Page 36 of Antihero (Tregam’s Fractured Souls #3)

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 them and me. 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 against my 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.

My heart drops. She’s going to leave. Leave me. Like she should. But then I see her stop with the nose barely at the wave line, see her turn and gaze at the clifftop further on. She’s looking for me.

My leg throbs. The bleeding has stopped, but the ache is deeper as I run for the steep slope down towards the pebbles of the beach.

Rain has made the dirt and rock slick, but I barrel down, heedless, hitting the pebbles with a pained grunt.

The clouds swallow light, the wind is worse down here, whipping water up in sprays, blinding me even more.

But I begin my sprint up the beach anyway, towards Paige.

In the darkness, I’m nearing where I estimate the boat to be when I nearly collide with her as she runs in the opposite direction.

I skid to a stop. Paige doesn’t. She sees me at the last moment and throws herself against me, arms flinging around my neck.

“You found me!” she gasps against my neck.

I hold her as tight as she’s clutching me.

“I didn’t want them to catch you if you were with me.

But… I couldn’t leave. I couldn’t. Without you. ”

In my peripherals, I sense the roaming flashlights of the police force atop the cliff, their shouts on the wind. They’re working out the only way off the island. They’ll be down here soon.

Reluctantly, I press Paige back, so I can see her face in what light reflects off the water.

She’s tugging me further up the beach, back towards the boat.

I pull her to a stop, and when she meets my eyes, and sees the bag, her stash dangling from my elbow, I see doubt fester in her.

“We never said this could be forever,” she says.

I smile sadly, touching her cheek where her wet hair plasters to her skin.

It still can’t be forever. But not because I don’t want it.

If this is the last time I hold her… “You can’t go out on the water in this.

” Indeed, whitecaps abound; the sea, even this close to shore, roiling like some great monster lurks beneath.

Lightning flashes only illuminate the horror, the impossibility of it, more. “You need to go back.”

I press the bag, the fortune, towards her. She only looks blankly at it, not taking it, then lifts her gaze to search my face. We’re both soaked. Her skin looks pale and wan. We shiver through the adrenaline. “I’m not going back.”

The waves ripple up towards the boat behind her, lapping at the stern.

It’s only a small motorboat, not the type with a cabin, but with a small awning that threatens to be ripped off even here.

The gusts rock it on the hard pebbled shore.

There’s a tarp bundled up inside, in front of the back bench seats.

I hold on to Paige as she tries to press away. “You can’t run like this. In this. You’ll die.”

“I’d rather that than go where they want to take me,” she shouts over the wailing, the rain. She has to, now that there’s space between us again. “I won’t be locked up again, at the mercy of strangers. Ever.”

I reach out, pulling her close again. She might be crying. I don’t know. “You won’t be locked up. They won’t find you. They’ll have me instead.”

Confusion, then understanding, dawns on her face. A shout behind me. Maybe they’ve spotted us.

“I’ll tell them that Goodry made the call on a grudge, that he wanted you locked up so you wouldn’t out him. I’ll tell them that I was the one who killed the others,” I say.

There’s still time for her to hide if I distract them.

By surrendering. I’ve done it once before.

What’s one last time? I’m about to tell her to run and hide when she glances over my shoulder, towards the way back up off the beach, some three minutes dead sprint from where we stand now.

Paige steps closer, and grips my arm, hard enough that her fingers bruise.

Her eyes find mine, grey in a flash of lightning. "Come with me. Now."

I glance at the dark sea, which looks like nothing more than oil boiling over a cooking pot. "We'll never make it! We'll both die!"

"We die in that direction, too.” She glances over my shoulder again. “Just slower.”

“You can still live, Paige…”

“Not without you.” She holds me, pleading. “Take a chance. One more. With me. Please!"

The shouts are closer now. They’ve spotted us, the flicker of a flashlight like someone running. And I see she’ll stand right here and be arrested with me. She’ll go to court contesting my claim to have been the Wraith. We’ll both go away, forever, and apart.

The beam strikes her face now, and I can see the fear, the hope in her eyes.

I know which of those I want to be responsible for.

I make my decision.

With one great heave, pouring every last bit of strength and whatever else can be conjured by hope, I shove the boat into the water.

I throw the bag into the boat. Paige lets out something like an exalted whoop.

She doesn’t let go of my arm, like she fears I’ll still leave her, and she jumps in first to then haul me after her. The boat rocks on the waves.