Page 42

Phoebe

Then

I know, even as Declan and I recover, dirt entwined in my hair and both of us breathing heavily, that there’s no going back. I have no choice now. It’s time to set the plan in motion.

“Phoebe,” Declan says gently as his breathing normalizes.

“Stop.” I can’t listen to his explanation, his clichéd excuses. Telling me it was a mistake, urging me not to say anything to Claire. I can’t bear any of it.

So, I stand, yanking my pants up, avoiding his eyes. “There’s nothing more to say, Dec.” His name squeaks out of my mouth as I force myself to regain control. “Goodbye.”

I don’t bother to turn around once I start walking. I know what I’d see. Declan, sitting in the dirt, confusion on his face and hurt in his eyes.

Instead, I take off at a steady pace back to the Inn. There’s one more thing to do.

***

Thankfully, Claire’s left the door to our room unlocked. I hold my breath as I throw it open, overcome with relief when I see she’s not there.

I grab my backpack, packing it full of essentials, including the box of hair dye I picked up from the town’s convenience store earlier today, and stuff my phone in my pocket. It’s too outdated to have any sort of tracking.

I’m out of the room in seconds, pausing only to glance at that hideous painting of a raven that hangs on the far wall. It looks even more ominous than usual.

“I can do this,” I say out loud to myself.

My brother’s voice claws at the edges of my brain, but I refuse to let it in. I refuse to listen to him anymore.

This is finally my chance. To start over for real. To leave Phoebe behind forever. To begin again as someone entirely different, with this baby growing inside of me. To build the life that this child deserves. The one my parents never gave me.

I rush out of the room, taking the stairs so quickly I nearly fall. But soon enough, I’m outside, the night air cool against my cheeks, my lungs finally expanding.

One day last week when Randy was out on a break, I fired up the old desktop in the Inn’s lobby, using Google Maps to pull up directions.

Fifteen miles, the directions said. Far on foot, but not impossible.

People run that for sport. The map showed me a shortcut—rather than cutting through the town of Jagged Rock, I could head west, out through the vast expanse of land that lies behind the Inn and into the neighboring town.

Then, I’ll just need to make it one more town over until I reach Rollowong.

I’ll still be close to Jagged Rock, sure, but who would ever think to look for me there?

I take a deep breath, hitch the backpack up on my back and start walking. I’ve made it about half a mile, or at least that’s what I estimate, when I hear the sound.

A yell that reverberates through the dark silence of the night.

“Phoebe!”

My name is garbled in her voice, strung with anger and betrayal. As it should be.

My spine goes ramrod straight and I consider running. But I know Claire would catch up with me in a matter of seconds.

So I turn.

“How dare you?” Her eyes are wild, hair sticking up from her head like flames. “How could you do this to me?”

I don’t pretend not to know what she’s talking about. It’s too late for that.

“I’m sorry, Claire. You didn’t deserve this. I—”

But the sentence withers in my throat as I see what’s in her hand, starlight refracting off a piece of silver. A knife.

“Claire,” I say again, this time more cautiously, as I take a step back. I’ve been this person before. I’ve been Claire. Hurt beyond what anyone should take, with no other choice than to hurt someone else, to make them feel the same.

It happens in a blink. Claire raises her hand as I cower, arms in front of my face, as if that will be any defense against the sharp blade of the knife.

And then I wait. One second, two.

When I dare to open my eyes, I could cry.

Claire stands there, her eyes glued not on me, but on the knife in her hand like it’s the first time she’s seeing it. She releases her fingers as if she’s been burned, and I watch the knife tumble down silently, the dirt around it erupting as it connects with the earth.

“I don’t know what the fuck I’m doing,” Claire says, dropping to her knees.

And then it strikes me. How different she is from me. When backed into a corner, with no hope, I do one of two things. Lash out or run. But Claire is different. She confronts her problems head-on.

Within seconds, I’ve joined her on the ground. With the knife discarded several feet away, I wrap my arms around her protectively.

“You didn’t deserve this, Claire. You didn’t deserve any of this,” I murmur as she sobs. After a few minutes, she lifts her head, her eyes glazed and cloudy.

And I decide in that moment to tell her.

About my brother, what he did to me. And how that impacted how I’ve acted this entire trip.

I don’t tell her everything of course. I don’t tell her how I got my revenge on him.

