and I stumble on the uneven ground.
Logan catches my arm and turns me to face him. “Your memory. How bad was it?”
I blink rapidly. I’m not going to cry. If I cry now, I might as well throw myself at the mercy of the hounds. “It was bad,” I whisper. “Really bad.”
“Okay,” he says. “Follow me.”
We wind deeper into the forest. If Logan’s taking a marked path, I don’t see it. Yet his stride is steady and sure, so he must know where he’s going.
The trees become dense, and a canopy of leaves closes over our heads so that we jog in the shadows despite the bright morning sun. Rocks and vegetation litter the ground, and the air feels moist and cool. Every once in a while, I hear the bark of a dog, but it’s so distant I start to relax. They won’t put much effort into finding me. I’m just a girl. I have no real power. I pose no real threat.
Except, perhaps, to my little sister.
My breath hitches on a sob. Mom must be awake by now. She’s probably sitting with Jessa at the eating table, looking at the clock as their peppermint tea cools. They’ll worry if I don’t come home. I should let them know what happened. But even if I could get a message to them, what would it say? Sorry, Jessa, I’d love to come back and eat the toast you ordered for me, but it turns out I’m going to kill you in a few months’ time.
My face crumples, my eyes burning with dammed-up tears. I bring my hand to my mouth and bite down, hard. I can’t do this right now. I cannot do this. A pack of dogs waits to haul me away. I’ve got to keep it together if I’m going to escape.
I drag my eyes to Logan’s back. He has the classic swimmer’s torso—broad shoulders and narrow waist. Through the blur of tears, I see his muscles flexing underneath the silver jumpsuit. That’s good—think about his back. Think how Marisa would drool over this view.
Marisa. My breath catches again. She must’ve gotten her memory. She must’ve seen herself as a famous live actress. I’ll never see her on stage. I’ll never see her again.
I exhale, slowly. I can’t think about her, either. I focus on clambering up the rocks in front of me. The ground slopes upward and the trees thin out here. I can see the sun again. It burns my ears, and sweat condenses on my forehead like the beads outside a glass of water. I feel like we’ve been hiking forever, but probably no more than ten minutes have passed.
“Where are we going?” I ask.
Logan looks over his shoulder, scanning the ground below us. “You can’t stay here. They’re going to find you, no matter where you hide.”
“Where do you suggest I go?”
We’re climbing up, up, up. There’s nothing here but a cliff that dead ends in empty space, with a roaring river below.
He squints at me under the unseasonably warm sun. And then, all of a sudden, I get it.
“No,” I whisper. “I’m not jumping into the river. That’s suicide.”
“Not if you know where to jump. Not if you have a place to go.”
What on earth is he jabbering about? “I don’t, clearly.”
“I do,” he says.
He continues climbing. I follow, conscious of the space separating us. I made the snap decision to trust him, but maybe I was wrong. Maybe my judgment was clouded. I was scared, and I wanted to trust him again. But people change in five years. He might not be mentally sound. Because this idea he’s proposing? It’s crazy.
A memory flashes across my mind. I was eleven or twelve, and we were picnicking on the cliffs next to the glass and steel building, overlooking the river. Mom was nursing Jessa, so I crept right up to the edge, much closer than she normally allowed. I wanted to see the water crashing over the boulders, to imagine the majestic white foam spraying across my skin. Instead, I saw a woman climb onto the metal railing…and swan dive over the edge. She hung in the air for an infinitesimal moment, caught in the sun’s rays as if by the flash of a camera. And then she smashed onto the boulders below.
I’ve had nightmares about falling to my death ever since. But I’m not about to tell Logan that.
We reach the top. The ground plateaus before dropping off in a cliff. Here, there’s