Page 63 of Antihero
***
The police are swarming the island. But so are the assortment of people here for the Bunker, many of them drunk.
From the swat gear and the heavy rifles I spot through the thickets, after I jump out of Goodry’s car, leaving it running, door open by the edge of the road, I can guess they’re not here to mess around.
Charlotte’s car is just a bit further up the road, abandoned, Paige long gone. She’s running from themandme. Like she’s a sinking ship she doesn’t want me to board.
My limp is mild. The pain is pushed to the back of my mind as I duck into a bush at the nearing thump of heavy footsteps, like a herd of elephants approaching up the road. Tregam’s force can’t really have believed I was dead and gone. They’re not about to let me slip through their net again. They won’t have to. They’ll have me by the end of the night.
There’s evidence enough, my mask back at the orphanage, the needle beside a dead body and near-dead one.
It might be poetic if I go to prison after all this time. I’ll take the credit for the Wraith’s kills; I’ll talk around the ones I supposedly wasn’t here for. It won’t be hard to discredit what James says.
What Goodry said fills me with determination for that. Paige isn’t sick. She never was. She can go on and have a life. If she survives this, and I'll make sure she does.
I smash straight through her door, in too much of a mad rush to think about it, to notice the sounds from within. Suddenly, I’m facing two officers. Just police, not SWAT. That’s the only reason I get the upper hand—that I’m able to use their shock as they turn and see me, as they realise who I might be. They’ve been briefed. They know how I might look.
It all gives me the precious seconds I need to leap across the room, knocking the first back against the wall, then snapping out to catch the other. I drag him in, holding him in a choke hold long enough for him to fall limp.
With them both unconscious, I spin, taking in the room. I flip back the couch one-handed. The stash is still there. She probably never knew I’d put my own in that bag, too. She’s leaving, and she’s got nothing. It’s easier to hide with money behind you. If she has the stash, her chances of a future are at least doubled.
Lightning, close enough and bright enough, illuminates the room through the open windows. Thunder cracks shortly after.The ships are going to be grounded. The ferry too. Wind whips stinging rain against the side of the cottage.
There’s no way off the island. So where has she gone?
Back outside, the bag flung over my shoulder; I take a second to consider. Her sister's grave? No. The Bunker? It could be a place to hide, among people, until the storm clears and she can get away, slipping onto the ferry and back to Tregam with them. But it doesn’t feel right. She’s scared. She’s got a life when she never had one before.
My senses are heightened, twitchy, and when something rustles in the bushes, I’m there in a second, dragging him out of hiding.
James looks worse for wear. Mud smeared down his cheek, his clothes torn, like he'd fallen several times in his mad dash all the way back here. He must have sprinted the entire way to make it back on foot. As he shields his face, I understand that he he thinks I’m going to hit him.
I loosen my grip, casting around before I shove him back under the dark cover of trees, myself as well. I feel a sharp pang of pity for him. His father took his mind from him, then proceeded to abuse him for the next decade or so. It’s not his fault he relayed information about Paige. He couldn’t understand why it was wrong.
“Paige,” I hiss. “Have you seen her?”
He shakes his head. “My dad…”
“I need you to focus for a minute, okay?” He snivels, nodding. A dog too used to being kicked, that’s what he looks like. I squeeze his shoulder gently. “You did well. You did nothing wrong. But I need to know where Paige is.”
“My boat key… it’s missing.”
My brow draws down. As though to attenuate the implication, thunder rolls, the rain heaves down, whipping the leaves againstmy face. I duck lower, closer to hear. “She… you think she took your boat?”
“She shouldn’t sail now. It’s too dangerous. My dad Mr, is he dead?”
Loyal, still. Just like the doctor said. “He’s alive. At the orphanage where you left him. Go to him. His car is out on the road.”
“But I… I don’t have a license.”
My lips twitch. “Then drive slowly. Take him to the hospital, tell them… tell them there was an accident. And that you need help too, okay?”
“You’ll go save Miss Paige?”
“I’ll save her. Whatever it takes.”
***
I spot her on the beach, a lone figure in the dark night, hauling the boat from the upper bank towards the water.
