Chapter 60

I walk down the road with no direction in mind. Just away. Maybe Miesha had it right--leave it all behind.

But I did that once and I wonder. What if I hadn't?

Locke. Come back to us. Open your eyes. Try. You have to try.

My father was firm in a way he rarely was, in a way that made me want to do exactly as he said. But I couldn't find my way. I tried to follow his voice. Come back. And then I heard Jenna and Kara. Their voices were frightened--as frightened as mine--and somehow that made me braver. I called to them both. I'm here. Here, Jenna. Here, Kara. They called back. Our voices touched, but our fingers were lost in the darkness. And then Jenna's voice disappeared and I could only hear Kara. Don't leave, Jenna. I wondered how long it would be until Kara disappeared and I was left completely alone. I clung to Kara's thoughts so she wouldn't leave me too.

But what if I had tried harder? What if I had opened my eyes and done as my father said? Maybe I would have lived my life as planned. Maybe I would have died as planned.

Instead I'm here.

The road, the trees, the houses, they go by in a blur. I take in a deep breath and try to slow my pace, but my thoughts are stuck in a warped backward spiral. Don't get in my head, Allys. Don't even try.

It didn't work with Gatsbro, either.

Here. This is the only record we could find of your accident. Just so you know what happened.

We knew.

Gatsbro had shown us the news clip on his office Vgram, thinking we didn't remember the accident since we never spoke of it. But even though I knew what happened, I didn't know how the rest of the world thought it happened. I read the article three times. Kara read it only once.

Fox Prosecution on Hold Pending Recovery

BOSTON--In spite of a pending civil action, the district attorney's office reports that it has no plans at this time to prosecute Jenna Fox, 16, daughter of Matthew Fox, founder of Fox BioSystems, based here in Boston. There were no apparent witnesses to the accident. Passenger Locke Jenkins, also 16, died two weeks after the accident without regaining consciousness. Kara Manning, 17, the second passenger, sustained severe head trauma when she was thrown from the car and as a result could not give investigators any information. She died three weeks following the accident when her family removed life support.

But we didn't die. Our families had no way of knowing. Just because our bodies were dead, it didn't mean our minds were. They had already been spirited away. Copied. Stored. Saved.

Saved. For what?

Fox, who didn't yet have a driver's license, is semicomatose and still in critical condition. The severity of her burns and injuries makes it impossible for her to communicate or give authorities any details about the accident. Investigators say they can't rule out the possible involvement of a second car, but it appears that high speeds and reckless driving contributed to the car veering off Route 93 and tumbling 140 feet down the steep incline. The hydrogen in the tri-energy BMW, registered to Matthew Fox, exploded on impact, leaving investigators little evidence to piece together events from the evening of the crash.

Gatsbro watched us carefully when we were done reading, like our reactions were just another experiment in his lab. Tell me how you feel, he said.

Crushed. Sick. Devastated. Take your pick, moron. How would you feel if you read about your own so-called death?

But neither Kara nor I said anything to Gatsbro about the accident or the article. I always remembered Kara's warning from that first day. Never show your weakness. But the accident was our weakness. It was the beginning of where we are now. We knew the events that led to the crash. We knew everything.

It wasn't Jenna's fault. It wasn't even Jenna who was driving.