“Thank you, Ethan,” she said. And slowly, she stood up on her tiptoes and placed a single, soft kiss on his lips.
She didn’t know whether she had kissed him to lull him into a false sense of security—or to say good-bye.
Ethan gave her a long, tender look, his hand touching her lips. Then he shut the door carefully behind her, walking around the car to get in on the driver’s side. Emma clutched the sides of the seat as they pulled away from the house, her knuckles white and aching.
The scant houses they passed were draped in red and green lights, plastic reindeer perched on roofs or in Xeriscaped yards. One family had hung a giant neon candy cane over their four-car garage. The roads were winding out here, and she felt disoriented in the darkness. Emma’s stomach pitched with every turn, her breath shallow and fast. She watched Ethan from the corner of her eye. He drove with both hands on the wheel, his face washed out by the pale blue dashboard light. It gave him a spooky, alien look. Not quite human.
It only slowly dawned on her that something was not quite right—they should have hit a main road by now. She stared out the window, trying to figure out where they were. When she saw the neon candy cane for a second time, she turned to look at him.
“I think you missed the turn,” she said, her voice tight with anxiety.
Alarm bells started to go off at the back of my mind. I stared silently at Ethan. He didn’t take his eyes off the road.
“I know you found the records, Emma.” His voice was so low she almost thought she was imagining it for a minute. “You know as well as I do that we’re not going to the cops.” The car hummed into gear as he slowly pushed down on the gas pedal.
For a moment Emma’s eyes went out of focus, the world blurring around her. She could feel the car accelerating. Ahead of the car she caught sight of Nisha’s house, and Ethan’s next to it—but they weren’t slowing down. He was heading straight for the desert.
She didn’t think. She groped along the car door, her fingers finally landing on the lock, and wrenched the door open before he could react. Bracing herself, tucking her head against her chin and rolling up into a ball, she jumped out of the moving car.
The impact knocked her teeth against one another, the vibrations resonating through her skull. Gravel and asphalt tore at her skin as she rolled toward the ditch. For a moment she couldn’t breathe, her lungs flat in her chest. She heard the car’s wheels screech to a halt, yards away. There was no time. She scrambled to her feet, gulping for air. Then she started to run, blindly, desperately.
Ethan had circled the block—she would have sensed it if she hadn’t been so terrified. Now his house loomed in front of her. Next door the Banerjee house was dark and silent—but farther down the block there were lights in the windows. Strangers—but her only hope. She put on a burst of speed, screaming at the top of her lungs. “Help! Help!”
With a snarl of the engine, Ethan’s car cut across her path, between her and the houses she’d been running for. She stumbled, bouncing against the passenger-side door before catching her balance. The car idled in front of her, and she could just make out his face, tense and focused. He was inches away—if he wanted, he could jump out and grab her in a heartbeat.
She had no choice.
She bolted away from him—straight toward Sabino Canyon, with Ethan on her heels.
Just as I had the night he killed me.
31
ENDGAME
Emma ran blindly, hurtling into the depths of the canyon. Branches clawed at her ankles and whipped across her face. Ethan’s car door slammed somewhere behind her, but she didn’t turn to look. Adrenaline soared through her blood, and she flew into the trees beyond the parking lot. A crow screamed from the top of a boulder, warning the forest of her coming.
The trail was steep, and her sneakers knocked dirt loose as she climbed. Behind her she could hear Ethan scrambling for purchase, gaining on her. She whimpered, desperation coursing through her. It was like a nightmare—except in a nightmare, you could wake up.
The deeper she got into the canyon, the stronger I could feel its hold on me—the awful, magnetic pull that drew me there. Out here the world seemed sharper and more terrifying. But out here I also felt stronger, the senses that I shared with Emma somehow clearer. This was where my body had been broken. And now my sister was running toward the same fate. “Emma, you have to go back!” I screamed. “You have to get out of here!”
Tucson opened out below as she reached the overlook. Far away she could hear the rush of traffic, the thud of someone’s car stereo. She risked a glance behind her and saw Ethan’s form steadily following her. A strangled sob twisted her lungs, and she bolted again, trying to pick up speed.
Her foot caught on a half-buried root on the trail. For a moment she kept her balance, her legs dancing beneath her. But then Ethan was on top of her, tackling her to the ground. Her head bounced against a rock, and her eyes filled with stars.
When her vision cleared, she was gazing up at Ethan. He knelt over her, his eyes burning, his lips drawn back in a tight grimace. Then she felt metal against her neck, and looked down to see the edge of a knife in his hand.
The world tilted around me, and for a moment I couldn’t tell where my memory ended and Emma’s present began. They were one and the same. And now she was going to die . . . just the way I had.
“Why are you doing this?” she whispered. His hand dug into her shoulder where he pressed her down in the dirt. She wondered if this was how it happened with Sutton, if he’d chased her, pinned her, and thrown her off the cliff. A sob shuddered through her throat.