If I Fall (18 page)

“Be safe, my child. I hope we meet again,” she says, a single tear wetting her cheek.

I nod.
Me too
, I think and step out into the hall.

Dela follows after Mr. Eversby who leads us towards the deck, peeking around corners and waving everybody on as we sneak our way to the lifeboats. Adam stomps after them, every step still weighted with his ire. The muscles in his neck and jaw are taut like wires. I trail at the back, watching him. I feel as though I am living inside a nightmare where the harder I run, the further away he becomes. And no matter how fast I go, he is always ahead of me, standing just out of reach.

As my thoughts fill with this, he suddenly spins around to face me, blocking my path as the others continue forward. “Do you remember when we were in the bedroom and you told me about your garden?”

Bemused, I simply nod.

“And do you remember what I said? I said, ‘Your secret is safe with me, Vi. Any secret of yours is safe with me. I hope you know that. I hope you know that you can trust me.’”

I cross my arms over my chest, forming a cage of steel around my heart. “Why are you telling me this, Adam?”

He sighs. “I want you to know that at that time, I meant what I said. I believed you could trust me,” he says. “I’m sorry it turned out I was wrong.”

Pursing my lips, I lift my chin as though his words do not affect me.

“Me too,” I whisper and step by him in pursuit of the others.

21
LEAVING

“I cannot go.” Mr. Eversby stands just under the lifeboat, arms crossed against his chest, and his chin locked stubbornly in place.

Dela runs forward and wraps her arms around his waist. “But you must go! You simply must!”

He shakes his head. “The lifeboat needs two men to lower it. Mr. Laurence cannot do it alone. I must stay and help him.”

I look up at the lifeboat, smaller than the rest but still capable of holding at least twenty passengers. On either side it is attached to the davit by chains. I silently curse the system as I search for another way. But as much as I wish and pray, there is no way around it. One of us must stay behind.

“I will stay,” I whisper, but cannot be heard. I raise my voice. “I will stay!”

Adam, silent all this time, speaks up. “No.”

“Excuse me? You do not get a say in this decision,” I snap. Turning to Dela, I try to explain. “My promise was to get you to America and I do not wish to break it. With Mr. Eversby you will have a better chance.”

Dela wrinkles her nose in disgust. “Elvira, I do not need a sacrificial hero; I need a sister!”

I open my mouth, ready to object, but the word
sister
nags at the back of my mind. Crossing my arms over my chest, I press my lips together.
You cannot leave her alone, El. She is right,
my conscience tells me. I reluctantly obey it.

“Then it is settled,” Mr. Eversby says. “I will stay and assist Mr. Laurence with the davits.”

Not answering, I turn my head away. He takes this as acceptance and kneels down in front of Dela. She whimpers, her arms twining around him a second time. “I am sorry, Mr. Eversby,” she cries. “I owe you my life.”

“You owe me nothing. Only promise me that you will be safe,” he says. His dark eyes lock with mine over her shoulder and he winks. I avert my gaze, unable to face leaving someone behind. This man helped me save my sister; how can I possibly abandon him to his death? The chances of him living on the ship now are slim. He will die and I will be his murderer. Just as I abandoned my parents. Just as I was too late to save the family in the kitchens or the boy’s mother. His death will be on my hands for the rest of my life, but what other choice do I have?

A cold guilt clasps around me. I fight for each breath and rush to the rail. Hanging over, I gag as though trying to throw up all of my mistakes and all of the mistakes I have yet to make. My stomach is empty and my retching produces nothing but a sore throat.

“Are you all right?”

Adam stands to my left, staring at me. Not with concern or hate, just a strange … control. It is as though he is forcing himself to hold conversation, to stand in the company of a Marked.

I wind around to face him, my anger for the night reaching its limit. “Let’s not do this, Adam.”

He shakes his head. “Do what?”

“Pretend!”
I scream. “I am Marked. And you hate me because of it. Do not talk to me as though we do not both know this to be true. There is no point in having the company of someone who detests me. You help us escape. We forget about each other. That is all. No talking involved,” I spit as my heart cries out in protest against every callous word. He may forget me, but I will never forget him. I will never forget how I felt before and I will absolutely
never
forget the pain I feel now.

“I wish it were that easy,” he mumbles under his breath. I strain to hear him, plucking his words out of the air and attempting to string them together into coherency.

“That easy to do what?” I retort angrily.

He shakes his head and takes a step back. “I suppose it doesn’t matter anymore.”

“To do what?” I yell.

His features scrunch up in uncertainty and pain. “To hate you, Elvira. I wish I could hate you!”

“You do hate me!” I shriek. I pace forward. My hands raise and land on his chest, pushing at him, smacking him back against the rail with rage. “You hate me! And I hate you! I hate you, Adam Laurence!
I
hate you!”

He does not react. With his shoulders squared, he stares at me sadly as I pound at his chest again and again. “Fight back!” I scream. “Do something! Fight back!”

With a sudden swiftness, his hands clamp around my wrists, stopping them just before they can connect with his body. He holds them on either side of my head, the pressure almost painful. “I do not want to fight you, Elvira. I want you to get into that boat and forget about me.” His eyes shift towards the lifeboat and back to me.