And I leave out some of my more pathetic moments.

What I did in secret during our time in the Whitsundays, the life growing inside me as a result.

I can’t bear her reaction to that on top of everything else.

And I don’t tell her how much she hurt me by pulling away after Cairns.

How she was the best friend I ever had. Until she wasn’t.

I don’t need to lay that on her on top of everything else.

“After what happened at dinner tonight, I felt so alone,” I say, emotion thick in my throat. “And Declan was just there, and he knew what I’d done, who I am…”

I stop as she pulls back in pain. “You trusted him more than me?”

“I was wrong,” I admit. And I know that’s the truth. I was hurt, so I chose to confide in the one person she was closer to than me. “It was never you. It was never your fault.”

Claire is silent for a few moments.

“So where are you going now?” she finally asks.

I take another deep breath, thinking through the best way to explain this to her.

“I’m getting out,” I say. “I’m going to try to start over again. As someone else.”

“What?” Claire asks sharply. “What are you talking about?”

“I have hair dye and this fantastic Aussie accent,” I say, impersonating the omnipresent dialect we’ve been hearing for the last few weeks. “I can basically be anyone.”

Claire doesn’t return my smile.

“But h-how?”

“I’m going to walk to a women’s center a few towns over. One of those places where people with violent partners can go to escape. They don’t ask questions.”

I watch her eyes grow wide.

“I’ll stay there a couple days. Until I can work things out, figure out where to go next. Until I can secure a new identity.”

“But…” Claire fumbles as if trying to understand. “We only have a few more nights in Australia, and then you can go home, forget any of this ever happened.”

“You don’t understand,” I say, more forcefully than I intend. “I don’t have a home. I’m not sure I ever have. This is my only option.”

She stares at me, disbelieving, and I know she’s trying to think up further questions to deter me. I stop her before she can.

“It’s the only way.”

“But I can’t just let you go,” she says, emotion clouding her voice. “I can’t let you walk however many miles out here in the dark. It’s not safe.”

“I’ll be fine.”

“At least take this,” she says, shoving the knife in my direction. “I don’t know why I took it. My anger went to my head. Use it to protect yourself.”

“Actually,” I say, thoughts thundering in my head as I look down at the knife. “There is something you can do with that… You’re going to think this is crazy, but—”

Without warning, I wrap my hand around her fist, yanking her arm towards me so that the knife brushes against the skin of my forearm. A scream of pain buries in my flesh, and I watch in awe as teardrops of blood break through the new slit.

“What the— Phoebe, what the hell!” Claire yells. Her vision darts between her hand, still clasping the knife, and the blood seeping from my arm. I turn my arm over, allowing the blood to drop down onto the dirt.

“If the police do search for me,” I say calmly, my adrenaline whisking away the pain, “they’ll find evidence that I was hurt. They’ll be looking for someone abducted or murdered. Not a girl using a false identity at the nearby women’s center. But there’s one more thing.”

Claire barely seems to hear me, still fixated on the knife in her hand.

“Can you cut a lock of my hair?”

“No. No,” she stammers.

“Claire, please. I’ll never ask anything of you ever again.”

That seems to do it, the reality of what’s coming. The fact that—if everything goes to plan—she’ll never see me again.

Without any words of agreement, she raises the knife as I bend towards her. Gently, so gently, I feel her fingers entwine themselves in my hair as she drags the knife across. There’s something about the feeling that’s nurturing, maternal even.

When she pulls away, a lock of my dark curls is laced around her index finger.

“Thank you,” I say softly, taking the hair from her and tying it around a nearby dehydrated bush.

“Now, if you search tomorrow and can lead them here, that should be everything I need to point them in the wrong direction. If you feel like it, you can wipe the knife for prints and bury it somewhere out here. No one will ever find it.”

Claire nods, her face bleached white in the darkness, grief staining her eyes.

“But how will I know you made it safe?” she asks finally.

“I’ll find a way to get a message to you. On Facebook or with a burner phone. You’ll hear from me, I promise.”

It’s one I intend to keep.

I take her free hand in mine. “You were a great friend, Claire. The best.”

She nods, and I can tell she’s fighting tears. There’s still so much to say between us. So many things that will forever remain unsaid.

“Goodbye, Phoebe,” she finally manages.

“Goodbye,” I whisper, already turning back into the darkness.