"Stay down."

I didn't object as the car bounced over a pothole and made a sharp left, throwing me against the door. The interior flashed blue and red, sirens blaring so loud that they must have been right next to the car.

Police.

"What's happening?" I gasped.

"Cops," he said unnecessarily. "Heading in. Probably looking for your car, not mine."

I hugged my knees and prayed. I'd never been religious, and I didn't ask God for a lot as we flew down the road. Just my life and Ciar's.

"Okay," he finally said, and I sat up.

"Why would the police shoot at us?" I asked immediately. "How could they have not seen me get in your car? Why aren't they following us?"

"No, the cops are coming in. Someone else was already there." He accelerated, as if the very idea still meant danger.

"Donovan?"

"Do you have a better guess?"

I didn't, so I stayed quiet. I stared through the side mirror as Ciar weaved through slower traffic. Every once in a while, I'd catch a glimpse of white behind us, and my heart would stop. But it would fade again, leaving me to wonder if it had just been a fragment of paranoia.

"Where are we going?" I finally asked.

He gnawed on his lip. "P-town," he decided after a moment.

I froze, staring at the license plate of the car in front of us without seeing it. "No," I mumbled as the walls started to close in around me, the car's cabin seeming much too small to fit us both.

Provincetown was where everything started. Where Donovan had proposed, where I had lost myself. I remembered my manic laughter bouncing off the bathroom walls. I remembered collapsing into Donovan's arms and telling him I wanted to go home. To his home, their home. That day had broken me.

In hindsight, I wondered if that had been his plan. He'd known where I was tonight. He'd known I was the FBI's mole. Had he really not known Tilda had a sister?

What if he knew just how much like Mark he looked? What if he knew that, as much as my face was his kryptonite, his was mine?

"We'll ditch the car along the coast," Ciar was saying, the engine starting to whine under the pressure of his foot on the accelerator. "Grab the jet ski. It's dark. They'll have a hell of a time tracking us."

"And then what?" I croaked, trying to imagine flying across the water in the dead of night. Where would we go?

"We can backtrack to Barnstable. Maybe Plymouth. The point is, they'll be looking for this car before dawn. We need to leave it and get out in front of them."

I peeked over at him. "Why are you doing this?"

He threw me a glance, then focused back on the road. He sighed, shifting his grip on the wheel. "Because I believe you. And I believe in what Donovan is capable of."

I played with my hands, unwilling to believe that he'd just flip sides so quickly, especially after he'd kicked me out earlier. There had to be more to it than that.

"Because we slept together?" I whispered.

"No," he said immediately, forcefully enough that it almost seemed legit. "I wish I hadn't done that. It's just...I lost Tillie by pushing her away for the same reasons, and I don't..."

He laughed, the sound biting at the suddenly thick air.

"I can't even say I don't want to lose you because that makes it sound like more than it is."

I stared at my lap, hating the part of me that stung at his admission. "It's okay, I get it."

"Fuck, Maisye, I'm not trying to be..." He heaved another sigh. "You're not her, and it doesn't seem fair to either of you to act like you are."

For a moment, I couldn't tell if he meant the real Tilda or the one inside me. She tugged at my consciousness, like an insistent mosquito buzzing in my ear.

"What if I am?" I murmured.

"Maisye!" he snapped. "Don't you dare."

I clung to my name like it was proof. Of who I was, of who I was supposed to be. Maisye.

Tilda started to sink back into her depths.

"Maybe sleep or something, yeah?" Ciar suggested, eyes held firmly on the road ahead. "We'll be a little while."

I dropped my head against the window with a plop and gave him a grumpy frown. "At least it's not the Mustang."

His tiny snort and the nearly-nonexistent dimple at the corner of his mouth relaxed my sore muscles.

▁▁▁▁▁▁▁▁

"Wake up, Maisye."

I groaned, a crick in my neck protesting as I tried to lift my head off the window. I decided to burrow deeper instead, mumbling a groggy "No" as I shifted.

