wonder if he bought the heavy-duty winter gear just for this trip.
Or if he’s been to the coldest places on earth before.
I am solidified in shock. Unmoving. “Really, how?”
“I sewed a tracker into the lining of your duffel weeks ago.” He knew I’d leave. Charlie comes closer to the firepit I haven’t lit yet. “I would’ve been here sooner, but I was on a flight to Prague when you left New York. By the time I arrived, they weren’t letting any vessels onto the island until the ice melted.”
I saw the water lapping the rocky shoreline this morning. So that checks out. Fear is seizing my muscles. He can’t be here. I need him to leave. “You can’t tell anyone where I am,” I say in panic. “Charlie?—”
“I won’t tell a soul.”
I try to relax. “You promise?”
“I promise, except for Oscar. He already knows.”
“Your bodyguard is here,” I realize.
“He never shares where I go when I ask for secrecy. Sorelax. He won’t tell anyone.” Charlie trusts him even more than I realized. “He’s in your cabin now. You left the door unlocked.”
Didn’t think I’d ever have a visitor.
I can’t get the words out. I blink a ton. Maybe he came here to see what I’m up to. Mystery solved. Then he’ll go. Right?Right?
“Calm down,” he snaps.
I let out a pained laugh. “I don’t hunt you down on your mysterious trips across the world. No one does. They let you go, but as soon as I try, it becomesimpossible.”
“We’re not the same,” Charlie says pointedly coming closer and closer. “You need others. You are fueled by connections to people.Not the earth, not the sun, not the sky, not on a remote island in fuckingAlaska. You will wither away in isolation like the very birds you love. While I will thrive.” He outstretches his arms, hiking poles in hand. “Because I hate people. The human race annoys the shit out of me, and I would do anything to get away.”
“So this is a welfare check?” I ask him. “You can go. I’m fine.”
I return the gun and pick up my axe.
Charlie stops in place. Feet away. The firepit separates us. “What are you going to do with that?” He nods to the gun.
I can’t even look at him. “There are predators out here.”
“You wouldn’t hurt a living soul, let alone a fucking Ficus tree. If a predator were to approach you, you wouldn’t shoot. You’d let it kill you.”
I swallow hard, my eyes blazing. I come around the firepit and toss the axe at his feet. “You want to get it over with then?” I’m losing my nerve. Panic is riding me so hard, I can barely breathe. “Just do it. No one has to know, Charlie.” I can’t even see his expression through the hazy film in my eyes. I put myhands on my thighs, hunching over, and I start gasping for more and more breath.
Then I’m on my knees, and Charlie is knelt in front of me, urging me to breathe. His hand on the back of my skull.
I tug my jacket at my throat, and I tell him, “I feel like I’m exploding. I can’t stop it, Charlie.”
“You have to stop.”
“I can’t…I’m going to hurteveryonearound me.” Snot balls up in the back of my throat. I am drowning in my own emotion. Keeling over. He’s keeping me up as I fight to say, “I know it makes no fuckingsense. But my choices end up causing so much harm, and…I can’t…I can’t stop it. I can’t stop it.”
“You can.”
I shake my head.
“Yes, you can. Je sais que tu peux.”I know you can.His words—I’ve heard those words from Charlie before. Only he spoke them to Beckett.
