Endless

Escape

“If you’re bringing me up here to kill me, I’m going to be really pissed off,” I said, pressing one hand on the flimsy wall beside me as the tower above the library swayed in the wind. I swore under my breath as the entire thing leaned to the left. Overhead, the huge, two-ton bell creaked ominously on its hinges.

“Rory, you keep forgetting,” Joaquin said from the winding stairs just below me.

“I know, I know. We can’t die,” I said through my teeth. “But you’d think that would negate this serious need I have to murder you right now.”

Joaquin laughed, and even with all the vertigo, the sound warmed my heart. “Just keep going. You’re almost there.”

I held my breath and climbed the last five rickety steps to the very top of the bell tower. Tall arched windows looked out in every direction over the island, and a two-foot-wide plank walkway circled the opening under the bell, which stretched down the ten stories to the floor of the building far below. My heart pounded from the climb, from the height, and from the whistling wind that seemed to blast through every one of those windows at once. I gripped the brick casing on the nearest opening and braced myself, trying to release the fear.

“What’re we doing up here?” I asked finally. I eyed the bronze bell as it swayed, thinking of the last time it had rung.

A quick flutter of guilt flashed in Joaquin’s eyes, but then it was gone. He walked to an east-facing window and sat down. “We’re taking a break,” he said matter-of-factly. “This is where I come when I want to get away from everything. Check it out. You can see every bit of the island from up here.”

I took a deep breath and looked out the north-facing window next to me. Sure enough I saw the bridge off in the distance, the cliffs from which my Lifer friends had jumped on the night they wanted to prove we couldn’t die, and several beams of light bobbing around on the northeast shore. A search party. They were still looking. Always looking.

“Cool, right?” Joaquin said.

“Yeah.”

I sat down next to him and our knees touched. I didn’t pull away, like I would have a week ago. There was something comforting about being this close to Joaquin. And at the same time something daring. I looked up into his eyes, and he stared straight back into mine until I blushed. Then we both smiled and looked out the nearest window. My knee was on fire. Never in my life had I ever thought I would be so focused on my knee.

“It’s the highest point in Juniper Landing.” Joaquin leaned toward me, bracing one hand beside my hip and pointing past my shoulder. I felt his arm graze my neck, and his breath tickled my skin. “Look.”

I turned my head, my heart pitter-pattering crazily, and spotted the mayor’s house. Sure enough, we were higher than its tallest point—the weather vane, which was still pointed south.

“I know it’s hard to believe, but this is usually a nice place to live,” Joaquin said quietly. “It’s all sun and surfing and swimming during the day, then music and partying and hanging out at night. It’s peaceful, usually. Zen.”

I looked up at him, wanting to believe it. Willing, in that moment, to believe anything he said.

“Just…not since you’ve been here,” he said.

I snorted a laugh. “Thanks.”

“Don’t get me wrong. It’s not like I’d go back and have you not come here.” He shifted and laid his arm lightly across my shoulders. Suddenly I felt a few things acutely. The breeze brushing a lock of hair against my cheek. The warmth of his skin against mine. The grain of the wood planks beneath my fingertips.

“So you’re happy that I’m dead?” I joked, trying to lighten the moment.

He caught my hand. He wasn’t going to let me make a game of this. “Yeah,” he said. “I kind of am.”

My heart thumped as he leaned toward me. Alarm bells went off in my head and throughout my body. This was Joaquin. Tristan’s best friend. Darcy’s former crush. He wasn’t really going to—

And then he was. His lips touched mine, and he slipped his hand down my back, pulling me closer to him. I could do nothing but respond to his kiss. Suddenly I wanted to do nothing but respond to his kiss. And for minute upon blissful, endless minute, that’s exactly what I did.

Until finally, unfortunately, he pulled away.

Joaquin stared into my eyes. I searched his, trying to find a name for what I was feeling. Trying to understand what this was, what it meant. What the hell were we doing?

Then, ever so slowly, he smiled, and I realized I didn’t care. What mattered was that this felt right. It felt good to be with Joaquin, his arm now around my back, his comforting, musky scent enveloping me. I leaned contentedly into the crook of his shoulder.

“Look,” he whispered, kissing the top of my head. “You can even see your house from here.”

I tilted my head half an inch. Out on the ocean, three surfers in black rash guards bobbed on the choppy whitecaps. I wondered whether they were Liam, Lalani, and Nick, making good on their date with the waves.

“No. There.”

Joaquin gently turned my chin, and sure enough, there it was. Past the quaint, rain-slicked shops of downtown and the colorful trim of the Victorian houses on Freesia Lane stood the pretty little yellow house on Magnolia. It was so bright and cheerful against the miles of grayness it seemed as if nothing bad could ever happen under its roof. There were the upper eaves under which my wide bedroom sat, and there was Darcy’s window, and there was the house across the street where Tristan used to sit and keep watch for the girl whose heart he was planning to break. The girl he simply couldn’t stay away from.

My pulse stopped racing. I felt as if I’d just tripped and landed in one of the deeper puddles marring the park. The girl he couldn’t stay away from.

Suddenly I was on my feet. The journal. He’d said that it was too painful to be gone from my side for even a minute. And the other day, I’d thought I’d seen a light but brushed it off as a trick—as distant lightning in the sky. Could it be that simple?

“What?” Joaquin asked, staring up at me.

“When was the last time anyone searched Magnolia?” I asked.

He lifted his shoulders, the light dying from his eyes. He didn’t want to leave this place yet. He wanted to be with me. And he could tell I was about to run. “I don’t know. Last night? A couple of days ago? Why?”

“I have an idea,” I said, trying to ignore the pang in my heart. Trying to focus on the positive. “I think I know where Tristan is.”