“What?” Kai blurted out.

Michael scowled. “Excuse me?”

The door slid closed, and I made eye contact with all of them. “We should go back and get the ones we left behind.”

“We can’t go back,” Michael said.

“We can.” I nodded. “The locomotive goes in reverse.”

He rolled his eyes, and Kai stood up, his wife climbing off of him. “A security team will already be there. Going back puts Will at risk.”

“First of all, Aydin and Taylor are loose ends,” I told them. “You rescued Will under the assumption the other prisoners wouldn’t care. They do. I promise. And second, Taylor Dinescu can go fuck himself, but Aydin would be a useful ally. We need him.”

“You need him,” Alex retorted. “Aydin Khadir doesn’t deserve us. That’s the difference between you and me, Em. I can sacrifice what I want for the good of others.”

“And what do you think I did?” I fired back.

I wanted Will more than I’d ever wanted anything. I wanted it all.

I just didn’t want him experiencing the stress of my life. I was embarrassed. And I needed to protect my grandma. I fucking sacrificed.

I held Alex’s green eyes, seeing the pain in hers that I always felt in mine. She thought it was easy for me, because it was easier to believe that.

She knew better.

She pursed her lips, and I could see her trying to swallow, but she couldn’t. After a moment, she downed the rest of her drink and swiveled in her chair, looking over at Michael and Erika as she set her empty glass on the table. “Do you remember that pool party Michael and the guys took you to when you first moved to Delcour?”

Erika nodded, hopping off the stool and walking over to sit in the chair next to Alex.

“Aydin was there that night,” Alex told us. “He went to Yale with one of Michael’s teammates, and we hadn’t seen each other in a long time.” She paused, and I could see the memory playing behind her eyes. “The more I drank, the more I hated him, and the braver I got.”

Why did she hate him? I’d gotten pieces of a story at Blackchurch. He wanted her. He denied it, because of family pressure. She survived without him.

Alex looked over at me. “I was roommates with his girlfriend in college, you see?” she told me. “We played together one night while he watched us over Skype. That’s how we met.”

Played? I couldn’t imagine that. I couldn’t imagine Aydin in college. Experiencing youth like a real human.

I could see her, though. Performing for him. Taunting him.

“You should’ve seen his eyes.” Alex closed hers for a moment as everyone listened. “It was like he was in pain or something. I could almost feel his breath and the heat in his arms.” She opened her eyes, lost in thought. “And then a few nights later, he wanted me to himself, but when push came to shove, he couldn’t step up, and he chose her.”

I remained in my spot as Will dropped down into the sofa on my right.

Alex shrugged. “It was okay. He wasn’t mine to begin with. I had no right.”

Setting her glass down, she exhaled and continued, glancing at Erika. “The night of the pool party, I’d heard they weren’t together anymore, and when he couldn’t stop looking at me across the room, the stronger I got,” she told us. “But I wasn’t going to let him win. I wasn’t a dog, sitting there waiting for his affection.”

“What did you do?” I asked.

But it was Will’s voice I heard next. “You let me take off your top in the pool.”

Another man taking her top off in front of him…

“And he was watching,” I said.

Alex tipped her chin up, the pride covering up the pain from a few moments ago. “Life goes on,” she said, “and my bed wasn’t cold. I wanted him to know he didn’t matter, and I wasn’t ashamed of anything I’d done. He didn’t exist.”

And Aydin couldn’t look at her, but he didn’t want his fiancée anymore, either. He got sent to Blackchurch over it.

She looked over at Will. “Everyone looked at me. Your hands on me.”

“And then everyone else got naked in the pool,” Will continued.

Alex’s gaze drifted off. “And he watched me look at you and you look at me and knew that he’d lost.”

“And what did you win?” I asked.

Believe me, I knew something about staying on your feet and not letting anyone get the better of you, but she’d been hiding behind Will to fend off the loneliness and despair.

Because when they enabled each other in their vices, they felt accepted and didn’t have to face the harder road ahead.

That road was inevitable.

“Not everyone is born knowing their path is from point A to point B, Alex,” I bit out. “You and Will are the same. You sit up there on your high horse, all ‘love conquers all’ and shit, and refuse to understand that there are impossible choices others have to make, but it doesn’t mean we don’t love.”

My voice grew harder, and I glanced around the room and then back to Alex.

“Does it suck? Yes!” I yelled, feeling Will’s eyes on me. “But do you understand it? I know you do. Sometimes the uncertainty seems like more of a risk than just staying with what’s familiar. It takes time to grow that courage. Don’t you understand that?”

They could all do whatever they wanted in high school, and now years later in Thunder Bay, because Damon was right. The villain was just a matter of perspective. It was as easy as pie for them to judge me, because on the rare occasion they weren’t doing fucked-up shit themselves, they got these splendid little attacks of sanctimony when it came to anyone outside their little group.

“You’re so self-righteous,” I snarled, looking around the room. “All of you.”

I lashed out and kicked the table so that the vase sitting on it toppled over. Alex tensed, a fire lighting in her eyes.

Will sat there like ice.

“You’re not good enough for me,” I told them and spun around, heading out of the room.

But then I heard a chair creak and Alex’s voice behind me. “I want my shirt,” she blurted out. “Now.”

I twisted around, seeing her standing and challenging me with her hand out.

“And my sneakers,” she said.

“Get fucked, Alex Palmer!” I bellowed, flipping her both of my middle fingers.

She started for me, but just then the lights went out, the train lurched, and the wheels underneath us screamed as I flew back into the wall and crashed to my ass.

I winced. What the hell?

Moonlight cast a soft glow in the car, and I saw Will jostle in his seat. Alex flew forward, landing on her hands and knees in front of me. One of the guys cursed, and a woman cried out.

I gasped, looking around the dark compartment, seeing Will still seated and righting himself, while Michael pushed himself to his feet and took out his phone.

“What was that?” Kai snapped.

“Everyone okay?” Erika asked.

The train had stopped, but I just looked up and met Alex’s glare in the darkness as she looked at me like she wanted to kill me.

Right there in the darkness with everyone distracted.