Page 104 of Undertow

I shake my head, heart racing.

“H-how do you know about him?” I finally manage.

“I found the phone as well. With the notebook.”

“Yes, but the passcode…”

“He called while I was reading.”

Panic erupts in my chest. Oh god. No, no, no.

“And you answered?” I’m too weak to keep the emotion from my voice.

She shrugs. “You wanted me to know you. I figured a call on your secret phone was part of the deal. So who is he? Because he didn’t seem to know much aboutyoursituation.”

My blood goes cold. “What did you tell him?”

Time stops as she studies my face. If she told him the truth, if he learns where I am, where I’ve been for these last two and a half years…

“I didn’t tell him anything,” she says finally. “I told him I was your girlfriend and mostly listened to him talk. He seems like a nice man, and he really seems to care about you.”

I exhale the stale air in my lungs. “He is. And he does.”

Her eyes narrow, frustration seeping in. “He thinks you’re studying at a university, Shaw. He went on and on about your classes and your roommate, and nowme,the girlfriend he didn’t know about. He has no idea you’re chained up on an island in the Gulf. So again, who are you and why are you here? Nothing I’ve learned about you in the last six hours matches where weare now. You work for the McArthurs, but you’re afraid of them. You’re being tortured byus, but don’t want to flee. Your family has no clue where you are. What is going on?”

I wish I could answer that question.Anyof those questions.

I wish I could end it all right here and now.

Julia’s blue eyes seek mine, so full of confusion, concern, pain. She still cares about me. I have no idea why, but maybe that means there’s hope.

Maybe Icanfinally end it.

“You can’t help me escape because there is no escape for me. The McArthurs will always find me and drag me back. You told me once that all you’ve ever wanted was to be free of this life. That’s all I’ve ever wanted too.”

She flinches, and I reach for her hand. I expect her to pull away, but our fingers entwine instead. I stare down at the smooth contours of her skin laced with the bloody carnage of mine.

“You saw it in my writing,” I say softly. “You saw the truth I’m hiding, how I long for freedom. Everything else about me might be a lie, but you know I’m telling the truth about that. Like you, I just want to escape. To be finished with this life. But the only way I’m free is if I can take them down once and for all.”

“Take who down?”

“All of them.”

She quiets and stares at me for a long time. I don’t know what she’s thinking, but I no longer have a choice. There’s only one path forward.

“All of them, as in…?”

“All of them.”

“My family too,” she says quietly.

“There’s no other way to be free,” I say gently. “You know that as well as I do.”

She closes her eyes. Her chest rises and falls with a deep breath. “How can I trust you after everything?”

“How can I trustyou?We’ve both been lying to each other since the day we met. We live in a world of perverse distortion. I’ve spent my entire life hiding in a tattered notebook no one would ever see.”

Her blue gaze settles back on me.