Backstage at the steps leading to the ground, Edie kicked out her legs and hooked a foot on the handrail. Using it as a pivot point, she threw her body. The man lost his balance and loosened his grip. Edie twisted, using her ribcage and shoulders to pry his hands away.
Both fell hard to the steps. The edges bit into Edie’s thigh and hip and her elbow scraped hard on something metal. She fought against the throbbing pain and managed to get her feet beneath her before the man did. His uneven fingernails swiped at her ankles as she leapt over him and landed awkwardly. Without looking back, she sprinted to the gates separating the public from backstage. Under other circumstances, she might have questioned her ability to jump over the gates, but now, guided by adrenaline and instinct, it didn’t matter. She cleared the gate like an Olympic hurdler, but sandals offered no grip on the sand-covered concrete. Her front foot slipped and she landed hard in a half splits on her back knee. She cried out in pain again but continued forward with the momentum of her fear and panic.
People milled about near the food stands and restrooms but no one noticed as she ran past them. Edie cast a glance over a shoulder, expecting to see the stage crew or James or Cassidy, but found that no one pursued her. She slowed to a jog and tasted blood.
It’s happening,she thought.I’m disappearing. No one can see me because I’m disappearing.
But for now, she heard the blaring of music behind her and smelled the combination of salt and fry oil on the air, which meant that she was still on the island and still had a chance to go down fighting.
She found the tiki torches lining the beach with the hot tubs. They came up with no resistance, and Edie carried one in each hand, lifting their flames to the thatch roofs of the villas and the canvas walls of the tents she passed. An orange hue followed her, and embers rose with smoke to join the stars in the cloudless sky. The scent of campfire and burning plastic rode the breeze as the fire fed itself, leaping from building to building. Edie stood tall as her vengeance burned bright on the warpath behind her, but she knew that with every passing minute she came closer to capture.
Let them come. Let them try,she thought. And the longer she walked alone, the more her confidence in herself returned. She had the power to bring down this island and all the evil on it.
The closed restaurants and bars remained open to the air and smoke and Edie’s retribution, and although the barbacks stood empty, the sticky puddles of liquor remained. Edie touched her flamed to the wooden shelves and watched with pure satisfaction as the blue flames spread with ease.
She set her sights to the north. There, in the woods, was where all this began.
Smoke veiled the path through the center of the island, stinging her eyes and throat. The fire glowed in the black clouds above her, and still she marched alone.
Near the middle of the island where the two coves met, the smoke parted and shadows emerged from the dark. They stood in a silent line, waiting for Edie’s approach. Seeing them made her heart drop into her stomach, but she held her head high and raised the torches like the staffs of a goddess.
“Edie!” someone called. The voice sounded familiar, but Edie knew better.
A shadow approached her, stepping away from the group and walking along the sandbar between the coves like an army captain meeting to discuss terms of war. As the figure neared the light from Edie’s destruction to the south, their features came into focus. They wore a slip dress and tattoos covered their arms, but their face remained obscured.
“What are you trying to do, Edie?” the thing that was not Cassidy asked.
“I’m getting off this fucking island.”
“By burning it down?” It chuckled as though speaking to a misunderstanding child.
“Someone is going to see the smoke and the fire. This isn’t something you can control.”
“You have no idea what we’re capable of.”
The thing took a step towards Edie. She swept the torch in her right hand at the thing as a warning. The flame flapped through the air and then came to stop in front of—not Cassidy as she expected—but Edie’s own face.
“Maybe you’ll believe it if you hear it come from your own mouth,” the Not-Edie said in Edie’s own voice.
Edie screamed and jumped backward, but instead of loose sand, something solid caught her and pinned her arms down. She dropped both torches and screamed.
“No! No!” Edie kicked her legs, jamming the heels of her feet hard into the shins of whomever held her, but she may as well have been kicking at the bars of a cell. “This isn’t real! None of this is real!”
“Say what you want, it won’t change a thing,” Not-Edie told her.
Edie writhed as her captor carried her to the edge of the water. Not-Edie walked beside them.
“You could have left things alone and made your mark on the world, we would have given you that, but not now. Now, you’re going to die and no one in the world is going to know, because they won’t remember you. They know your face, this face, and that’s all we really needed from you.”
The cool water hit Edie’s feet and then climbed up her legs as the three of them descended into the ocean. Edie continued to scream and squirm. The bare arms around her own slicked with salt water, but their grip held. She kicked, but now the ocean gripped her limbs, slowing them down and making her struggle to escape less effective than on the shore.
Not-Edie’s head floated above the water as the waves lapped at Edie’s face. She lifted her mouth to the sky, taking in gasping breaths as tears came to her eyes.
“Don’t worry,” Not-Edie said, lifting a wet hand to Edie’s cheek. “It only hurts until it doesn’t.”
Instead of taking the last breath she needed, Edie screamed. Salt water filled her mouth as the shadows carried her beneath the surface of the water, cutting short her final cries.
Then only stars and silence remained above the darkened island.
