Wasn’t it?

Wasn’t it?

The pain lessened, the farther I dragged myself away from him.

“Ruby?”

Why did I always have to do this? Why couldn’t I just hold it together for once?

Liam was staring at me. At me, not through me. He looked focused, if not completely bewildered. My eyes fell on the red welt forming on his cheek.

Had I heard that right? My name?

“What the hell just happened?” He let out a strangled laugh. “I feel like I just got hit by a linebacker.”

“I slipped—” What could I possibly say? The truth was on the tip of my tongue, dangling there, but if he knew, if he knew what I had just done to him…

“And there I was, trying to be all valiant and stuff by catching you?” He chuckled, using the closest tree to help him stand. “Lesson learned! You’re falling next time, darlin’, because, man, you have a hard head.…”

“I’m sorry.” I whispered. “I’m so, so sorry.…”

Liam stopped laughing. “Green…you know I’m just kidding, right? Really, it takes a special kind of guy to get knocked out by the same person he’s trying to catch. Aside from bringing back a few humiliating memories of school sports, I’m fine, honestly—what?”

Do you even remember what we were talking about?

“Oh my God,” he said, all of a sudden noticing I was still on the ground. “Are you okay? I can’t believe I didn’t even ask—are you hurt?”

I avoided the hand he offered. It was too soon.

“I’m fine,” I said. “I think we should head back now. You left Betty running.”

My voice sounded calm, but inwardly I was such a desert. All of the hope that had sprung there, growing and spreading and yielding like a stream, had dried up in an instant. I had slipped up, but he didn’t know. They never did.

This couldn’t happen again—I was lucky this time; he still remembered me, even if he couldn’t recall what I had done, but there was no guaranteeing that luck would hold.

No more touching. No more fingers brushing against arms, or shoulders pressed against shoulders. No more taking his hand, no matter how warm or big it was.

That alone was a reason to find this Slip Kid. To beg him to help me.

“Yeah…yeah.” He nodded, but I didn’t miss the way his brows furrowed when he looked my way again, or the grinding ache in my chest when he passed by and didn’t let his hand reach for mine.

I stayed five steps in front of him as we made our way back around the rest stop, past the water fountains, through the silver benches and tables under the overhang. I moved faster, practically jogging as I came around the corner. I half expected to see Chubs and Zu outside trying to rig the vending machines into burping up whatever snacks they had left.

But it wasn’t Chubs waiting there for me, and it certainly wasn’t Zu.

Dark hair, darker eyes. A man that couldn’t have been older than twenty-five, with a scar that began just under his right eye and raced up to his hairline, where the shiny pink skin had prevented any hair from growing back. My brain processed his features one by one, in agonizing slowness. I watched as his face twisted, turning his narrow nose up in disgust.

Liam called my name in a panic, his feet thundering against the cement. Run, I wanted to scream to him, What are you doing? Run! I turned back to face the man—the skip tracer, in his wrinkled blue Windbreaker—just in time to see the butt of his rifle flying down toward my face, knocking every thought clear out of my skull.

Pain blinded me, flashing white beneath my eyelids. But I was down, not out. When the man tried to haul me up by the front of my shirt, I swung a leg around and caught him by the ankles. He landed on the ground with a grunt, his gun clattering against a nearby patch of rocks. I kicked until I made contact with something solid. I knew it wasn’t enough.

I tried pushing myself up to my feet, but the world swung wild and loose under me. My head throbbed, and something hot and wet poured down over my right eye—blood. I could taste it then, just as plainly as I felt the air move as Liam lifted the man clear off the ground with a wave of his hand. He threw him like a rag doll into the sharp edges of the picnic tables, knocking the skip tracer out in a single blow.

Zu, Chubs, Zu, Chubs, my mind was stuck on a loop. I pressed a hand against my forehead, to the place where the gun had burst the skin in a jagged line.

I don’t know what happened next. It felt like my head was skipping seconds as we moved. At one point, I think Liam must have tried to help me up, but I pushed him away with clumsy, slow hands.

Run! I tried to say. Get out of here!

“Ruby—Ruby.” Liam was trying to get my attention, because he hadn’t seen what was up ahead.

Zu and Chubs were sitting on the ground, outside of Betty. Their hands were handcuffed behind their backs, and their feet tied straight out in front of them with a length of bright yellow rope. Standing over them was none other than Lady Jane.

This was the first time I had seen her up close—close enough, at least, that I could make out the beauty mark on her cheek and the sunken quality to her eyes behind the black frames of her glasses. Her dark hair was down around her shoulders and curling with the humidity, but her skin still looked as though it had been pulled taut over the sharp angles of her face. Her black shirt was tucked neatly into her jeans, and a black utility belt was there to keep them both in place. I recognized the countless devices hanging from the belt. The orange identifier, a Taser, handcuffs…