Chapter Twenty-One

DANNY LEANS AGAINST THE DOORJAMB,appraising Ellie and her bedroom. Piles of clothes. Crumpled pieces of paper. Bed stripped of linens. She sits crisscrossed on the bare mattress, frowning at the mess, the heaps of clothing like an infection spreading. She's wearing baggy sweatpants and a thin T-shirt. Not her own. Most likely Jimmy's.

Danny clears his throat. Ellie startles. "Sorry," he says. Danny is supposed to be working at the Fishtrap, a double shift. But Ellie called and asked him to come over. Time seemed to unwind itself then, and Danny imagined what it would be like to choose work over Ellie again. He will spend the rest of his life trying to not make the same mistake twice, so he called to tell his mom he was sick, couldn't come in.

"You doing some redecorating?" he says to Ellie now, gesturing toward the chaos and trying to lighten the mood.

She swings toward him, letting her legs dangle over the side of the bed. Her feet are bare, toes unpainted. "I tried on all my clothes this afternoon. Nothing seems to fit anymore. This whole room isn't right." Her mouth twitches, pinned somewhere between a laugh and a cry. "When did the world become such an unfriendly place?"

Danny deposits his keys on her dresser next to a postcard of birch trees. His eyes linger on the sleeve of a David Bowie record. At the man with cat eyes, hand pressed to his chest, another hand gesturing up into the air. The first time he listened to that album with Ellie, they smoked weed. Brains cloudy and smiles stretched wide, they'd stared at the black-and-white cover and read the quote at the bottom over and over. Tomorrow belongs to those who can hear it coming.

"Bad day?" he asks.

She raises her eyebrows. "Is there any other kind?"

"I won't deny it. I've had more bad than good."

Ellie stares at the rain out the window. "You think it will ever get better?"

"Time heals all wounds."

"Bullshit." At last, a smile.

One side of his mouth curls up, too. He circles a pile of clothes and sits on his haunches in front of Ellie, careful not to touch her. "It's total bullshit. The wounds will always be there, won't they? They're like a boulder strapped to your back right now. Something that feels impossible to carry. But someday, they'll change shape. They'll become pebbles in your pocket. It won't be so overwhelming then."

"You read that somewhere?"

"My mom makes us put on Dr. Phil every afternoon at the bar."

"You don't believe that, do you?"

He hangs his head. "I think I have to." His foot is tangled on a sky-blue hoodie. Suddenly he is caught in the crosshairs of a memory. Ellie was wearing that sweatshirt, and they'd been walking around on Main Street. He'd just won her a stuffed elephant from the arcade when the sky opened up. They ducked into the Seaglass Museum. No one was behind the counter, and they wandered, hand in hand, far into the exhibits. In front of a case of blue bottles, he placed his hand on her hip, turned her to face him. A peck was how it started. But then she'd cupped his cheeks, and the kiss deepened. She'd pressed against him, and he'd been hard. They knocked into a display, rattling glass, and were invited to leave by the owner, a man who looked like he should be on a ship rather than stuck on dry land.

All of a sudden, Ellie's hand is on his knee. He stays still in that awkward squatting position. "Okay?"

"Okay," she says.

He shifts to sit, losing Ellie for a moment, but then she returns, slipping from the bed next to him. She places her hand on top of his. Tentative. Unsure. Slowly, he turns his palm upright. Ellie's fingers fall between his, and they interlace hands. "You sure this is okay?" he asks. Thinking about desire. How it changes. How the only thing he wants is not to hurt Ellie. Because you do not hurt someone you love. Or you try not to.

Ellie rests her head on his shoulder. "Tell me something good."

He's stiff, afraid to move. "Something good?" He feels her nod against him, the razor sharpness of her cheekbone. He looks out the window and starts to speak. He whispers to her every good thing he has ever seen. Sunshine. High tide. Elk on the beach. A pod of humpback whales. The sky right before the rain. Here right now. You and me.

"I wish you looked at me how you used to." The warmth of her skin seeps through his sweatshirt.

"How was that?" Everything inside of Danny is soft and quiet—still water. What a sad victory, he thinks. Touching someone and not being afraid.

"I don't know… like I was beautiful and unbroken. I want it to be the same, I guess."

He does not have the heart to tell her it is not the same. It will never be the same again. Just as the "Danny" Ellie knew is gone, so is the "Ellie" Danny knew.

"I just… I just miss the girl I was." She wipes her face and looks up at him, green eyes glassy sad pools. "Thank you for coming over." She squeezes his hand. "I wanted to ask you a favor. Would you take me somewhere?"

Night has come. The sun has set. The road is bumpy. Danny's and Ellie's bodies jerk with the movement of his car. Danny flips on the radio and scrolls through the stations, pausing and passing over a Christian gospel show—judgment day is upon ye. He settles on the blues and sets the volume low.

"You sure you know the way?" Ellie asks.

Danny nods. His hands tense around the wheel. He does not like this. I want to go where I was found, Ellie had said. And against his better judgment, he agreed to drive her. Her phone vibrates and she pulls it out. A glance shows Danny it's from Coldwell PD, probably Detective Calhoun. Ellie presses ignore.

"I saw her the other day. She came into the diner." He says the last part like a question with a million questions underneath it—what is happening with the investigation? Why does Calhoun want me to spy on you? What happened to you? Where'd you go? Ellie remains silent.

