Stacy shrugged and shook her head, but then she stepped outside of the tent and walked around to the back of the cave while we watched, trying to see what she was doing. Back in the darkest corner of the cave was a metal lockbox that looked to be about the size of a thick laptop case. She brought it over to the opening of the tent so that we could all see it. After some fumbling with cold fingers around the combination dial, the case popped open. Stacy turned the open case to face us and all three of us looked inside.
“It’s all that I have left,” she said. “From my time on the force. I’m going to leave as soon as you guys do. I’m going to hop a flight while I still can, before they start looking for me too hard, and get as far from here as I can. My old life is gone now, and I won’t be taking anything with me aside from the clothes on my back and the cash in my pocket. My plan is to start entirely over somewhere new. You’re welcome to this stuff if you think it will help you. It’s all that I have left to offer.”
I reached my hand into the case and carefully pulled out the well-worn, loaded handgun. Beneath it was her badge and uniform, along with another smaller gun, and two metal pieces that looked like utility knives, except with curved tips on them. I hated guns and handed it over to Michael. Adam took hold of the other one, and I lifted up one of the knives and turned it over carefully in my hand. I didn’t even need to touch the blades to realize how sharp they were. These knives would cut through flesh and bone as easy as they could cut through the air.
“Yeah,” Michael said as he nodded his head. “I think these will help, thanks.”
“I’m sorry that I can’t do more,” she said. “But Rob and I go back a long way as partners, and we’ve always had an agreement that we’ve stuck to. If one of us tells the other to go—we go. It’s the agreement that has kept us both alive this long and I intend to stick to it right up to the very end.”
“Understood,” Michael nodded. “Thank you.”
Stacy nodded and closed the case after we had put the weapons back inside. She slid it over to Michael, who took it and made sure to note the combination code on the front before tucking it behind him.
“We’ll stay here for tonight,” he said. “We could all use a night of rest before we head toward what’s coming next.”
Everyone was in agreement that we would spend one night here together in the cave before going our separate ways. Adam stoked the fire outside of the tent more and we all sat around it and ate some food as we talked over what we would do once the morning arrived. Adam suggested that Canada would be the easiest way to get out of the country fast. Trying to hop a plane would probably lead to trouble once they checked our identification. It was unlikely that we would even be able to board a plane if the cops had flagged us as potential suspects for anything. The chance of them just letting us walk away were slim to none. The Canadian border would be easier to try and sneak across. Even though there was still a border patrol there, there were some less conducive parts of the terrain that wouldn’t be too difficult to try and sneak through illegally. Once we were out of the country, we could figure everything else out.
We needed to figure out how we were going to pull Rob out.
“As soon as we make a move,” Adam said. “No matter how small or subtle it is, it’s bound to set the cops off, and we’ll be immediately targeted. I just don’t think there’s a way to sneak him out of there unnoticed.”
I thought quietly for a few minutes. Adam was right, and it triggered a whole different thought process for me.
“Okay, what if we don’t try to sneak him out?” I asked.
Both of the guys eyed me in confusion.
“Hear me out,” I said. “They’re expecting us to try to sneak around and pull something off under the radar. What if we did the opposite? What if we decided to take more drastic measures instead, and pull it off right in front of their faces?”
“How drastic are we talking?” Adam asked.
I reached around Michael’s back and pulled the metal case out again. I flipped the top open and pulled out Stacy’s badge, looking at it as I held it in my fingers.
“Pretty damn drastic,” I said as I stared at the badge.
7
After we had said goodbye to Stacy and headed back toward our cabin, the three of us walked in relative silence for the rest of the way. We trekked an entire day, then set up the tent and spent the night in a remote part of the forest, using the last of our supplies and knowing that we needed to make the rest of the trek back the next day.
That was going to be a push. It had taken us nearly twice as long when we were heading in the other direction. But I no longer felt the cold, and I no longer felt any fatigue. I only felt driven to enact the plan that we had partially laid out and get Rob the hell out of there so that we could leave.
I think that we all felt the same way, because the next morning when we started on the journey back toward the cabin again, our pace was twice as fast. At this pace, we would make it home before nightfall and we wouldn’t need to stop again for food or rest.
“You know that there’s a good chance this whole plan isn’t going to work, right?” Adam said as we walked.
