Chapter 22
NOAH
If there’s one thing I’ve decided about this whole fucking mess, it’s that I am not going to go back to prison without a fight. I’d rather die falling from this goddamn bluff.
But the moment I crest the point I shoved the man in camo off…
I see the boats and flashlights.
Fuck. Fuck!
They’re farther out than I expected, anchored low and quiet in the water, but there’s no mistaking the shape of them. I highly doubt they’re just a couple of midnight fishermen.
My heart jumps as I drop down immediately, flattening myself against the dirt as if the ground might swallow me whole. My chest heaves, lungs screaming, every breath loud in my ears, as I move to the cover of the trees.
Don’t panic, I instruct myself. There’s gotta be a way out of here.
The woods stretch behind me—dense, tangled, and unforgiving—but they’re home. I know these trees. I know which slopes turn slick with moss, which paths look solid until they give way beneath your weight, and I know where the Marshals in theory would set up.
I can do this. Or at least try.
A shout carries faintly over the water. Radios crackle from down below. Somewhere far off, a dog barks…from the opposite direction.
I’m surrounded.
I push to my feet and start moving, staying low, cutting sideways instead of straight back. I can’t head back toward the Iverson’s. I’m sure they have someone at my old house, too. There’s only one trails they might not be on yet.
The dock. I need to go to the dock.
I keep my breaths steady as I ease along the outer line of the trees. The bluff looms to my left, a sheer drop down toward the lake, the water below black and bottomless. One wrong step and I’m gone.
That wouldn’t be the worst way to go. But I’d take a bullet over drowning, I think.
Branches rake across my arms and face as I duck through undergrowth, thorns tearing at my clothes.
Pain registers dimly, like it’s happening to someone else.
Adrenaline has my body locked in survival mode, and I push myself through it, knowing once I hit the docks, I’ll have to hope for a fucking miracle.
I slide down a narrow slope toward the final stretch of trail that leads to the shore, my boots skidding and hands scrambling for purchase. Dirt collapses beneath me, sending a cascade of pebbles tumbling toward the edge.
I freeze. Oh shit. Shit.
Every muscle locks as I listen. For a second, there’s nothing but wind and the slow lap of water below, but then…
“There!” Someone shouts it from somewhere in the distance.
A flashlight beam cuts through the trees behind me. A dog barks, and I already know. They’re going to set that motherfucker loose on me.
I bolt. I don’t think anymore. I just fucking run.
The woods blur as I tear through them, lungs burning and legs screaming for me to stop. But I ignore it, my mind swirling with the one dreaded conclusion.
This is it. This is how it ends.
I surrender, or I fucking die.
The barking is closer now, deeper and sharp. The sound crawls under my skin, dragging memories with it. Those stupid concrete corridors, the steel doors slamming shut, and the way hope rots when you realize the world has decided what you are.
I don’t wanna go back. Please don’t make me go back.
I veer left, then right, zigzagging instinctively, breaking patterns. I splash through a shallow creek, doubling back on myself before climbing out on the opposite bank, dragging my feet through mud to confuse the scent.
My heart slams violently in my chest.
Rue.
The thought hits me out of nowhere, and I hate myself for it. I hate it’s the love for her that seeps in.
She shouldn’t be anywhere near this. She should be home—wherever the fuck that is for her. She should be warm, safe, and living in her little delusion, pretending I never crawled out of the grave she put me in.
Damnit. I push harder, jaw clenched.
In another life, I would’ve loved her like some fairy tale I imagined back when I was thirteen. In another life, I would’ve stayed next door, grown up slow and right, married her young, and kissed her in the kitchen while dinner burned on the stove.
In another life, I wouldn’t be running through the woods like an animal with men and dogs on my heels.
That life was never meant for someone like me, and it turns out, taking the fall for someone else’s evil, whether you loved them or not, really isn’t what it’s cut out to be.
I’m not a hero. I’ll always be the scapegoat.
I break through a thinner patch of trees and skid to a stop, chest heaving. I suck in a gasp of air, the scent of the muddy waters filling my lungs. My eyes scan the dark shoreline.
The docks.
I can see them through the branches now, long fingers of wood reaching out over the water. There are no boats bobbing out there. But still…
I shouldn’t go that way. There’s nothing but water.
And yet… my feet turn anyway.
The woods are closing in behind me. The barking is louder. The whoop of the helicopter overhead joins the noise. They’re driving me out, and they know it.
Nowhere left to go but the same icy fucking water that swallowed Matthew.
How fucking poetic.
I move along the tree line, keeping parallel to the dock, trying to stay hidden, but the terrain funnels me. The ground slopes downward, loose gravel shifting under my boots. My calf cramps sharply and I hiss through my teeth, stumbling and then catching myself on a tree trunk.
I squeeze my eyes shut for half a second.
Rue deserves better. She always did. This sets her free. She gave me what I thought I wanted. She saw me, offered her rescue, but it’s not the right thing. It was out of guilt. Just guilt.
The thought hurts worse than I thought it would.
It doesn’t erase the truth though. She still deserves a man who isn’t always one step ahead of being caged, even if it was her own doing. She needs a man who can stay.
I can’t. I don’t even know if I can stay alive at this point.
Even if I get away by some miracle tonight—even if I vanish like I managed to do from prison—it’ll never stop. There will always be another knock. Another set of lights. Another night like this.
I move again, slowing as defeat hangs heavy on my shoulders.
I crouch behind a fallen log, peering through the brush. I can hear voices now, barking orders back and forth, the sound of people who are ready to put me down with as many rounds as it takes.
I wipe sweat from my eyes with the back of my hand and feel something warm and sticky. I peer down at the blood, unsure of where it’s even coming from.
Whatever.
My gaze shifts once more toward the trees behind me, and then toward the water.
A memory surfaces—Rue as a kid, standing barefoot at the edge of the dock, daring me to jump in first, her sweet laughter filling the summer air.
“If there was a different life,” I murmur under my breath, “I would’ve stayed.”
But this is the only one I get.
I edge closer to the dock, using the shadows and timing my movements with the sound of the water. Every step feels like a fucking countdown.
Behind me, a radio crackles sharply. “We’ve got eyes! Suspect moving toward the water.”
My muscles tense. The fight is over. The good guys win.
I reach the edge of the trees, the dock stretching out before me, exposed and inevitable. The water below is black and cold, and for a brief, insane moment, I consider jumping. I could let this story end in the same way it began.
I straighten my shoulders, step onto the dock.
And the night explodes with light.