Iris~~
I only know I fell asleep because when I open my eyes, I have to unstick my face from the leather seat. I rub my cheek, feeling lines from the seat embedded in my skin.
"Iris?"
I groan. "What?" I rub the rest of my sleep from my eyes. As my vision clears, my surroundings become apparent. The road comes at us from the left and right instead of from the front and back. We're still in mountains, and it's still dark. What wakes me up though is what Erik's headlights shine on—the edge of a cliff.
"Erik? What the hell is going on?"
"I thought you wanted to watch the sunrise."
"Be serious."
He opens his door. "I need you to help me push my car off the cliff."
"Excuse you?"
"You heard me. Leave your door open." He tosses me a sweatshirt from his lap and gets out. I look down at my own lap. I'm still in my dress from last night.
I step out of the car and pull the sweatshirt over my head, surprised by the chill in the air. Erik's waiting at the back of his car, wearing a sweatshirt of his own.
"Where are we?"
"Tennessee."
"Why?"
"It's part of one of my escape plans."
"You have multiple?"
He ducks the top half of his body back into the driver's seat for a few seconds. "To account for any situation. I have a hideout in a town about a mile from here." Leaving his own door open, he returns to the back of the car and places his palms on the trunk.
I want to ask him about Molly, but I can't find the will to actually force the words out. "Where are we headed?"
"Colorado and then Nevada. We'll catch a bus in town."
I'm honestly surprised he even told me where we're going. I stand next to the trunk, my arms crossed. Images from last night, hours ago, flash through my head. The revulsion on Colton's face. The fevered look in Erik's eyes. I can still feel the muzzle of his gun pressing into my head.
Most of all I see Jonas's face before the dining-room doors closed. He looked as if he felt he had failed me. I failed myself; it's as simple as that. But it's not. I know it's not.
"Why are we pushing your car off a cliff?"
"To make the Society think you're dead."
I shiver, but it's not from the cold. I can't do that to Jonas.
Even if my life depends on it? We weren't in love. Can I even say we were together? If not, what were we that I should care this much about not hurting him?
We were two souls outside of time and death; two souls who seemed to be on separate paths who passed by each other for only a short amount of time. I didn't want to leave him. His arms felt like safety. Like life. Like normalcy and yet there was nothing normal about him. How did I come to care for the Preeminence of the Society? How did I come to care for Jonas Blackwood?
I found a kindred soul in him.
I set my hands against the car—I'm so sorry, Jonas—and I push.
The car starts rolling.
I put my back into pushing the car, using my legs as leverage. The car inches forward, gravel crackling. The front of the tires hover over the edge for a few seconds before gravity takes over, tugging Erik's car through the trees. Branches crack and fall after it as it plummets toward the river upon which his headlights reflect. I wrap my arms around myself as his car crashes into the river, the car that we fled Baltimore in, that we arrived in the Society in, that we ran from my family—the rebels in. Everything has an Expiration Date, even Erik's car. Jonas's and my time together did. Will Erik's and mine?
If everything has one, then yes.