Find Me Where the Water Ends (So Close to You) by Rachel Carter Page B

Thirty-one.”
    I do not want to be left alone with her, and I feel the corners of my mouth turn down. Wes sees my expression and stands up, holding out a hand to Twenty-two. She stares at him for a minute before she folds her small fingers into his. They walk away until they’re out of hearing range.
    Tim leans back on his arms, his legs stretched out in front of him. “What do you think they’re talking about?”
    “Probably plotting our murders.”
    “Eleven wouldn’t murder you.” He looks better now that we have rested for a while—his rounded cheeks are pink again and he no longer has sweat trickling down the edge of his hairline.
    I pick at the moss in front of me. “I’m not so sure anymore.”
    “I am. You don’t stare at a girl like that if you’re thinking of killing her.”
    “Maybe it was a killing stare.”
    He rolls his eyes.
    Wes and Twenty-two bend their heads together, and I see how good they look standing side by side. Her coloring is more olive toned, but they have the same black hair and dark eyes. She is so petite it seems he will fold her into his arms at any moment.
    They look comfortable, like they’ve known each other for years. I think of when I first saw her in 1989. Wes acted like they’d never met before, but now I wonder if he was telling the truth.
    I keep picking at the moss, squeezing the spongy green between my fingers, pulling it up from the ground and exposing a small bare patch of the rock it grows on.
    “It’s the color of your eyes.”
    “What?”
    “The moss. It’s the color of your eyes.” With another guy I might think he was hitting on me, but Tim says it in that easy way of his, like he’s commenting on the weather.
    “Bentley green. It runs in the family.” As soon as the words leave my mouth I realize what I have just said.
    Tim sits up again and rests his hands on his bent knees. “Bentley? That’s your last name?”
    “I—”
    He grins. “I’m wearing you down. You know it’s only a matter of time before you tell me all of it.”
    I stare at the bald spot I’ve made in the gray rock, refusing to meet his eyes.
    “Bentley. Like a luxury car. I like it.”
    “I picked it out myself.”
    He laughs, and I lift my head, startled not just by the sound but by myself—that I would make a joke again, however lame it is.
    “Let’s go.” Wes’s voice cuts across the small clearing, and Tim’s laughter dies away. “If it gets too dark the fish won’t bite.”
    “I know, I know.” Tim gets to his feet, but then pauses and looks down at me, pointing to the shotgun. “Keep it. In case she tries anything.”
    “Thanks.”
    He nods and makes his way to the tree line. Wes gives me one last look before he follows him, and then Twenty-two and I are alone.
    I expect her to say something, but she just sinks back down to the ground, cross-legged with her hands folded in her lap.
    We are silent for a minute, then two, then ten, and she seems content to sit there, staring at nothing. But I am getting bored, and the old me, the Lydia who’d wanted to be a journalist, who’d wandered down into that open bunker at Camp Hero just because I needed answers, has never been very comfortable with silence.
    “So you’re not going to try and kill me again?”
    She shakes her head, facing the trees. “Eleven said I couldn’t.”
    “He did?”
    “He said that you were too important to the mission, and if I killed you then he’d leave me here alone.”
    “It seems like you’d rather be alone.”
    She turns her head, and although we are several feet away from each other, I see the animosity in her gaze. “I’d rather you be gone. And the other one. But Eleven and I will complete this mission together, just as we have all the others.”
    I scoot closer to her, ignoring the glare she gives me. “Exactly how many missions could you have been on together? W—Eleven introduced himself to you in the hotel room like you’d never met.”
    She lifts one tiny