Chapter 26
Daniel
“Idon’t believe you,” I whisper, already doubting my choices.
I’ve never been this conflicted in my life.
I tighten my grip on Helena’s arm and slowly start to walk her toward the cliff’s edge.
Her panic breaks and something feral in her unleashes itself. She digs her heels and attempts to pry my fingers loose with her free hand.
“No… no Daniel… please… please… not like this, please not like this! I didn’t lie! Daniel!” Helena screams. Her voice is frantic, and it breaks. It rasps out of her throat in broken, jagged sobs of terror. Each step we take closer to the edge, the louder she cries, the more terrified that she seems.
I’ve been in this business my whole life.
I’ve learned a thing or two about terror and what it can do to a person.
According to my observations so far, there are usually those who will accept their deaths. They will make peace with their god, accept the inevitable, and close their eyes before proceeding to whatever they believe will come next. I assumed Helena was one of them beforeshe accepted her crimes and confessed them to me.
She isn”t ready to go quietly now that she isn”t burdened by them. Bargaining can happen at any point during a torture session, but it usually happens when they know they”re going to die—when they know it”s unavoidable and I”m not going to change my mind, they confess.
Only Helena has nothing left to confess to me.
I don’t know if her version of the truth is in fact, the whole truth, but it is what she believes to be true. I can’t fully trust it, and I can’t trust Nikolai either. I can’t pitch her over the cliff, either. Which leaves me at a strange impasse.
The moment I stop walking her toward the edge, Helena collapses. Her tears break free as she sobs and clings to my leg for stability. Her feet are all dirty and cut up. She’s going to need further medical attention. Damn it. Even now, debating whether she’s a lying viper or not… I’m concerned for her wellbeing.
My mouth pulls into a thin, unhappy line. There’s not going to be any winning here. There’s not an outcome that will work here. Somebody is going to lose, and I’m fairly certain it’s going to be me.
I squat next to her, and her hands drop from my leg. She is trembling violently in fear. I place one finger under her chin and motion for her to look up at me. She snifflesheavily and trembles uncontrollably. She extends her hands as if she”s going to grab me and pull herself into my arms, only to stop herself at the last possible moment. It kills me that she is seeking comfort from me.
“Even after everything… for some reason, I believe you. I’m fucking stupid for believing you…” I trail off and let my eyes close. I pinch at the bridge of my nose for a moment. I can hardly believe what it is that I’m about to say to her. “I want you to run away. Right now. I want you to go… run… get as far away from this place… me… Volkovich… all of it. Run and never look back. Don’t ever stop moving if you can manage it.”
My mind is already racing, trying to come up with new ways to track her down once she”s gotten away from me. Once whatever will go downwith Volkovich is going to finally happen, then I can find her again. We”ll see what happens then, but for now, this situation is going to become far too complicated for her to be involved in.
Helena looks up at me with those big, beautiful eyes filled with utter confusion. “What?”
I don’t think that I have the strength to repeat the words again. “Go,” I say finally. It’s the best offer that I can possibly give her. It’s the only chance she’s got to get out of here and make it out alive.
Helena laughs incredulously. “You can’t be serious? After everything… after that…” she gestures to how I almost just hurled her over the edge. “You’re just going to let me go? Where am I supposed to go? Setting me free in the fucking wild is just going to kill me anyway, Daniel! There’s nothing for me out there… the only thing I have is…”
She stops short when she catches herself.
“There’s nowhere that I can run that he won’t find me…” she whispers sadly.
“You have to try. I can’t…” I shift and lower myself to my knees in front of her, eye to eye. “I can’t kill you… and I can’t watch you die.“ I cup my hand around her face, and she leans into the contact. I wipe away her tears with my thumb, and she sniffles away the last of them. Saying the words that are on the tip of my tongue right now will only complicate matters. It will only make it more difficult to let her go. Saying the three words that I know are true would be selfish.
Helena looks me deep in the eyes and seems to somehow read my mind. She whispers, “You can’t have fallen in love with me… and then just let me go… that’s not how this is supposed to work.”
I can’t help but smile.
“You don’t deserve a woman like me anyway,” she says softly. Though, from her tone I can’t tell if she means that in a good or bad way, all things considered. “Even though I might have fallen for you too.”
My resolve weakens. I take her in my arms and allow her to wrap her arms around me. She squeezes me as if I”m her only lifeline, and I reciprocate. I”m still not sure how I let this happen, but I know I have to find a way to keep her safe. Somehow. I”ll get to the bottom of the rest... But I”m running out of time.
This downward spiral she”s on is killing me. I scratch and tear at my mind in an attempt to find a solution, but none can be found. I grab her arms tightly and push her away from me so I can see her face more clearly. Her face reflects the conflict I”m experiencing. Her lovely features are pinched and ached as she bites her bottom lip.
She’s fighting herself. Is she coming to the same dead ends that I am?
“It’s better if we just do this here… if I do it,” she whispers. I almost don’t think that I hear her correctly. “It’s the only way to fix this. Nikolai will find me. No matter what any of us do. I can’t let you pay for everything that I’ve done… my death will solve everything. You know it, and so do I.”
I hate the finality in her tone. She can’t decide to die just when I’ve decided to save her.
“At least if I finally pay for the life that I’ve taken… I’ll be free. I’ll really be free.”
She lets me go all at once, and I topple backward into the dirt. Helena starts to walk backward toward the cliff’s face.
“Stop!” I shout and the word is almost stolen by the wind.
“This is how it has to be, Daniel.”
