I continue to inch away. “I don’t know what you’re saying.”

Zoe takes a step toward me, a flurry of emotions flying across her delicate features: regret, guilt, sadness, and rage. When she speaks again, her voice is soft.

“I can’t let you leave.”

The words strike a chord of fear in my chest. She takes another step closer, reaching out a hand. Before I can think about what I’m doing, I shove her off the path and into a tree trunk, and she stumbles against it.

I’m halfway down the trail before she hits the ground.

22 | Reckoning

Adrenaline has my heart in my throat as I move through the trees.

My vision is swaying, fear making it hard to see straight as I make it back to the party, searching for a head of dark hair in the crowd. Mason stands on the outskirts, a red Solo cup in his hand as he surveys the scene. When he sees me and the horrified look on my face, he surges forward, and we meet in the middle.

“Alina—”

“We have to leave!”

Without giving him more of an explanation or a chance to respond, I grab his wrist, dragging him to the trail that leads back to the parking lot, and he stumbles along behind me. The forest feels thick, impenetrable, and never ending.

Mason waits until we’re far out of earshot of the party to speak. “What happened?”

“Damien,” I say between breaths. “He told me too much. Zoe overheard.”

Remembering my phone, I reach into my pocket, stopping the recording. With trembling fingers, I crank up the volume and hold the phone between us. Mason inclines his head toward me as I play it back. A lot of it is hard to hear over our footsteps, the device being in my pocket at the time of recording, and the sorrowful, reserved nature of Damien’s confession.

And then it gets close to the end, when Zoe found me. This time it sounds like she says “I can’t let you live.”

I have to suppress the urge to vomit.

Mason is at a loss for words, mouth floundering. “Where are we supposed to go?”

“I don’t know,” I say, shaking my head. “But we had to get out of there.”

My mind is reeling. For nearly two months I’ve questioned what happened to me, why it happened, and who made it happen at all. To suddenly have the motive and the culprit and an almost confession after all this time is surreal. I never thought she would admit it. I thought it would be vehement denial until there was irrefutable proof.

The truth is in my hands, but I still don’t know how we can bring it to light. We have evidence of what she did to Jacob Griffin, though we can’t prove she was involved in my accident.

“Shit,” Mason says abruptly, making me snap to attention.