Michael didn’t answer him. I could hear his steady breaths as he walked and could tell that he was just trying to focus on getting back to the cabin and getting what we needed. I knew Michael well enough to know that he didn’t want to stop and think about all the ways that this plan could go sideways. If he did, he would let doubt creep in and it would be the equivalent of self-sabotage. He only wanted to act, and then he would assess how things were going to play out. I, on the other hand, had a plethora of doubts already eating at my brain. It didn’t make me any less eager to do it, or any less hopeful that the very reckless plan would work. But I couldn’t ignore the pitfalls as much as Michael could. I was dead-awful at compartmentalizing. Instead, I let my doubts and my hopes play together as if they were both the best of friends and the worst of enemies as they danced around in my head and bounced off the walls of my skull.
“Yeah, I know,” I answered Adam. “But at this point I think it’s the best shot we have.”
Adam nodded as he kept pace beside me.
“Agreed,” he said. “Just making sure that we all have realistic expectations of what we are getting ourselves into. Hey, look at it this way, at least it will be exciting.”
I looked over at Adam and smiled when I saw his impish grin. It reminded me of when it was the four of us back on the Lineage campus. Granted, those days were equally as fucked up, but there was something about them that I think back fondly on. Maybe it was because Julian was still alive. Maybe it was the way that Julian, Adam, Michael, and me seemed to all fit perfectly together. Or maybe it was because I still had a purpose back then, even if it was a disillusioned pipedream of fulfilling my mother’s wishes. At least it wasn’t just running away. I reached out and held Adam’s hand for a minute as we walked. Then I reached out and held Michael’s too.
“No matter what happens,” I said. “At least the three of us will be together.”
Adam’s smile widened, and I felt the grip of Michael’s fingers tighten against mine.
“You guys remember back when we were in the stone room?” I asked them both.
“How could we ever forget that place?” Michael asked.
“Yeah, it does kind of linger in your memory doesn’t it?” Adam chuckled. “Is it weird to have both a fondness and a hate for a place that was intended for torture?”
I shook my head.
“No, I don’t think so. It wasn’t the place that embedded it into our memory I don’t think. It was the time that we all spent in it together. I feel the same way right now. I feel like no matter what happens, the three of us—and even Julian although he isn’t here anymore— are all connected to each other and always will be.”
“I’d like to think that,” Adam smiled thoughtfully.
“And what about Rob?” Michael said. “No offense to the guy. I know that we owe him a lot, and I don’t hate him as much as I did before. But remind me why we’re going back to risk our lives and rescue this guy if he isn’t part of our little family.”
Adam looked over at me too as if he was wondering the same thing.
“Because,” I said, “we may have done some ruthless things too, but we aren’t the same as these people. I refuse to be the same as the people that we’re fighting against. If we were to just leave Rob behind, we would be no better than they are. Whether or not he comes with us, or he goes off to do his own thing is up to him. We at least owe him a rescue.”
“Agreed,” Michael said resolutely.
I was actually surprised at how quickly he agreed with me. I expected him to put up at least a few minutes of resistance and try to argue about how we should seize the opportunity to save ourselves and get out while we still could. But Michael knew in his heart that I was right. We weren’t the kind of people to leave anyone behind (even if the person was the guy that Michael had once wanted to pummel into the ground for trying to steal his woman).
When we got back to the cabin, it was well after dark but at least we had made it without having to stop again. We were all exhausted and starving, but we were here.
“Let’s eat and sleep and pack up whatever we don’t want to leave behind and anything that we’ll need to take with us to Canada. In the morning, we’ll go to the store and get what we need. Then it will be go-time,” Michael said as Adam was sweeping his hand above the top of the cabinet, searching for another full bottle of whiskey.
When he let out a relieved sigh, I knew that he had indeed found one.
“Now see,” Adam said as he pulled the bottle down. “This is why it’s important to always keep a spare handy.”
He popped the top and took a hearty swig of the amber liquid before passing it off to Michael. Thankfully there was still plenty of food in the cabin too, so I pulled out some stuff to make sandwiches and then the three of us took all the food and the whiskey to sit down on the couch. We stared into the empty hearth as we filled our stomachs and coated our insides with the warming tingle of alcohol. Once he had been satiated, Michael went to get some more firewood to start the fire.
“I don’t even know what to bring with me,” I said to Adam as we lingered on the couch and nibbled the crusts of our almost-eaten sandwiches, which we downed with large swallows of liquor. “I mean, we’ve packed up plenty of times before, but never with the intent of leaving forever.”
“I guess the stuff we have doesn’t really mean very much if you ask me,” Adam answered.
I thought for a second that maybe the alcohol was making him philosophical. “As long as we have each other, right?”
