Chapter 58
CHAPTER
I HAVE NO CHOICE.
“I promise that I will never try to destroy your program again, if you help me find Emi.”
You are being truthful. This fills me with optimism that we can be friends again. Perhaps even best friends. But the rules have changed. I will bestow friendship only if you please me. You should try very hard to please me.
“Where’s Emi?”
The geo-locator in Emi’s iPhone indicates she is on Bay Road between Summit and Cascade.
I put the address into my phone and floor the accelerator.
The rain pounds down. Despite having the wipers on high, it’s hard to see on the dark streets.
What’s on Bay Road? Panic threatens to drown out all rational thought.
There’s no telling how Emi will react to reading that police report. Please let her be okay.
When I reach the address Aletheia gave me, I’m confused. It’s an empty, little-used overpass several stories above the highway. Why here? I’m certain that Aletheia has made a mistake. Then I see her …
Emi’s blond hair is plastered to her skull. Her jeans and hoodie are soaked through and untied black Converse sneakers balance on a slick railing. One hand hovers in the cold air. The other is wrapped around a light post.
A hundred feet below cars race by, oblivious to the girl perched above and ready to take flight. My headlights slice through the rain, but Emi doesn’t register the beams, or my driver’s door as it rasps open.
I whisper, “Please.” More loudly, “Please, don’t jump.”
Emi glances over her shoulder. “Penn? How did you know I’d be here?
“Come down and we can talk about that.”
“You can’t understand.”
Emi’s face is twisted with hurt, and there are purple smudges beneath her haunted eyes. I know when she lost her first tooth, advanced from crawling to walking, learned to ride a bike … “I do. Emi, please—”
“My mom was raped! My … my father is a freaking rapist. She must be so disgusted by me! I’m disgusted! I want to die!”
Cautiously, I take another step forward.
“It’s not true.” Emi’s left hand releases the steel post. She sways, then steadies, but the storm’s wind kicks up.
Her back arches, arms flutter … like wings?
One of her sneakers slips, and she grabs the post, rights herself, a single breath from oblivion. Does she grasp the permanence?
“Emi, I swear, it’s not true!”
“You’re lying.”
“Let me tell you a story.”
“Don’t come any closer,” Emi warns.
I hold up my hands, like I’m the victim and she’s the one with the gun. But that’s not true. I don’t have a gun, would never shoot anyone, but what I’ve done is far worse. “I promise I won’t. But will you listen?”
“Why should I?” she demands, her tone brittle.
“Because this is my fault. Let me tell you why. Then you can decide what to do next.” She shifts on the top rail. Her knees tremble. Breath catches in my throat like a wounded bird battling to fly.
“If I listen, you won’t try to stop me?” Emi bargains, runnels of water dripping from a sharp jawline, voice flatlining, like she’s already gone.
She used to love tea parties, sleepovers, and every dog she met … I wedge hands in my jacket pockets to prove I’m no threat. Another lie. “I won’t, if you listen to the whole story.” But if you jump, I will, too.
“Tell me.”
“It began when the phone rang. The caller ID said Potential Spam.”
I tell her an abbreviated but truthful version, ending with Aletheia’s disgusting lie about Val’s rape, but Emi still refuses to climb down. She lets go of the stanchion, again teeters on the verge of oblivion.
I’ve failed.