INSTALOVE

Chapter 42: The Overlook

Chapter 42: The Overlook

E L L I E

I swore I'd never set foot in this place again. You'd think the universe had sent me enough warning messages to last a lifetime. But no. Here I am, huffing and puffing from the steep climb upward, with my sandals chafing at my feet and sweat pouring down my temples.

The lake below looks more ominous than last time I was up here—black water, rippling from the rising wind and reflecting the dark storm clouds gathering overhead. I can feel the growing dampness in the air. Any second now, it's going to pour.

But I can't go back. Not without Reese. Not without the visor.

I glance at the girl before me. Reese stands dead center in the middle of the exposed clifftop with Eleanor's visor pressed to her eyes. She has her back to me, facing toward the yellow police tape and the ledge beyond.

Behind her, my view of the lake is obscured by the thickening clouds. It's the middle of the day, but you'd think it was close to nightfall by the color of the sky, darker than the slate rock beneath Reese's sneakers.

I feel a raindrop, and hold out my hand, palm up.

Drop. Drop... Plop.

These aren't the misty raindrops of a gentle summer sprinkle. They're the fat kind that serve as a warning of an oncoming downpour.

Great. An exposed cliff in a thunderstorm. Probably not the wisest place to be...

I wipe my wet hand against shorts and retreat closer to the trailhead under the branches of the nearest tree. "We shouldn't be up here," I call to Reese. "There's a storm coming!"

She merely shrugs. "So leave if you're afraid. Run along."

If only I had my cellphone... I reached for it as Reese flung herself over the locked metal gate at the bottom of the trail, but I found my pocket empty. I must have left it my room.

Now I'm caught up here device-less. No visor. No phone. No way to call for help beyond the sound of my own voice, and the hasty message scrawled in mud that I left before I clambered after Reese. I can only hope that some responsible adult—Dr. Carlyle, security, the police, surely someone—will notice it and come after us.

Reese stays put in the center of the cliff, but she turns slowly to confront me. "You should go back," she says grimly. "This doesn't concern you, Lowercase."

Lowercase.

Something in the way she says that nickname makes me tremble. Is she still calling me that? Now? After everything that's happened? I always assumed Eleanor was the one who refused to let me go by my real name, but I don't actually know that for a fact. I never heard Eleanor say so to my face. It was all dictated by Reese. She's the one who changed the username on my account. Was she the one who invented that nickname, Lowercase?

I think back, trying to visualize the scene on the first day of the program, surrounded by five laughing girls sprawled out on Reese and Eleanor's beds.

No. I think it was one of the others who first suggested it. Maybe Mirand—

Wait a sec.

Miranda... I feel the breath leave my lungs in a rush. Of course... How could I have overlooked that? How many times have I heard Maddox refer to her by the diminutive form of her name?

M!

My eyes fly back to Reese. She has the visor pressed to her face again. "That's it, M," she mutters, rubbing her hands together. "Get your lying ass up here."