Oh, and I’m dependent on antianxiety meds, the only therapist I ever had died from a fall down a flight of stairs, and there’s a viral video of me losing my mind at a public event, taken just before my own arrest. I’m not what anyone would call a reliable witness.
I could message 0001 when I get home and tell her I want to leave the group—no hard feelings, no secrets revealed. I just want to move on with my life, I could say. I’m ready now.
But can I? How can I move on after all I’ve done and knowing what I do now? How could 0001 allow me to do that? When I first joined the collective, she had been very clear about the rules: 1） we must commit fully to our cause, and 2） tell no one about it. If Natalie had been killed for breaking the second rule, I’d surely meet the same fate for breaking the first. . . .
“Help,” I whisper. And like an answer, an idea comes to me, the thinnest shred of one, anyway. I know someone with FBI connections. And she also happens to be the only person in the world who might understand. . . .
I make a right onto a quiet residential road and pull over to the side, turn on my hazard lights in case it’s illegal to park here, and open the Reddit app on my phone. I go to the Alayah subreddit and think. It takes me a while to recall what Wendy and my code blue message is—it feels like a million years ago—but then I remember: Anti-Alayah means watch your back. Pro-Alayah means meet at the Exit 19 park and ride. I thumb in the words, and post:
Queen Alayah is too good for Pilot Pete and she always will be! YAAAASSSS!!
That’s about as pro as it gets.
The Kingston park and ride is two hours away, and if she gets the message and it’s safe for her to do so, Wendy will be there within an hour of my arrival. “Here’s hoping,” I whisper.
It’s not until I’ve crossed the Mario Cuomo Bridge and I’ve been driving at least a half hour on the thruway that I really take notice of the car in my rearview mirror—a black Prius. It’s been in my line of vision since Croton. And not only do I believe that it’s been following me, I’m nearly positive it’s the same Prius I saw leaving the Weisses’ house at the same time I did.
I suppose it isn’t just the dead that have been watching me.
There’s a lot of traffic around the Prius and me—it’s been stop and go since the bridge. The late-afternoon light being the way it is, I can only see the driver’s outline in my rearview, but once I get an opening, I move into the left lane and make a point of staring into the car as I pull alongside it. The driver’s wearing enormous sunglasses, bright red lipstick, a red scarf around her neck, and she has a big head of yellow-blond hair that could easily be a wig. I’ve clocked you, bitch. I see you. And even though I have no idea what she looks like underneath this strange disguise, I say it out loud, clear enough for her to read my lips. “I see you.”
The red lipstick stretches into a toothy smile—a rictus joker grin. I see you too, she mouths. Sister.
I turn back to the road, my heart crashing into my ribs. Anxiety kicking in. Okay. Point well taken.
I push forward, and the Prius slides in behind me.
I see the glint off her sunglasses in my rearview, and it replays in my head, that bloodred mouth, that baring of teeth. “Get away from me.”
When I turn back to the road, I’m racing for the bumper of the car in front of me. I pull to the right and switch lanes just in time, avoiding hitting it but cutting off a truck. Its horn blares, and I shift into the right lane, and then the one next to it, my eyes peeled for the Prius. Lost you, you psychotic . . . But there she is again, maybe a car length back, two lanes to the left.
How can a Prius go that fast?
It’s now in the lane next to me, the bumper parallel to my own.
“What the hell?”
There’s a clear stretch ahead of me, and it feels like a gift. I jam my foot into the accelerator, taking my Subaru up to eighty-five, then ninety, shifting lanes whenever I can. In my rearview, I can see the Prius surging forward. I move into the fast lane and take it up to ninety-five.