“Come on,” Wendy says.
“I shouldn’t have opened it.”
“It’s over and done. It doesn’t matter.” Her eyes are shining, her face calm. She raises one hand to me, beckoning. “Join me. Sister.” She turns toward the trunk and braces herself against it. I can hear him from within, sobbing now. “Justice for 2223’s daughter,” Wendy says, loud enough to drown him out. “Justice for the girls.”
And the spell is broken. The girls. Those poor, disposable girls. Hate warms my blood, strengthens me. Who the fuck cares if he said he was sorry? I let out a sound—a wild animal cry. I throw myself against the car, and we both push and push, the wheels pressing forward—until, at last, the car is free of the dock.
Wendy and I jump back. For one suspended moment the Mercedes seems to float, the billionaire’s sobs echoing in the air around us. But then the bottom drops out from under the chassis and it sinks fast. The tailgate, then the rear windshield, then the roof, the whole car swallowed up, the lake’s surface awash with bubbles. I double over, breathing hard, sweat pouring down my rib cage, the backs of my legs. I’m shivering. I’m not sure whether it’s the cold or the exhaustion, both physical and emotional, but it’s difficult to catch my breath. Wendy puts an arm around me, and I straighten up and lean into her, my breath steadying itself at last. I rest my head on her shoulder.
Wendy and I watch the lake until the water is smooth again, and it’s as though nothing ever happened, the only sound the whoosh of wind, the creak of tree branches, a crow shrieking, probably dozens of miles away.
I want to ask Wendy if she saw it, too, the car resting atop the water for such an impossibly long stretch of time, and if she heard the billionaire’s cries as I heard them, clearer than when the trunk was open. But I decide not to mention it, because I don’t think the moment was real. As I look back now, it feels imagined, the way most last chances do.
“CAMILLE,” WENDY SAYS.
We are standing near a sign that reads CAMPFIRE AREA, having just burned the two sets of directions to ash. I’m still thinking about what we’ve done—the car sinking into the water, the billionaire’s wails escaping from the trunk. If this were a movie, he’d make it out of there for real and swim to shore. I’d see his shadow behind me—the unvanquished killer rising up, dripping mud and seaweed, bringing an ax down on my skull as Wendy screams. And in a summer camp, no less. But it’s no movie. It’s real. We’ve ended him. He’s gone.
“Hello? Earth to Camille.”
“Sorry. What?”
She holds up the burner. “They sent the directions to where we’re supposed to meet our ride, and we’re supposed to head ‘due north’ at a certain point.”
“How do we do that?” We have no cell phones, as specified by 0001. Our only GPS is at the bottom of the lake.
Wendy tosses me a piece of plastic, and I shine my flashlight on it. A compass.
“Found that in my mailbox two days ago,” Wendy says. “The collective thinks of everything.”
I give her a weak smile.
Wendy stomps out the rest of the embers, and we head up the road on foot, due north half a mile, according to the text. “Haven’t used one of these since Girl Scouts,” Wendy says, “which, by the way, was the last all-female organization I joined.”
I laugh a little.
“Camille?”
“Yeah?”
“You okay?”
I nod.
“You don’t feel sorry for that motherfucker, do you?”
I turn to her. That determined soldier’s gait. I remember what she said in the car, how she claimed killing for the collective was easy, and for the first time tonight, I’m too ashamed to respond truthfully. “No,” I tell Wendy. “I was just thinking about what you said . . . about being in all-female organizations.”