“Don’t say that, Sutton,” he murmurs. I stare up at him, and his eyes are filled with earnest tenderness. “I’ve been in love with you for years.”
“In love with me?” I can’t help it. I laugh. It sounds shrill and cruel even to me, and I instantly feel bad. “You don’t even know me,” I say, lowering my voice.
“Yes, I do. I know everything about you,” he says. His voice is strangely calm and commanding, as if there’s no room for argument. As if he could convince me to love him by reasoning with me. “I know you’ve been trying to sleep with Garrett Austin all summer. I know you’ve been sneaking around with Thayer Vega. Neither one of them deserves you, but you don’t seem to get that. I know you’re adopted and that you’ve always felt like your family couldn’t possibly love you as much as they love Laurel. I know you’re afraid Nisha’s going to beat you out for the state title this fall, because you’ve barely practiced all summer. I know you need your friends to be afraid of you so they don’t get too close to you—and so you won’t have to feel hurt if they ever abandon you.”
My mouth falls open. Somewhere at the back of my mind, an alarm goes off. This has to be some kind of joke. Some kind of prank. But he’s not done.
“And I know something you don’t know.” A smile sneaks up the corners of his mouth, like he’s been waiting a long time to tell me this. “I know where your twin sister is. Emma. I’ve been watching her for weeks. I found her for you, Sutton.”
For a heartbeat, I feel like I’m paralyzed. Then the anger comes, a quick, savage spike. I didn’t even know about Emma until a few hours ago. How the hell did he?
“Have you been out here spying on me?” My voice rings with a hard edge. I push away from him, taking a step back. “That’s not cool, Ethan.”
A shadow flits across his face. “Aren’t you listening? I found Emma. For you. Do you know how hard that was? I even went to Las Vegas to make sure I had the right girl. It was uncanny—you’re totally identical.”
“That’s not the point!” My muscles tense. Something about this is all wrong. “Ethan, I don’t know how you knew about Emma, but . . .”
“I told you.” His voice is calm but insistent, like he’s reasoning with a child. “I found her for you. Because I love you.”
I feel sicker every time he says it. How long has he been following me? Listening to my conversations? He knows things about me I haven’t even told my best friends. Things I haven’t even told Thayer. And he’s been planning to give me my sister, as a present—like she was some kind of thing. But maybe that’s how he thinks about me, too. As a thing, to be fought over and won.
“Jesus, Ethan.” I shake my head, disgust curling my lip. “I don’t think you know what love is.”
Then I’m turning away from him, determined to start back down the mountain, but his hand darts out to clamp around my wrist. He pulls me back toward him, leaning in to kiss me again. His mouth is almost sickeningly sweet. Panic shoots through me, and before I can think about it, I bite down on his lip—hard. He throws me to the ground, his hand flying to his mouth in pain.
“Are you insane?” I shriek. Then I see his eyes, with their long, dark lashes. Empty and implacable. And I realize: He is.
I scramble away from him, stumbling to my feet just as he lunges, and break into a sprint down the trail, trying to put distance between us. Cacti and brambles claw at my ankles. Behind me, I can sense Ethan more than hear him—his feet make almost no sound on the hard-packed earth, but I can feel him in my wake, his hands just inches from me. I think back to the headlights in the darkness, bearing down on me and Thayer—my car. I’m suddenly certain that it was Ethan behind the wheel.
But I’m faster than he is. I make a mental note to thank Coach Maggie for every sprinting drill she’s ever made me do as I leap lightly over a small boulder. I’m going to get away from him—I’m going to head back to the visitor center, and the instant I have service I’m going to call 911 and have his creeper ass dragged off to jail. I’m going to go home to my family, to Thayer, and I’m going to put this whole god-awful night behind me forever.
My sneaker catches on something and curls under my foot, and my feet dance dangerously under me as I try to keep my balance. To my left the ravine opens hungrily. Before I can move he grabs me around the waist, pulling me off my feet. His breath is hot against my ear. “I don’t understand why you’re fighting this,” he growls, his arms so tight I can’t breathe. “You’re supposed to love me! We’re supposed to be together.”
He spins me around to face him, his teeth bared in frustration. Below us, I can hear the wind howling through the chasm. Pebbles slide away from my feet, sounding like raindrops as they fall. I scream, my voice tearing through the night. A burst of anger shoots through me, burning hotter than my fear. He’s a liar, a manipulator—and he’s been stalking me.
“I’ll never love you,” I hiss, spitting in his face.
He gives a howl of anger, and twists my wrists so hard spasms of pain shoot up my arm. I writhe in his grip, and for a moment we’re motionless, grappling silently for control.
Then my feet are sliding out from under me, my body slipping out of his grasp, and I am falling. The last thing I see is his pale, shocked face, his hand still outstretched toward me. Then the darkness swallows me, and the world is nothing but wind and stone.
I fall. Or rather, I tumble. My body careens off every outcropping of stone and every protruding branch. I flail around, grasping for any kind of handhold. For a minute my fingers close around a clump of exposed roots. Then the roots tear free from the earth, and gravity has me again.
When I land, my lungs claw inside my chest for what seems like ages before I can take a breath. The world is brilliant with agony, shimmering and surreal. When my eyes focus again, I can see a shard of bone protruding from my left leg.