Chapter XII

WE SPOKE ONCE ABOUT REGRETS.Remember? How you implored me, Detective Calhoun? Don't have regrets like me, Ellie. I wish I could say I don't have any. But I do. So many. Little snags in the tapestry of my existence.

So, regrets. Yes, I have them. I'd like to go back and restitch so many things. I guess it was nice of David to let me come home a few days early to say goodbye. He let me have that do-over. Aren't goodbyes strange? Isn't it funny how you spend your entire life practicing saying it, but when it comes down to the real thing, it's near impossible?

My hand clenched around the bright red backpack hanging at my side. Inside it, I could hear the timer's seconds ticking down. David and I had been walking for a while. By my estimation, we had only a few minutes left. I glanced over my shoulder at him; he stood on the other side of the meadow, eyes on me.

I looked up at the birch trees stretching into the sky and picked at the peeling bark of the closest tree. I loved birch trees—their white trunks with long wistful branches tapered into serrated leaves. This one was old. Even though the trunk was thin, it was tall, a sure sign of a long life. It was almost full, its leaves returning with the spring. It was surrounded by equally tall trees.

I laid the backpack at the base of the tree. I paced back, keeping it in my sight. When I was several feet away, I turned and broke into a run. Keeping my head down, I blindly headed in David's direction. David hooked an arm around my waist as I approached, stopping me. "Easy," he said into my ear, "we're at a safe distance."

My body went limp. He let me go, and I stood straight and stared across the grove. The red backpack an angry scar slashing through the green landscape. We didn't say anything else.

It came without warning—a sharp, quick bang. I could almost see the air ruffle with the sound. And then I felt it, pressure in my ears like the inside of a boiling teakettle. I covered them, but it didn't help. They felt as if they were bleeding. As if I had ruptured my eardrums. Orange flames and thick black smoke burned my eyes. I collapsed in a heap.

In a matter of seconds, it was over. The grove was eerily silent. Something pelted my back. Rain? I peeked from the cocoon of my arms. Wood and leaves and dirt fell around me.

Across the grove, my birch tree had collapsed in on itself. Cut off at the knees. The other birch trees were mangled and black as well. The scorched earth around the blast zone smoldered. Beside me, David was speaking, but I couldn't make out his words. The silence was lovely. I turned from him and got to my feet. We watched the forest burn until the fire went out, until the sky cleared, until I melted away to impermanence.

"You did well," David said. We were in his room. He flicked on the generator, heat flooding the room, and I flexed my fingers. "Sit, sit." David motioned to the edge of his bed.

My ears were still ringing. My steps were slow. The trees were dead. Gabby was dead. Hannah was dead. I could see my path carved clear and deep, a trench in the blackest of soils—I would become like Serendipity, one of David's henchmen, unable to live without him. I looked at my hands, hands that were responsible for so much destruction. When you take a life, you lose a little of yours, too. I never thought it was possible to be alive and dead at the same time.

I sat tight on the edge of the bed. It hurt to speak. I'd inhaled some smoke and the inside of my throat felt like acid. I started to peel off my sweatshirt. The action involuntary and rote. David had never brought me to his room, but I knew what he wanted.

"We're not here for that." He pulled my sweatshirt back in place.

Through the window, I caught Serendipity hanging laundry on a line, surreptitiously glancing over her shoulder every now and again.

"I see so much potential in you." David moved about the room, slipping a newspaper from a stack. "You are a survivor. A fighter, like me. You care deeply for people, and it makes you strong, capable."

"I'm not," I said.

"You are," he insisted. "You will be," he insisted harder. He laid the paper across my lap. It was an edition of a local print. The words came together slowly. I hadn't read anything in years. GOVERNOR PIKE'S PLANS FOR THE FUTURE OF WASHINGTON. "It is my greatest desire that she no longer walk this earth." His voice tightened. "You want to do this for me, don't you? You will sacrifice yourself."

I squeezed my eyes shut. Tears leaked out. "I don't think I can." I was not like him. I did not want to be like him. A faceless husk that wished to rend the world in two.

His fingers bit into my flesh. He shook me, and my teeth clacked together. "You will do this."

Dread clawed at my insides. "I can't." I'd rather die on the compound. Let the dogs pick at my bones. "It's impossible."

"Nothing is impossible for the man who wills it. You can." He stopped shaking me and rubbed my arms, up and down. Up and down. "The weather is getting so nice. Little Grace loves to play in the water. I worry about her in the creek like that. She's so small. I'd probably only need one hand to hold her down. But then again, I'd hate to lose her. Only a few more years until she's fourteen. She'd be ripe then."

Fear spiraled around me. "No," I said. "Don't hurt her. Please."

"Do you love Grace?" He tilted his head.

"I do," I confessed, my stomach full of concrete.

When I looked at him, his eyes almost seemed a different shade, a darker blue, wet with triumph. "Tell me, what would you do for someone you love?"

"Anything," I said. "I would do anything."

Then he bent forward and whispered a sweet promise. "I'll let Grace go. Your life for hers." My only value was in relation to David. What I could do for him.

I flinched and then considered it. I was so tired of the pain in my chest, the numbness, the constant hurt. I had given Grace my shirts, my sleeping bag, portions of my food. The only thing I had not done was bleed for her. Grace still had dreams. For her the world was still wide and open. And my life? It was a mistake. A thread to be pulled, to be plucked. Discarded and worthless. I might not matter, but Grace did.

"Okay," I said, and it was a simple choice. "I'll do it. I'm ready." Then and there, I promised to give Grace all my tomorrows.

What is the price of absolution? Of forgiveness?

The answer was simple: a life for a life.