“Clay!” I shout, wanting him to know that I’m no longer inside.
But Langston grabs my face. “Shut up,” he hisses, then resumes pulling me toward shore.
Several seconds pass, the island quiet. The house quiet. Not a sound.
I can’t breathe, can’t think. Everything is happening too fast.
We’re halfway to the shore… when the gunshot pierces the air. And then, the sound of two men fighting from inside the house—struggling.
Tears blur my vision. I need to get back inside; I need to help him.
“Looks like I might be the new admiral,” Langston hisses in my ear.
“Fuck you!”
He laughs, then yanks a wad of my hair. I cry out, but we’ve reached the rocks, and I can see a small boat resting on the shore below, a motor at the back. Shit.
If he forces me off the island…
I’ll jump into the sea. I’ll drown first.
Another gunshot rings through the air.
And then silence.
Langston pauses, listening. But there’s no sound. No footsteps. No breathing.
“Looks like we’re both free,” he says against my ear. “And you might be in need of a new husband.”
“No—” The word is gravel against my lips, but tears slide down my cheeks.
He resumes dragging me, picking his way down the slick rocks. I want to fight, I want to scream, but the only thing I can feel is the pressure in my chest, and the damp sting of tears spilling from my chin.
No, no, no. If Clay is dead, then there’s nothing left.
My body goes limp, the sky gray and dismal. Heavy with rain. But the pain expands in my chest, my mind closing in on itself, shutting down, giving up.
We reach the bottom of the rocks, and he shoves me into the boat. I hit hard, the air knocked from my lungs. I gasp, trying to breathe, but everything is spinning.
He pushes the boat free from the rocks, and I can feel that we’re now floating. He climbs in, steps over me to sit beside the motor. “Stay down,” he barks.
I blink, blink, feeling so hollowed out, I’m certain I’m no longer awake. But I manage to lift my head, reach an arm up. I’m going to pull myself over the side, slip into the Atlantic, and let the water take me. I won’t fight it. I will open my mouth and drink down the sea.
I feel the cold water against my fingertips, I’m about to angle my body over the side, when his hand is on my head, forcing me back down. But this time he’s over top of me, and the boat has drifted a good several yards away from the island.
“Maybe I’ll make you my wife right now,” he growls, baring his awful teeth.
I want to spit in his face, I want to tell him to fuck off, but I’m thinking only of Clay. Of his body lying on the kitchen floor, blood spilling out from a bullet hole.
My eyes slide away from the man pinning me down, to the shoreline, to the rocks, to the grass bending in the evening breeze.
Quiet and serene.
Deceiving.
Langston touches my thigh, his face close to mine, breathing hot against my cheek.
But I stare at the island. Whatever happens next, I want it to be the last thing I see, the last thing I remember. To hold in the center of my chest, where no one can take it from me. But my eyes are blurred by tears. They see something that isn’t there.
