The Cartographers(116)

She had been so close. So close.

“Can I do it?” Nell blurted.

The others braced, but Wally cocked his head.

“That’s what you want, right? To go back to Agloe with the map?” she asked. “I want to be the one to do it, just one time.”

Wally might have smiled, but it was barely a shadow of an expression. Finally, he nodded. “Your mother would have liked that,” he said.

“No, Nell,” Swann hissed desperately to her. “You can’t lock yourself in there with him. He’s got a gun, and—”

“I know,” she whispered back, helpless. But Wally was too determined, too consumed. “I don’t know what else to do.”

She took a few steps forward, her heart racing, her shoes squelching in the mud, as Swann clung to her sleeve, continuing to plead with her. She pulled the hood of her cardigan out from her head as wide as she could, to shield the map from the rain, and then looked to Ramona.

“How do I . . . ?” she asked softly.

“Just open it,” Ramona answered at last.

Nell unfolded the map and stared at the all-too-familiar lines. The sea of pale green and the roads she knew so well by now.

“Find the town,” Ramona said.

Her eyes darted, searching, trailing up from New York City into Sullivan County, toward the Catskills.

“Please, Nell,” Swann begged. “I can’t let you do this, it’s too dangerous.”

“Hurry,” Wally said.

She found the road they’d been on and glanced quickly north up the route, her gaze racing toward her destination.

“I have it,” she whispered. “Almost there . . .”

Before she knew what was happening, Swann had lurched forward, his arms so long he didn’t even need to take a step, and snatched the map from her.

Nell gasped. He’s going to rip it in half! The last copy, their last hope of ever getting inside.

“No!” Wally roared, jerking the gun from Felix to Swann so wildly that the others all cowered. “Put the map down now!”

“Wait, just wait!” Nell pleaded, at the same time that Felix was yelling, “Don’t shoot!”

She put a hand on Swann’s shoulder, willing Wally not to lose control. She was so terrified, she didn’t know if her knees were going to hold her.

She tried to keep her voice as even as possible. “What are you doing?” she whispered.

“What your father asked me to do,” Swann said, his eyes fixed on Wally. “Protect you. If there’s no map anymore, there’s no danger either. There’s nothing for Wally to take from you.”

She edged closer to him, reaching slowly for the map. If she could get it back, everything would be all right, somehow. “But if we destroy the last copy, we can never go inside. We can never . . .”

Swann nodded grimly. “I know. But I knew your father, Nell. How much he loved you. How he would do anything to keep you safe, at any cost. He would want me to do this.” His voice was quiet and tender. “Both of your parents would want me to.”

“Don’t,” Wally threatened, frantic.

But Swann whipped the map above his head, each side of it gripped in one hand.

“Swann!” Nell shrieked.

A strange force shook her suddenly, drowning out her words in a dull boom.

Nell blinked. Everything felt strange. Her insides had been rattled. Her ears hurt.

Someone—Felix?—was screaming, over and over.

Swann was still holding the map over his head. But his arms were sinking, his fingers loosening their grip, as if the world was suddenly happening in slow motion.

Then she saw the red stain blooming steadily across his back.

“No!” she cried.

Swann collapsed backward into her, and together they sank into the grass.

“I’m sorry,” Wally said. “It’s the last copy. There was no other way.”

The blood was hot, so hot. It was pouring into her lap, like a sickening bath. Her hands searched his chest, but she couldn’t find the place where the bullet had entered.

“Call an ambulance,” she said to the others, but Wally was pointing the gun at all of them now, and they could do nothing.

“William, please,” Felix begged. The gun didn’t waver.

“Just hang on,” Nell said to Swann, digging in his pockets for his phone, but he put a palm on her scrambling hands and patted them gently.

It didn’t matter. An ambulance would never arrive in time, even if she’d called it before Wally and Felix had appeared. Swann would be dead in moments.

He looked at her from somewhere far away and tried to touch her cheek. “Save . . . ,” he whispered hoarsely.

Her tears splattered against his face, but his eyes were already going dull, and he didn’t seem to notice.

“No.” She shook her head. “I’m staying here with you. I don’t give a crap about the map. I only wanted it in the first place because I wanted to get back to the library again. But what’s the library without you in it?” she said to him, so the last thing running through his mind wouldn’t be a burning need to tell her to run with the map, to leave him to die alone, because what he was doing wasn’t important. That would be exactly something Swann would think. Even in his final moments, he would be caring about her, and not himself.