"Come on." Someone slapped my arm. "We're here. Time to dump the car."

My eyes flew open, revealing a dimly-lit, ghostly Ciar. He watched me process until he was satisfied that I knew where I was, then got out.

"Wait!" I scrambled out of my own door, pins and needles rendering my legs useless. I stumbled, holding onto the car as I tried to catch up. "Where are we?"

I had stepped out into the parking lot of a hotel, the tang of salt in the air betraying the proximity of the ocean. Out on the thin arm of land that stretched out from Massachusetts into the Atlantic, the summer night was unnaturally cool, and I suppressed a shiver.

"P-town. Got us a room."

I flinched. "I'm not—"

Comfortable with that, I'd meant to finish, but he cut me off.

"We're not staying. But my face is on the camera inside, and we'll leave the car in the lot. If anyone's looking for me, this is where they'll come."

He pulled me away from the Porsche, and I staggered after him with one last glance at the car.

"What about your mom?" I mumbled.

He didn't say anything, but I saw his jaw set.

"Ciar," I started to protest.

"Stop." He held out a hand, refusing to look at me.

I took him literally, halting halfway across the lot. "Just let them catch me."

"No can do, sorry."

"Yes! You can! I'll tell them I kidnapped you and drove your car all the way out here—"

"And that's why you were asleep in the passenger's seat when we went through that toll booth?" He shook his head.

"You went through a toll booth?" I almost laughed out of disbelief. "Why would you do that?"

"So they'd know where to find us. Just let it go, Flash. You're not gonna change anything."

He started walking again, and I had no choice but to follow or render all of his efforts for nothing.

"What now?"

I felt like a goddamn toddler, tottering along after him and constantly asking questions.

"We'll go get the jet ski. It's only a few miles." He threw a glance at my feet. "Good thing you didn't decide to play with Tillie's clothes before you went out tonight."

My cheeks burned, and I stared at the ground as we walked. I didn't bother to tell him that when I'd left my house, I'd been her. I didn't remember leaving or showing up at his garage. The fact that I was wearing sneakers was just dumb luck, unless my alternate personality was gifted with prophetic foresight.

Ciar didn't question the silence. We stuck to side streets, moving at a brisk clip, and within thirty minutes I could hear the ocean billowing in and out in waves. As land gave way to the rocky coast on our right, he dropped down onto the uneven ground along the shore, holding out a hand to help me.

I ignored it, trying not to wince as my cramped muscles whined. He didn't seem offended, but he'd also already started walking again by the time I straightened. Ten perilous minutes later, I'd managed to keep my balance, and we stopped in front of a dock that rose almost level with my forehead.

"Up you go." He tossed me gently onto the platform, then dragged himself up behind me. We both clambered to our feet, and he pointed to my right. Moored alongside full-sized boats, a jet ski bobbed in the water, its black exterior barely visible in the night.

We made our way to it, but I hung back as he swung his leg over the seat and settled. Trying to figure out how to step onto that thin strip of foot space on an unstable craft, without much room left for my butt, made me pause.

Ciar held out his hand. Any other night, the sight would have made me laugh. A fully-clothed man sitting on a jet ski in the dead of night, jean-clad legs bent awkwardly so he could make room for me on the back. But all I could see was how much he was giving up to run away with someone he had no reason to trust.

"How did you pay for the hotel?" I asked.

He sighed, his head rolling back. "C'mon, Flash."

I folded my arms as he reached further. "Did you use your mom's money?"

"It's my money."

"You know what I mean."

He stared at me for a long moment. "Do you want me to say yes so you can refuse to come along? It doesn't matter. I'm already a fugitive, and I'm getting the hell out of here whether you're on the back or not."

I hated that he had a point. If I refused to go with him, he'd come all this way for nothing. He was ditching his car, and the funds for his mother's medical bills, for me.

It didn't seem right to let him go on alone.