“Then we had better all hope this works,” he said.

None of us slept well that night. We were all restless with nerves and we all held onto each other a little tighter than usual. I didn’t take my hand off of Michael’s chest for the entire night, and even when the morning light broke, I still didn’t want to let him go.

We piled into the car with our backpacks tucked down against the floorboards and went into town to get what we needed from the store. This time, our purchase was a bit out of the ordinary. The cashier looked at us with an invasively perplexed glance when she saw our assortment of goods on the conveyer belt. Boxes of hair dye, colored contacts, scissors, a couple jugs of water and some hand towels, and a few other things that looked as though we were either having a midlife existential crisis or were about to commit a murder.

“Halloween party,” Adam said as he tried to come up with an excuse that the cashier would believe.

“But it’s not even spring yet,” the cashier said with one side of her mouth pinched up into a pout. She looked as if she was maybe all of eighteen years old, and not ready to buy anyone’s bullshit story about preparing for a Halloween party in January.

Adam was getting ready to say something else, but she had already finished ringing us up and was giving Michael the total.

“Have fun at your kinky winter Halloween party,” she smirked as we walked away with our purchase.

On any other day I probably would have either shot back a sarcastic comment to her or laughed right alongside of her. But today was not any other day. Today was the day that would put into motion the course that our lives would take.

As soon as we got into the car, Michael drove us toward the empty lot that bordered the town library parking lot. We unpacked all of the things that we had purchased and got ready to do a really makeshift job of completely changing our appearances in the backseat of the car.

“You ready?” Michael asked as he held the scissors to my hair.

“Yeah,” I said as I closed my eyes. “Do it.”

8

This time, when we walked through the mountain wilderness, I knew it would be the last time. As much as I dreaded making the hike all the way back to the cave, I also tried to prolong each moment, because I knew that what might happen afterward would be unknown.

The plan was for me to hide out in the cave that Rob had hid Stacy in. It was far enough away to keep me safe, and far enough away to make a good spot for them to run to once they had Rob with them. Michael and Adam knew these woods now like the back of their hands and could navigate them even with their eyes closed (theoretically at least) which would mean that as soon as they had Rob, they could trek through the pitch black night nonstop until they made it back to me at the cave. If everything went according to plan, that’s what would happen.

I didn’t much like my part of the plan. All I had to do was sit here and wait. I hated that actually. I wanted to go too. I wanted to get Rob and stay with Michael and Adam. But it was too many people, and the guys could move faster through the woods at night without me. I was a distraction to all three of them and I knew it. As much as I hated it, they would be more focused and more brutal if they didn’t have to worry about keeping me safe. So now, we were on our way to deliver me to the cave. They were only going to walk me halfway, and then they would turn around and head into the town toward Rob. I would make it the second half of the way on my own.

We were all ready for what would come after the rescue. All three of us had changed our appearances. My hair was cut to above shoulder length now and died a strange shade of dark brown that definitely didn’t look like my natural color. Michael had died his hair darker too, and when I looked at him I had a hard time deciphering whether it was how handsome he was or how much I loved him, which made him look gorgeous to me no matter what color his hair and eyes were. We had all also put in different colored contact lenses (the cosmetic kind that can come in all different crazy colors). I was surprised that the store here even had them, but I guess there are vanity items in every small town and city in America. Adam’s eye color was now the coolest looking one, I thought. It was a dark green with specks of gold that made him look slightly unhuman. Our new looks were strange because we all still looked like us—but not. The modifications would at least be enough to keep anyone from recognizing us at first glance and from matching up with any old identification. We wouldn’t need our passports for the way that we were intending to sneak across the border. In fact, our old identities would be all but gone once we got out of the states, and there was no sense in holding onto any of it. It was kind of freeing, to not only look different but also feel different.

“Okay, this is it,” Michael said when we reached the halfway point.

I didn’t want him to say that. I didn’t want to let them go. It wasn’t that I was afraid of going the rest of the way by myself—I wasn’t. I was more afraid to let them go back into the town without me. I didn’t know what would be waiting for them there or how the rest of our plan would work. What if it didn’t work? What if it all failed and I didn’t even realize they were in trouble until a couple of days had passed? By the time I would be able to reach them, it might be too late.

“I don’t want you to go,” I said. “I want to come with you.”

“Lisette,” Michael said as he ran his fingers alongside my frozen cheek that was painfully wind-burnt. “We already talked through all of this. You’ll be safe in the cave alone, and Adam and I will be back to meet you there in just a couple of days with Rob. It will all be okay, I promise.”

“But what if it isn’t?” I asked as I felt the tears fill my eyes and then start to freeze and stick to the rims of my eyelids.

“It will be,” Adam chimed in with a mustered grin. “You know that I won’t let him do anything too stupid that would get us killed. We’ll come back to you.”

“You’d better,” I said with a sniffle.