“Don’t say that!” I refuse to believe that there’s no other solution to be found.
Helena”s face hardens, and she pulls her hands away from her chest, allowing them to fall to her sides. Her shoulders relax and she shakes her head slowly. I don”t like the expression on her face. It”shollow, resigned, andher gaze moves from my eyes to some unfocused point behind me. Even before she turns away from me, it feels like she”s slipping through my fingers.
Shock loosens my fingers as the world appears to move in slow motion. The wind picks up, and the sound of the waves crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff face is drowned out only by the heavy bass of my heart pounding in my ears.
Helena takes one slow step back, then three, as if she”s about to turn and vault herself over the edge at any moment. My throat screams as my hand jerks up to snare her back to me, to safety. “Don’t!” I shout. “Don’t—” I say again slowly.
“Don’t come any closer, Daniel,” she warns. The wind pushes her hair in front of her face and pushes her sweater to cling to her body.
“Come away from the cliff’s edge, Helena. Right now,” I warn. If there was ever a time when she would choose to listen to and obey my commands the moment they were given, now would beit. She”s too close. Every part of me is tingling, but I don”t dare get too near... I can”t simply grab her. I want to lunge at her.
“I can’t keep living like this!” Helena shouts at me, her voice breaking. Every single word bleeds with her frustration and desperation. “I would rather die than do this another day, Daniel!”
My heart chips. Small fissures in my chest that spread wider with every word. She says my name like a plea for help while moving away from me. If she’s not careful, the wind is going to push her over. Her arms wrap around herself as she continues speaking.
“I’m so tired of this! I’m tired of hurting everybody that I care about! I’m tired of constantly living a lie. This is the only solution. Can’t you see that?” She sounds like she’s about to cry. I want to pull her into my arms and hold her there forever. I want to squeeze her against my chest until this madness passes and I can find a new solution for us both.
“No, it’s not,” I bargain. “I have already handled everything, Helena. I have a plan. You trust me, don’t you?” I lie, shaking my head. I try to appear confident and put together as she turns her head over her shoulder to look at me. I can see the tear tracks down her face. The tears have already dried to her skin from the salty air, and it occurs to me that this is one of the only things that I’ve said her name out loud—her real name.
Helena shakes her head once, shutting me down. “I can’t keep pushing you into a corner. We both know it will end with you being forced to put me down, Daniel. It can’t be you. Did you think I didn’t know what they would make you do?”
Of course, she knew. She knew from the moment that I brought her to the lookout after our first date. It was always the intention. Standing here where it’s so close to becoming a reality is not something I will be able to live with. If she jumps… if she jumps and she dies… I will not be able to go on living the life I had been.
“I want you to know that in spite of it all, Daniel, I never pretended with you about what we had… it was real. At least, it was real for me.” The raw expression of vulnerability is back on her face again. It’s such a fragile gift that she’s giving me… and threatening to take it right back if she moves even one more step forward.
Words are on the tip of my tongue. Three important words that I have never said to any woman. Words that I have been fighting myself about for days now.
“I love you, more than I ever even thought was possible,” Helena whispers so softly that it sounds like my imagination making something come true… until she throws herself off the cliff.
It happens in the blink of an eye. Her admission hits me like a cold slap across the side of the face. A single blink to process the words, and in that split second Helena went from standing in front of me, to a blur of movement.My legs, mercifully, act before my mind has time to process the raging sounds of panic in my head.
I lunge for the space she had vacated moments before, clutching at empty air. Next, I grab the metal guard railing and vault myself over it. I”m far too slow. As I slide down the mountainside after the body that appears to float on wind for a moment before plummeting into the icy water below, rocks and sharp bits of earth bite into my skin. I”ll never know how she managed to avoid all of the jagged rocks at the bottom.
My clothes are shredded, and my hands are cut all over from slowing my descent toward the bottom. My feet catch on a large rock, and I rip off my jacket and hurl it to the side to avoid slowing me down. I inhale deeply and throw myself against the currents. It”s a struggle to move. It”s difficult to make any progress, but I can”t feel any of my limbs anyway.
The freezing water makes it nearly impossible to breathe, but I manage to make it to Helena. She’s not moving. I flip her over in the water and pull her toward the shoreline. For a moment or two I’m not certain I’m going to make it, struggling to swim with one arm.
Michael must have seen us go over the edge because he’s waiting at the shore with his car still running when I reach the rocky waterline. He runs out to meet me and grabs one of Helena’s arms to help carry her back to shore. Her skin is turning blue.
I place my head to her chest, but I can’t tell if she’s breathing. I know that we don’t have much time.
“Call the fucking doctor!” I shout at Michael frantically. I pinch her nose shut and start to blow air into her mouth. Once, twice, three times until water splutters out of Helena’s mouth… but her eyes don’t open. She gasps and struggles to find air like somehow there’s something still blocking her breathing. I pull her mouth open and reach inside to fish out a chunk of seaweed that got lodged partially down her throat and her chest stops seizing. “Help me get her up!”
Michael moves quickly, already on the phone, but he manages to grab Helena’s feet for me as we lift and rush her toward the car. I climb into the back seat with her and pull off my shirt and her sweater to hug her close to my chest. A moment after Michael slams the door shut, the car races to life down the bumpy path leading away from the waterfront.
“Faster!” I shout to the front seat. I don’t know how much good my body heat will do her. I can feel the tremble of the cold water down to my bones, but even if it buys her another five seconds then I will do everything in my power to make sure she lives them.
I can’t lose her.