Chapter 25
BIANCA
Packing takes less than five minutes.
As I cross the nest to leave, movement catches at the edge of my vision.
A man stands down the beach near the next dune access with binoculars raised. Tourist clothes, sun hat, nothing remarkable.
But when I step in front of the window, binoculars snap to me.
I race to where everyone is preparing to leave.
“Don’t go near the windows. There’s a man on the beach with binoculars. He saw me.”
“Where?” Weller asks as Ezra closes a cooler and Tristan shoulders a backpack.
“East, by the next access.” I point, though the wall is in the way.
Megan yanks the zipper closed on a bag. “Please tell me we don’t need to walk by the water.”
“No, we can go under the house and through the woods.”
I get us out of the house, down the screened side, and beneath the pilings. Ezra takes point when we reach the trees.
At the park, the van waits beneath the trees. We load without stopping. Megan takes the front with her laptop, Ezra starts the engine, and the rest of us fit ourselves into the tight rear around dark monitors, equipment, and one another.
Ezra pulls out of the lot and heads in the direction of the ferry.
“What are you looking at?” I ask Weller, who has been staring at a specific vehicle for a few minutes.
“That white truck. The one with the ladder.”
Ezra’s eyes lift to his mirror. “It was at the park.”
“The whole time?”
“It was there when we pulled in,” he says. “I remember the rusty ladder.”
I find the truck in the thin slice of mirror between them. It sits far enough back to belong to anybody.
Weller’s eyes meet Ezra’s in the mirror. Ezra eases off the gas, and the white truck slows.
Okay. Okay. Someone found us. The ferry sign points right. Ezra signals left.
I don’t remind him where the ferry is.
He turns toward the marina village. We lose the truck, come back around, but the truck turns after us.
Ezra takes the next left without slowing. We pass the bakery, its striped awning snapping in the wind, swing behind the grocery store, and come out on another narrow road.
“Delivery lane,” Weller says.
“That’s what I’m thinking.”
Ezra doesn’t look at him. Weller checks the narrow road beside the shops while Ezra watches the truck.
Megan slides her laptop into its case and pulls the strap over her head.
Weller looks past me. “Freddie, the car you and Owen left in the garage.”
Freddie’s knee stops bouncing against mine. “What about it?”
“Can you get to it without going through the ferry lot?”
Freddie looks at Owen before he looks at me. “Yeah.”
The plan finishes assembling. Keep the van visible. Slip three of us out. Find a boat, get to the car. Clean. Fast. The kind of reroute Ezra trained me to follow without arguing.
Owen’s arm tightens around me. Both my hands close over it, and my eyes find Weller, then Tristan, who still has one hand braced above my head.
Weller turns to face me. “Freddie is going to take you and Megan through the marina when Ezra slows down.”
I wait for the rest.
“And then?”
“He gets you to the car.”
Owen’s voice is rough beside my ear. “Let Freddie take care of you, Princess.”
“And where are you going?”
His fingers curl against the metal above my head. “We keep the truck on us and go back to the ferry.”
“No.” I let go of Owen long enough to grab Weller’s wrist. “Go around again. Please.”
Ezra’s gaze moves from the road to the mirror. “They’re matching every turn.”
Tristan’s hand shifts above my head. “If there were another route, we’d already be taking it.”
Apparently Megan’s pill can stall a heat, but it can’t do shit for the part of me that nearly died and woke up needing all four of them where I can touch them.
“Megan.”
Her eyes meet mine, then flick toward Ezra.
Freddie presses his knuckles against his mouth. “I can get us to the car.”
Ezra turns into the delivery lane. Brick walls swallow the truck, and the van slows beside the gray door, lined up with the covered cut between the shops. Megan has the latch.
“This is it,” Ezra says. “I have to keep rolling.”
Freddie shoves the sliding door open and jumps down. Megan follows, her laptop bag banging against her hip, then turns back for me.
One foot onto the pavement, then the other. My body resists and every step away feels more sluggish than the last.
“Bianca.” Megan looks toward the alley mouth. “The truck’s at the corner.”
Its engine swells at the turn.
Weller leans toward the open door. “Bianca, go to Freddie.” The alpha command is a whisper. The worst part is my feet listen.
He slams the door closed and I see their faces through the window, watching me watch them.
Freddie reaches for me. “I’m right here. Let’s get out of here.”
I make it one step after them before Megan fists the back of my shirt and hauls me into the walkway between shops.
“Stop dragging me.”
“Then stop trying to go after them.” Her grip tightens when I pull against it. “Fuck, Bianca. I’m trying really hard not to do the same thing.”
White flashes past the narrow opening as the truck follows the van toward the ferry.