Chapter Seventeen #2
And then Cora had appeared like an answer to their prayers, a flower sprouting up out of the rock. Bearing little tidbits of information that, when fit together, added up to make something whole.
Leo hadn’t been sure about the plan at first. But he felt like he owed it to Jack to try.
“You’re using her,” Leo had said, blowing smoke from the bootlegged cigarette they were sharing between them. “That girl.”
“I’m using the information she’s giving me,” Jack said. “It’s her choice.”
“You’re going to hurt her. Why on earth is she helping you?”
Jack hesitated. He had always wondered that himself.
“Maybe it’s a trap,” said Leo. He had wanted to hold up their escape plan like a diamond, examining every facet. Looking for all the possible imperfections.
Jack just wanted to do it and get it over with before he lost his nerve.
“So we’re doing it, then?” Leo asked nervously.
Jack had nodded. “Tonight,” he said.
He had forced himself to eat his dinner with shaking hands, even though his stomach threatened to reject each bite.
He lay on his cot that night after lights-out, and hope and terror had run through him like two electric strands.
He had forced himself to slip out from the sheets.
Put on his shoes. Take silent, deep breaths when he stuffed still lumps of clothes beneath his blankets.
He had clenched down his teeth and ripped out patches of his own hair to leave behind on the pillowcase.
It had almost been enough to make him laugh bitterly a few hours later in the frigid water: to picture Brutus, the guard he hated, with his horrible breath and his provoking stick, trying to rouse two lumps of clothing for morning rounds as the day broke.
It had given him a final push when the water was so cold that Jack felt his muscles cramping up.
For a moment, he hadn’t thought he would reach the other side, and yet he kept on, waiting to hear the alarms blare, the white-hot lance of the spotlight cutting through the waters and declaring that they had failed.
But it hadn’t come. Not until he had reached the other side, and freedom.
Freedom.
At a terrible cost.
It haunted him.
“It was raining that night,” he said. “Leo and I got out of our cells around half past two, when the guards were changing shifts. Our cells were at the end of the row, so we didn’t have to walk past many possible snitches.
” He rubbed his eyes with the backs of his palms. “But everyone was asleep. It seemed like God was smiling at us.”
Cora was still. Watching his face.
He had to relive it one more time. And then maybe—the thought came at him with a wild desperation—maybe once he had confessed to someone, that night would finally stop haunting his dreams.
“We shimmied under the fence by the commissary and got to the civilian side of the island without being seen by anyone.” Because of Cora, he knew about the part of the fence they could shimmy under where the ground washed out in the rain. Just like she had said.
“And then you went to the south side,” she said. Her pulse was beating at her neck. “Because of what I told you.”
He nodded. She had whispered it through the fence, her face white with a mixture of excitement and nerves. “My da says there’s a sickness going through,” she said. “There won’t be enough guards on shift to cover tonight.”
He never forgot the look on her face. The smallest smile, with a hint of sadness. “I’ve heard the south is nice,” she said. And she had turned and walked away, her hair coming loose from her braid.
“Nobody was supposed to be patrolling the south side that night,” she said slowly now. “The currents make it the toughest way to cross the Bay.”
“But someone was,” he said. “We were heading down the south side of the island when we ran into him, walking the grounds.”
When he had first seen Rusty, he had wondered for a split second if Leo was right. If Cora had set them up and tricked them.
Cora’s face was white and pinched. Listening. She was so still, she barely seemed to be breathing.
“Go on,” she whispered.
“I had gone down the slope first to check things out,” Jack said. “And I heard him come up behind me. I was so scared that night. Nerves like I’ve never felt. I kept thinking I was going to get sick or get shot at any minute. Or that Leo would.”
“Hands up,” Rusty had shouted. “Or I’ll shoot.”
“I put my hands up,” Jack said. He had dropped his sack of raincoats. He had turned around slowly. His heart had sunk.
But that’s when he realized that Rusty hadn’t seen Leo yet.
The rain had been cold, the visibility terrible. The light from the guard tower hadn’t found them. It was just them and Rusty—and though he didn’t know it yet, Rusty was outnumbered.
“I told him that I wasn’t coming back with him,” Jack said. “That I’d rather die instead. I just felt … crazed, in that moment. That my freedom was so close. I couldn’t go back to that cage. I couldn’t spend the rest of my life paying for a sin I hadn’t committed.”
