Linus shakes his head. He backs up a step. “This is freaking me out,” he says.
I let out a brief laugh. “Me, too.”
“It isn’t technically possible,” Linus says. “He’d need some kind of transmitter on me. Wouldn’t he? Do you think the camera’s on all the time?”
“I don’t know how it works,” I say. “I’m just saying it could explain how Berg has an image of me in your bed. Did you wake up and look at me? Did you touch my hair?”
Linus nods, visibly trembling. “If this is true, he’s been with me all this time, seeing everything I do.”
“Exactly,” I say, and jam my hands in my pockets.
He scowls at me. “You still think I’m lying to you! You think I knew!”
I don’t know what to think. I never do with Linus.
“Great,” he says. “Just brilliant.” He runs a hand back through his hair. “I really hate that guy,” he says, and then his eyes narrow. “Okay. We’ll use this somehow. If I really have a camera in my eye, we’ll use it against him. We’ll feed him false information. We’ll double-cross him somehow.”
“He’d know. He knows everything,” I say. I didn’t plan past killing Berg. At some level, I figured I’d be arrested for his murder, but now, with Berg still alive, he’ll always be coming after me. “It’s hopeless, Linus. He can get to my family. I’ll never be free of him.”
“I think it’s time to talk to the police yourself,” he says. “I can go with you.”
Not happening. I take another step back and turn into the wind so my hair will get blown out of my face again. This is as bad as before. Worse. I think of the data I saw on Berg’s computer and the pictures of all those dreamers. Wanting a future causes all kinds of problems.
“I take it that’s a no,” he says.
I look up at Linus again, wishing I knew whether I could believe anything about him. “I have a lot to figure out. You included.”
He steps near enough to shelter me from the breeze. “You should have told me you were going to see Berg. I would have gone with you.”
I shake my head. “I wanted to kill him myself.”
“But you couldn’t, he says. “I could have told you you’re not a killer, Rosie. Why did you ever think you were.”
Because that’s how I felt. It hurts. This whole thing hurts. And now here I am, caring about Linus, and he’s just another one of Berg’s tools. I can’t look in his eyes without wondering if there’s a spy behind them.
“Don’t look at me like that,” he says, and closes his eyes.
His face has never seemed so vulnerable, and I’m unbearably touched. I lean up to kiss him, and his lips are warm. His shadow of beard is unexpectedly soft, and he wraps his arms around me. The kiss deepens. Hope and misery lock into each other so that I can’t tell them apart. When I have to come up for air, he keeps me tight against him, and I find I’m gripping him, too.
“You’re leaving. I can tell. But I’m going with you,” he says.
“No, you’re not.”
He kisses me again, trying to persuade me, until I have to break off. I steady myself against him. With my heart charging around, it’s very hard to be rational, but I tuck my hair behind my ear again and try. He is watching me closely, and I’m sickened to think Berg might be observing me through Linus even now. Just thinking this puts Berg between us again. I want to cover Linus’s left eye with the palm of my hand, but Berg could see that. Instead, I ease out of Linus’s arms.
“Keys,” I say.
His eyes grow dark. “Please, Rosie. This is a mistake. We can figure this out together.”
“No,” I say. “Not with Berg along.”
I turn toward the east, where the sun has now topped the horizon. Then I look back down the slope toward the car. My family needs me. No matter what has happened, I’m still Dubbs’s big sister, and it won’t take too long to get home. If he hasn’t already found me through Linus, Berg will be looking for me soon. I tap the pockets of Linus’s coat for my keys, and then I dig them out. I squeeze my fingers around them so the metal bites.
“Let me give you a ride back to town,” I say.
“Forget that,” he says. “How will I reach you?”
I glance up to find him smiling in his old way, where his mouth curves but his eyes stay serious. Loneliness. I never realized before exactly what was behind his smile, but I get it now.
“I’ll call when I can. I promise,” I say. “Let me give you a ride back to town.”
“No, I can walk back,” he says.
“Seriously? It’s far.”
“That’s the least of my problems.”
I take a step backward, away from him, and a weird sort of thrill goes through me. I don’t want to leave him, but now that I’ve decided to, I feel an urgency. It’s a kind of power.
“You can’t keep doing this to me,” Linus says.
“I have to.”
I turn and stride down the slope through the grass. I get in my car, close my door, and twist on the ignition. Linus is still standing on the top of the slope, a spare figure with a long shadow. With my heart aching, I memorize every line of him. Then I turn the car around and bump along the dirt road, back to the highway. For a moment there, I pause.
I blink out at the long, empty road and the early light on the wind-swept prairie. In a way, I have nothing now that my anger’s gone, but I also feel like I’ve just started. Like I might have some hope. I gently rub the port lump in my chest and glance at my jacket, where I still have my syringes. Berg’s phone, too. It could be useful.
I roll down my window to let in the sweet wind. Then I grip the wheel and accelerate, driving west hard.