There was no point in me standing there wasting time in the cold. If any of us were going to survive this attempt, we had to stick to the plan. It was the only chance we had. Besides, it was too late to turn back now. We were committed.

Michael kissed me and his warm breath filled my mouth as his tongue traced inside my lips. I held onto him and pressed my face against his as my fists clenched his jacket. I didn’t want to let him go and I could tell by the way that he let me linger in his arms, that he didn’t want to let me go either. When we finally pulled apart, the look on his face was more frigid with fear than the temperature. Saying goodbye was definitely not something that Michael and I did well. It didn’t matter how much we tried to console each other, we were both always too afraid of losing one another to be effective at calming each other down.

Adam threw his arms around me in a big bear hug and squeezed me until it felt like I could just stay inside his grasp forever and forget about the rest of the world. I buried my face against his chest and felt his cheek come to rest against my temple.

“Lisette, we’re going to come back to you, I swear it,” he whispered softly into my ear. “I don’t care if you chose Michael, I still love you. And you know that I will always come back to you, even if I have to drag him along with me.”

I let out a muffled laugh that was also partly a cry. I loved them and didn’t want anything to happen to either of them. When Adam let me go, I took one last painful look at Michael before they both turned and walked away. It had to be that way. They had to be the ones to leave first and they knew it. After that last time that I had left them, I had sworn never to leave them again and they both knew that I would stand right there in that frozen spot in the snow until I could no longer see them in my sights. When the silhouettes of their shapes finally disappeared from view, I turned and walked back toward the cave using the map that Adam had given me and let myself cry along the way. My own wet tears stung my face and felt like they burned my skin with extreme cold as they met with the air. I walked and walked, without letting myself think about anything at all because I knew that if I did, I would start to think about all the things that could go wrong. Instead, I focused on the trees and the clouds and the sound of the birds in the woods around me. I took note of the direction I was walking in and the position of the sun in the sky. As the day turned to dusk, I knew that I was almost at the cave and I started to think about the logistical and mundane tasks of setting up the tent in the cave and starting a fire. I couldn’t bear to let myself think about anything else.

But as the cave came into view, I thought that I could see a small billow of smoke coming from it. This was not part of the plan. There shouldn’t have been anyone here in this cave now that Stacy had left. Someone was here and my adrenalin immediately began to kick in as I wondered who it could possibly be all the way out here in the wilderness. It might have been a trap set for us, or someone that had been following us and now knew that I was alone. Michael and Adam had taken the guns with them, but I still had the two knives with the curved tips tucked into the buckles of my boots. I reached down and pulled one of them out and gripped it tightly in my hand as I walked slowly toward the cave and tried to ready myself for whoever might be in there. I stalked around the side of the cave and then crept up to the entrance before trying to peek stealthily around the corner. I held the knife up next to my face in case I was met with an immediate attack. I couldn’t have been more surprised by what—and who, I saw standing inside the cave.

“Stacy?” I asked in shock as I stepped fully into view.

I was so surprised that I dropped the knife from my hand and had to dig it out of the soft pile of snow by my feet.

“What are you doing here?” I asked.

For a second I was worried that maybe she had betrayed us. Maybe she was still here as some sort of attempt to capture me and that the guys were walking into a trap. But then when she looked up at me, I immediately recognized the look on her face because it was one that I was all too familiar with myself—remorse.

“You were right,” she said. “I just couldn’t run away and abandon Rob, not after being his partner for so many years. It just didn’t feel right.”

I smiled at her and was so happy to have her company that I almost wanted to hug her.

“He’s going to be pissed as hell at me for breaking our one rule,” she said as she chuckled and shook her head.

“I’m sure he’ll get over it,” I smiled. “But what are you doing back here in the cave?”

“I was getting ready to come and find the three of you,” she said. “But it took me a while to get back this far and I needed to stop and rest for a bit. What are you doing here? I thought you guys were all going into town to get Rob?”

“We have a plan, kind of,” I said. “Michael and Adam are going to get Rob and then are bringing him back here to meet me at the cave. From here, we’re headed to Canada like we had discussed. You can come with us if you’d like.”

“I thought you didn’t like me,” she said as she looked over me with a raised eyebrow. “Trust me, I can pick up on these things. You definitely weren’t fond of me before.”

I wasn’t going to deny it.

“True,” I said. “But I like you better now that I know you’re not the kind of woman to abandon her partner and friend. Besides, I could use some company here. I’m worried sick about the guys and I could use some distraction.”

“When are they supposed to be coming back?”

“By the time that they get to Rob, rescue him, and then make it all the way back here, it shouldn’t be longer than forty-eight hours. Any longer than that and it’s cause for concern,” I answered.

“Forty-eight hours is a long time,” she said.

Stacy looked almost as worried as I felt, although that would have been impossible since I felt like there was a flock of a hundred butterflies all warring against each other in my stomach.

“Well, I’ve already got a tent pitched, and a fire started. I’ve got a bit of food and water too,” she said.

“So do I.”