Page 96 of Chasing Never
“I do!” I cry, but I don’t know how to stop. My grip only pulls tighter around his neck. As if my limbs are no longer my own, but carried along on the string’s end by the Sister.
Please, please, just get me off of you, I want to say, but I can’t make myself form the words.
Nolan stumbles backward, but he doesn’t fall. Not yet.
After a moment, I wonder if this is it. I wonder if, after he blacks out, I’ll kill him first—before taking our child. If the draw the bargain holds over me is so all-consuming, I’ll do anything to keep him from getting in the way of handing my child over to the Sister.
But then Nolan shocks me.
He drops our baby.
My heart stops in my chest.
Nolan’s hand, the one that had only moments ago held our baby safe, reaches up and grabs both of my wrists. The strength of Malia’s potion temporarily fails me, my entire body shaking, going limp.
Nolan dropped our baby.
I snarl, and it’s as if a bear rears up within me. I let out an angry roar, ripping myself from Nolan’s grasp and pushing myself off his back. He stumbles forward, and I lunge for our child.
The night is quiet. Panicked, I thirst for the sound of my child’s screams.
My child isn’t crying. Why isn’t he crying?
Again, something is wrong. Again, I’m being tricked.
I glance down at the bundle on the ground, then at Nolan. Time stops as instead of lunging for our child, he lunges for me.
I’m faster. I turn on my heel and run, expecting the distance I’m placing between the bundle and myself to be agonizing.
It isn’t.
My confidence grows with every step as I race toward the opposite end of the cove, and Nolan’s footsteps follow me.
Because that bundle on the ground is not my child.
Wasn’t it strange, that Maddox had been the one to stay behind with me? It would have made more sense, tactically, for him and Nolan to go after Malia, and leave Charlie to tend to me. She is human, after all.
My mind races back to Charlie’s reaction to finding out I was pregnant. She was so distraught, but resolved at the same time, committed to making sure nothing happened to my child.
And then there was the moment when Kendra had told me to leave the room, so they could discuss the location of the safe house. I had assumed that was all they were doing, keeping their plans from me. But there was more to the plan. There had always been more to the plan.
Had Nolan and Charlie discussed this before we ever went to meet Kendra?
Halfway between where I left the others and where I attacked Nolan, a figure comes into focus in the distance.
It hits me then. The Sister had probably already planned this. The potion in Malia’s satchel—it had made me her failsafe, in case Malia failed.
After all, I’m the one compelled under the bargain. Just like Malia said.
I will my legs to stop, to turn around, to at least slow down so that Nolan can catch up to me. But my body is not my own anymore.
It never has been.
Charlie is at the edge of the water. There’s an inlet that journeys into the ocean, and a boat waiting for her. She’s throwing her satchel into it, holding another bundle in her arms as she pushes the boat from the shore.
“Charlie,” I say, my voice sounding much too innocent for what the Sister has planned for me.
She turns, snapping her neck toward me. “You’re not supposed to be here. Where’s Nolan?” she says, her eyes darting around us, scanning the area.
