“For crying out loud, hold on!” Alex shouted back and Zoe squeezed—her eyes. Her arms. Her legs. Zoe squeezed everything.
“When I move, you move!” Alex shouted and Zoe tried to mimic her sister’s motions, the subtle sways and sharp jerks that saw them zooming through the streets of Zurich, down alleys and over bridges, under overpasses and through—
Yup, at one point they drove through the lobby of a five-star hotel, shooting out onto a narrow street until they were going the wrong way down a one-way and, impossibly, no one followed.
Eventually, the city streets faded away and Alex revved the motorcycle faster. The frigid wind blew against Zoe’s face; her hands felt like ice as they held on to Alex. And through it all, Zoe tried to find her balance. Literally. Figuratively. Because when she closed her eyes, she saw the man from the train and knew she was surrounded. But when she opened her eyes, she saw the white lines of the highway zooming by way too quickly.
So Zoe kept her eyes on the back of Alex’s neck and wondered if that was what the back of her own neck looked like. It was a stupid thing to wonder but it felt like the only safe thought in her head—like any other thought could literally kill her.
She didn’t know how long they drove or how far they went. If Alex was as paranoid as Sawyer （and something told Zoe that her sister was probably far, far worse）， she knew they must have looped and crisscrossed and backtracked a dozen times. But, eventually, even Alex seemed to relax. Zoe literally felt her posture change and her muscles loosen. The motorcycle slowed, blending in with the sparse traffic on the winding highway.
Still, Zoe was surprised when Alex steered the bike off the road and onto a scenic overlook a few minutes later. Tires on snowy gravel. Moonlight on mountain peaks. And one lone, yellow pole light shining overhead.
Her cheeks were so cold they burned, and her hands were starting to shake. Her legs were so numb that when she finally climbed off the motorcycle, she thought she might collapse before she could stumble to the low rock wall that skirted around the edge. She wasn’t going to look over into the abyss, though. She couldn’t take the risk of getting dizzy. Besides, she was afraid of what might look back.
So instead, she looked at . . . herself.
For a long time, Zoe tried to understand what she was feeling because it wasn’t exactly déjà vu. She’d known she had a twin, of course, but it was still surreal to stare into a face like hers—eyes like hers—and feel like she was looking at a stranger.
Everything about Alex was harder, tougher, stronger. She actually seemed comfortable in those leather pants. Even the red hair seemed natural.
Zoe looked like a little girl playing dress-up, but Alex looked like she had spent her whole life becoming the woman on that mountain.
For days, all Zoe had wanted was to find Alex—save Alex—but she finally understood what Sawyer hadn’t been willing to say: that maybe Alex wasn’t just hiding—wasn’t just missing. That maybe the version of Alex who’d had anything to do with Zoe was already dead. That maybe that had been the case for a very long time and Zoe hadn’t just forgotten her sister. Maybe she’d never really known her at all.
“What the hell are you wearing?”
As questions went, it wasn’t the most obvious place to start, but Zoe couldn’t fault her sister’s directness.
“Clothes?” Zoe tried because, evidently, Alex got the brains as well as the toughness and the coordination and the ability to wear leather unironically. Besides, Zoe had other, more important things on her mind, like—“What . . . How . . . What just happened?”
“You went to the bank!” Alex shouted. “That’s what happened! What were you thinking, Zo? Were you thinking? Please tell me someone put a gun to your head or a bomb in your bra and made you walk in there? Because, otherwise, you might be a moron and I really hope you’re not because that shit’s genetic.”
Alex was staring at her. White breath in the dark air. Skin flushed with sweat in spite of the freezing wind. She looked like someone who knew things—like someone who knew herself—and Zoe had never been more envious of anyone in her life.
“Zoe!” Alex shouted.
“No . . . no one was watching the bank. The bank was clear. No one was watching—”
“Of course someone was watching the bank!” Alex threw up her hands and walked back toward the motorcycle and for a split second Zoe wondered if she was going to leave, just get on and drive away. For a moment, Zoe wondered if she wanted her to.