Danny takes out his frustration on the gear shift. He does not understand why she wants to do this, why he is helping her do this. The forest is thick and passes by in a gray blur. Danny starts to say something else but snaps his mouth closed.

He slows the truck. They have arrived. On the other side of the road is the mouth of the trail Ellie stumbled out from, blood-soaked and bruised. Yellow crime scene tape blocks it off. Some of it has detached and flutters in the wind. It is a reminder that after a while, everything is forgotten.

"I have a flashlight, I think." Danny cuts the engine and reaches to dig around in the backseat—clothing, camping gear, even a large fishing knife. He reemerges with a heavy-duty flashlight and hands it to her.

She gets out of the car, and he follows. The interior lights and headlights fade, and they are suddenly swallowed by night. It is so dark Danny can't even make out the tips of his shoes. Ellie clicks on the flashlight and points it toward the ground, at the faded white of her sneakers.

"I'd like to go by myself," she tells him.

Danny swears. "No, El."

"I'll text you every few minutes." As if it will help convince him, she digs her cell phone from her pockets and waves it.

He grabs the back of his neck, unsure and miserable. "I don't know…"

"I need this," she insists.

He sighs and studies her. Is this her way of coping? Of reconciling what happened to her? She is still an enigma to him. Still so stubborn. He sees a glimpse of the girl she was before. Head tilted. Arms crossed. Willing to die for something she thinks is important. He grinds out another curse. "Every few minutes, you'll text?"

"Cross my heart." She makes an X right over the center of her chest.

"Give me your phone. Let me make sure you have service." She rolls her eyes, murmurs something he can't hear, and hands it over.

Danny checks it out, pressing buttons. "Here." He places it in her open palm, screen absurdly bright and unnatural in the dark. "Full service."

She promises to be right back and darts across the street to the mouth of the trail. He stands, hands shoved into his pockets, and watches her. He paces back and forth, head down, and tries to talk himself out of it, but then he thinks fuck it and follows her.

He sets off at a jog into the yawning mouth of the forest, slowing when he nears her. She walks for a while and Danny creeps behind her, keeping pace at an even distance. Near a bend, she leaves the trail. His heartbeat accelerates when he finds her standing under a hemlock. She glances around, and he ducks out of sight. All this fresh air and Danny finds it hard to breathe, lungs constricting with apprehension.

The flashlight is on the ground, a cone of light illuminating the scene. Ellie crouches, touches a mound of dirt, and then starts to dig. In no time at all, her hands close around a small package. The contents are malleable as she pushes her thumbs into it, kneading. She stuffs the package into her waistband and covers it with her coat, checking to make sure it's hidden.

The wind picks up and howls. Danny uses the sound as cover and runs back to the trail. He jogs a ways down, then cups his mouth and hollers Ellie's name, hoping she'll believe he's just come this way searching for her.

The gentle pitter-patter of rain starts and increases steadily until it is a vicious downpour. Danny waits. Then Ellie is there. Hair plastered to her head. Danny's pulse beats heavy in his neck, and he's afraid. But of what? The dark? This trail? Ellie? He shakes it off.

"You're covered in dirt." He says it to see what she'll say.

"I fell."

A lie. The moon disappears behind a cloud, and it's hard to make out Ellie's face. "Did you find what you were looking for?" Water drips from his hair and catches in his long eyelashes. An image of her pops in his memory, Ellie in the forest, back bent, digging and digging.

"Not yet," she says.

His mind goes blank on what to do. How to handle this. It does not feel right to accuse Ellie of something. So he goes into default mode, does what he always wants to do with Ellie. Take care of her. Be a hero. He strips his sweatshirt off and puts it around Ellie's shoulders. "C'mon," he says. "Let me take you home."

The air in the truck is humid. They are a few miles down the road. "You warming up?" Danny reaches for the knob, turning the heat down. Ellie doesn't answer. She is softly crying. "What's the matter?" It's a stupid question, he thinks.

Ellie shakes and shivers. "It's nothing… I'm just… I'm so afraid," she chokes out.

"It's okay," he tries to soothe.

"It's not okay." The words roll out of her like a stomp of the foot. Everything is too jagged. Too sharp. "It's not okay, and it is never going to be okay. I sleep in a crawlspace. I carry around a rage that makes me want to hit people. I look for exits in every room I'm in; I make sure all the windows can be opened. I can't stand to be touched. I can't cut my fucking hair. And every time someone calls me Ellie, I want to tell them it's not my name. Where I was kept… they called me Destiny." A pause. "I shouldn't have said that. Forget it."

Everything Ellie has admitted is unfathomable. So heinous, what she has lived through. Danny has never seen such an ugly thing as survival. "Forgotten," he says, but files the name away. Destiny. Does it mean something? A hint at what kind of people stole Ellie? A cult? "It is okay, or it will be." He pauses, grips the wheel tighter. "If you want to sleep in a crawlspace, I'll build a bed there for you. If you want to hit someone, you can hit me. If you need exits, I'll open windows. If you don't want to be touched, I will sit next to you. If you panic, I will find a paper bag for you to breathe into," he vows.

A sob tears from Ellie's throat, the grief too much to hold on to. The pressure eases. "I'm scared," she repeats.

"Me too," he admits. "This is uncharted territory. But I'll hang on if you do."

Ellie doesn't say anything, but she does unbuckle her seat belt and scoot to him, resting her head on his shoulder.