The Last Flight(50)
In the few weeks she’d been on hiatus, the landscape of Eva’s life had shifted, and she was struggling to navigate back to normal. She began thinking about her life as two parallel tracks, the one she was living, with her late-night lab work and the demands of Dex and Fish taking up her time, and the life she’d had just a couple weeks ago. Dinners with Liz. An uncomplicated window of time that had felt lighter and brighter than she’d ever imagined.
And now, as she wove her way through the crowds dressed in blue and gold, up the hill that led to Memorial Stadium, her mind was fuzzy, her eyes gritty. She waited in line at the gate, her eyes trained on the security guards asking everyone to open their purses and bags for inspection. She pressed her arm against her side, feeling the outline of the package of pills, safely tucked into an inner pocket of her coat.
Eva hadn’t contacted any of her clients to let them know she was back to work. She would make the drugs for Fish, but as far as her clients were concerned, she was still on hiatus and would remain so indefinitely. Her singular goal was to gather as much information about Fish and the way his organization was structured as she could, not make money she didn’t really need.
When she reached the front of the line, she opened her purse and watched the guard’s eyes scan the contents—a wallet, sunglasses, and small voice recorder—and held her breath as she always did, waiting for someone to finally see through her act, to finally see her for what she really was.
But that wasn’t going to happen today.
As she passed through the entrance and into the stadium, the field spread out below her, each end zone painted with a yellow California set against a dark blue background, the trademark script Cal centered on the fifty-yard line. Eva ignored the people in the seats around her, instead staring across the field as the marching band played and students filled the section next to it, feeling more isolated and alone than she’d felt in years.
As an undergrad, Eva had only been to one game, and the memory of it haunted her every time she returned. Meet me in the north tunnel afterward, Wade had said. She’d been shocked to see the number of people lingering there, waiting for players. Hangers-on, followers, sorority girls flipping their hair and checking their lip gloss. She’d hung back, watching as she always did, from the perimeter. When he came out, his eyes scanned the crowd and landed on her. As if she glowed. He passed through the crowd of people and claimed her, putting his arm around her and leading her away, the smell of his soap mixing with the redwood trees that surrounded the stadium. She knew then that she was lost, that Wade Roberts had chosen her, and she was bound to follow whether she wanted to or not.
She’d first met him in the chemistry lab she was TA’ing. At the beginning, she’d assumed he was just another jock, trying to flirt his way to a better grade. But every time Wade had looked at her, she felt an electric zing pass through her.
Early in the semester, she’d been walking them through some basic chemical reactions when Wade had said, “Why are we doing this? When are we ever going to need to know what substances react with calcium chloride?”
She should have redirected him back to the task. But Eva knew she needed to be someone unexpected if she hoped to hold his attention. “Do you like candy?” she’d asked him. And then she’d shown them all how to make strawberry-flavored crystals, a simple procedure that anyone could find on the internet if they wanted to.
That was how it started. A pin in the map that marked the beginning of a journey she never wanted to take. Wade had begun pressuring her to try making drugs shortly after they started dating. At first, she didn’t want to. But what he was asking was so simple, she figured she’d do it once and get him off her back. Science had always been where she felt the safest—among the laws of physics and chemistry. Unlike life, which could dump you at a group home at the age of two with no warning or second chances, chemistry was predictable, its actions absolute. Wade was the person everyone wanted to be close to, and he wanted to be close to her. And so, when he asked her to do it again, she did. And then again after that.
The stadium was filling up. Eva checked her watch and reached into her purse to activate the voice recorder. Across the field, the marching band drums pounded a rhythm, the same one from that day so many years ago. The people around her pressed closer, making her feel smothered, and she tried to shrink down inside herself, to just hang on. Wait. To do her job and be ready.
“Been here long?” Dex asked, sliding into the seat next to her.
“Maybe five minutes.” Her eyes traveled up the hill where the cannon that fired after every touchdown poked through the trees on its platform, a white California banner fluttering in the wind. Tightwad Hill, open to anyone willing to hike up there and sit in the dirt. Fucking Berkeley. “God, I hate this place,” she said.
“Then give me what you’ve got and let’s get out of here.” He twisted around, looking into the crowd behind them, and then faced forward again, his knee bouncing a jittery rhythm.
Eva shook her head. “Not a chance. We do this my way.” She knew that just because Dex said Castro was gone, it didn’t mean he wasn’t still out there, watching her. Waiting for her to make a mistake.
“You really don’t need to worry.”
“Your lack of detail does not inspire confidence,” Eva said. She pulled her purse from underneath her seat and inspected the bottom of it, wiping dead leaves and an old gum wrapper off of it before placing it next to her armrest. “You need to give me specifics. Who was following me. Why. And how it is they’re gone now.”