Page 121 of Shatter

"Hakon." Dag's voice carries across the grass.

I turn around.

He's walking toward me across the wet grass behind the shop in a faded bathrobe and unlaced boots, his gray hair sticking up on one side, his half-moon glasses crooked on his nose.

He's holding something.

A sandwich bag.

Inside it, a black flash drive no bigger than my thumb.

I stare at it.

"She woke me up at three." Dag stops a few feet away and holds it out. "Knocked on my door softly, like she didn't want anybody else to hear. Had her shoes in her hand."

"The drive." My voice doesn't sound like mine. "She left it."

"She left this one." Dag's face is grim. "The real one."

Cold floods my hands.

"She said if Pierce asks, she has it." He pushes his glasses up with one finger. "She's carrying a blank. Bought it at the Walgreens on Monroe on Sunday, she said. Loaded it with junk so it'd look right."

Last week.

Before the patch and the fight, before her mother ever called.

She's been planning this since the day after Pierce walked into Zizi’s.

"She said to give it to you if she's not back by noon." Dag's voice goes lower. "She said to tell you she's sorry. And to tell you the fight wasn't your fault. She said you'd need to hear it."

I close my eyes.

The fight.

I stood in the room and let her walk out, and I thought she was running from me.

She wasn't running from me.

She was giving me a reason to let her go.

A sound comes out of me I don't recognize, low and cracked, like something giving way under too much weight.

"Where?" I open my eyes. "Did she say where?"

Dag shakes his head.

"Only that it would be over soon." He hesitates. "And that nobody here would have to bleed for her."

The strand of hair is still between my fingers.

I close my fist around it.

Behind Dag, the back door of the clubhouse bangs open.

Tor comes out onto the steps in jeans and a black T-shirt, barefoot, his hair wild, his phone in his hand.

He looks at me, standing in the grass with my shirt off and her note crushed in one fist, then at the drive in Dag's hand.