I cannot read his expression. His glare is stiff and neutral. Why can he not see that forgetting about him is not an option? I want to forget. Things would be so much easier if I could simply erase his memory from my mind, but life is rarely easy. Sometimes, we must remember the bad in order to remember the good.

I just wish my good and bad did not both involve Adam.

I rip my hands out of his grip and back away. Hot, angry tears burn in my eyes. I grit my teeth, shaking my head back and forth at the lunacy of it all. How have things come to be so crazy? It took only a few hours for my world to be turned upside down … again.

Adam moves towards me, but I simply raise a hand. He stops. Lifting my gaze, I look him in the eyes for the last time. Hidden there in the green is something guarded. Something he cannot say and something I wish he could. A full minute passes before I open my mouth.

“I told you, Adam Laurence,” I whisper. “I told you, you would not like this story.”

Before he can see me break, I turn away from him and hurriedly step into the lifeboat. Dela is already sitting there, watching me with quiet concern. Mr. Eversby, holding the davits on the left, smiles at me. A goodbye. The corner of my lip somehow curves gently upward in a small smile before falling back into a frown. I do not look up again, but I feel Adam move towards the davits on the right. The lifeboat jerks as we are lowered, hitching the whole way down before the bottom just barely grazes the water.

Dela scoots towards me, placing a hand on my shoulder. “You can let go now, El.” That is all she says, but it is all I need. I come back to my senses, blinking as the world comes back into focus. The boat rocks softly on the water, still attached to the davits. Dela and I each detach the lifeboat from the ship as it carries us slowly away.

I look up at the monstrous ship. I think about all of the people on it. How many are Marked. How many are just caught in the middle. I think about what else the war will bring them. How many other battles will break out upon its deck. How many more balls will end in chaos. And how I will not be there. Severing the ties between the lifeboat and the
Celtic
also severed the ties between that part of my life and me. Perhaps now it will only be a small memory, tucked away behind all of the other past memories to make room for the present.

But the present is a scary thing. Dela and I are alone once again. We are surrounded by nothing but water in every direction, the ship’s shadow cast down upon us, and two dark figures atop its deck left with only a few curt goodbyes.

It is as though we are looking through a glass into another world. We cannot break through, only push our faces against the cool surface and wonder if things would ever be different. If things would ever be as peaceful as the image we perceive through the glass. The ship stark against the black night, stars dotting the sky … it seems peaceful, serene, happy. You would never know someone lies dead on the deck. That a woman and three children lie cold on the kitchen floor.

Things are never as they seem. A person. A Mark. A statement. They are always deeper than we perceive, like walking in the ocean and suddenly dipping under the surface because the bottom has disappeared beneath your feet. The water appears shallow until you are suddenly flailing around beneath the surface, desperately searching for stable ground once again.

I feel myself searching for that stability now, drowning in my own confusion and guilt. I squeeze my eyes shut. Distantly, I hear yelling.

“El.” My name. A barely audible whisper. “El, something’s wrong.” It is Dela speaking, worry lacing her voice.

The boat bobbles beneath me. “Something’s happening up there, El … El!”

My eyes snap open. I look at Dela. Her golden hair hangs around her face, framing her wide blue eyes that are fixated on the ship. I follow her gaze, squinting in the dark. Four shadowy figures move hurriedly across the deck. Their yells filter down over the water. Two more shapes stand frozen near the davits, the one pushing the other away, as though telling him to run. I know who it is despite not being able to see. Mr. Eversby and Adam. The other four bodies sprint towards them. One raises his hand, a gleaming metal object held out in front of him.

The bang is sudden, there and gone within a single second. It jolts Dela, but I only tense. We sit beside one another, unmoving, lips parted, eyes wide and staring. We do not dare breathe. I cannot make sense of what I am seeing until a black shape suddenly falls over the rail. A scream breaks through the night; I only realize later that it is mine. The body hits the water with a resounding splash only a few feet away from our lifeboat. A spray of water hits my face and without a moment’s hesitation, both Dela and I are manning the oars, rowing towards the flailing figure.

“It’s Mr. Eversby!” Dela cries.

I look again and realize she is right. He gasps for breath, thrashing around and paddling with only his right arm. Around his left shoulder, the water appears darker. The boat inches closer and finally, he gets a hand on the rim. We pull him up, the boat dipping and threatening to capsize multiple times before he finally makes it over. He collapses against the seats, his eyes fluttering shut and small puffs of air gasping through his chattering teeth. Blood mats his left sleeve, running in red watery veins across his shirt. The spot appearing redder and bigger with every passing moment.

“Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, no,” Dela chants beside me. She cups her hands on both cheeks, tears sliding through her fingers. “What will we do, El!”

I don’t know. How should I know what to do? I’m only sixteen. Not a nurse. Not a mother. Only a girl. I don’t know what to do!
But all I say is “Start rowing.”

She nods quickly as though I just gave her a very important task, and perhaps I did. The men on the deck are not happy about our rescue. I see their guns raise and take aim. I hear their yells and the firing of a gun. I feel the spray of water as bullets skid across the surface, missing us only by mere inches. I look at the ship, skimming its decks for any sign of a fifth man, but see nothing. I can only hope that his absence means he escaped. As I begin tearing strips off my dress, Dela keeps rowing, taking us where a black sky meets a black sea and no light can be found.