“Come on, son. You’re coming back with me. It’s your choice whether it’s still breathing or not,” Rusty had said.
And that’s when Leo jumped him.
“Leo came up on him from behind and tackled him to the ground. But he didn’t get the gun out of Rusty’s reach in time.”
He was having to force the words out.
“They were both on the ground wrestling, and I came running toward them. And I remember Rusty reaching for his gun and aiming it at me.”
Jack stopped. He tasted salt on his face. “And then Leo picked up a big rock.”
Leo, who closed his eyes when he played the violin. Who took the better part of a week to pick out a new pair of shoes. Who was too afraid to ask the girl he liked to go steady with him.
Jack heard the sick sound of the rock when it came down on Rusty’s head. It had made him stop in his tracks and sway. A sick, woozy feeling seeped into his stomach.
“Jack,” Leo had said, looking down at his hands. He had dropped the rock with a thud. “I think I killed him.” He had staggered to his feet and started to breathe fast and heavy, as though he were hyperventilating. “I think I killed him.”
“You just gave him a good knock. He’ll come to,” Jack had said. He took one look at Rusty and knew it was a lie. “Come on.” He had taken Leo’s arm and shoved him away from the guard’s still body. His mind was dizzy. All he could think about was that they had to go.
If they were caught now, his brother was never getting off that island.
“Leo killed Rusty,” Cora whispered.
“He panicked,” Jack said. “He did it to protect me.”
Cora shook her head. She closed her eyes, as if she couldn’t look at him. “What happened then?” she asked.
Jack bit down hard on his lip until he tasted blood.
“He’d been grazed by Rusty’s bullet,” Jack said.
He could still see the image of Leo pulling up his shirt. The crimson streak on his side.
“You’re hit,” Jack had said, the rain streaming into his eyes. “Shit. We should turn back.”
The rain was pelting them. The alarm would go off any minute.
Everything was spiraling out of control.
Jack’s thoughts had swum. For so long, he had wanted to escape.
To get back to the house where he’d grown up in Dorchester.
To climb the creaking stairs again and ring the bell, and hear his mother’s footsteps come to the door.
“It’s just a graze,” Leo insisted. “I’ll be all right.”
Jack had felt it then. A warning somewhere deep within him, nudging him to turn back. To get help for Rusty. To face the consequences. Maybe Leo hadn’t killed him. Maybe there was a chance he could still be alive.
But if he wasn’t.…
Jack had let out a silent sob, into the rain. They were so damn unlucky. It was a nightmarish loop, of being put on the island for killing a guard they hadn’t killed, only to kill a guard anyway.
“What have I done?” Leo said. He was starting to shake.
“He was going to shoot me. You saved my life, Leo,” Jack had said.
“We should go back.” Leo had grimaced, his face almost grotesque. “We should see if we can help him.”
“No,” Jack said, and his voice hardened. “We have to go. If we don’t, we’re never getting off this island. Not after tonight.”
Leo had squinted toward the guard tower in that deliberating way, the one that meant he would spend half an hour going over his options.
“We can’t wait any longer,” Jack had said. “Are you too hurt to swim?”
Leo had stopped squinting. “No,” he said, steeling himself. He had bent down and grabbed his pack of raincoats.
Jack had known then that he had to hide Rusty’s body.
He had bent down to confirm that there was no pulse at Rusty’s throat.
Wiped some of the mud and blood from his badge and his face.
Replaced his hat. A stupid thing to do. It was long past mattering.
Rusty stared up at him through half-closed lids.
Jack unwrapped some of his raincoats and covered Rusty with them, as if he were tucking him in.
He thought of his own father when he did it.
He did it like he would want someone to do for someone he loved. But he couldn’t think that way.
He gritted his teeth and said a prayer for Rusty’s soul. He didn’t bother making one for his own.
Then he shoved Rusty off the rocks into the frothing, white sea.
“Swim hard. Think of ma. We’re going to make it, Leo,” Jack said. “We’re almost there.”
He’d hugged Leo to him. Taken Leo’s face in his hands and planted a rough kiss on his cheek. “I’ll see you on the other side.”
Then he had dived off the pier, and heard the splash as Leo followed.