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I tried to push my fear, my shock away. I needed that numbness. I needed that distance and coldness, but it wouldn’t come, because the cold was the water and the water was all around me, it was in my mouth and it was dragging at my limbs and I couldn’t breathe.
“Thank you,” I managed, a whisper that left my throat raw.
He smiled. It made his blue eyes look flat.
“Liam, why don’t you walk Ms. Hayes back to Mrs. Popova’s?” Dr. Kapoor said pointedly.
“Right,” Liam said. Anger hummed below the syllable, and for a moment I feared that he would lash out. If he demanded answers from his mother now, Dr. Hardcastle would realize we knew the truth—or part of the truth, at least. And he would be able to put together who I was.
I took Liam’s hand to pull him away, and to anchor myself. I had to get out of there, and only my grip on him kept me from running as fast as I could.
I drew him along down the road. We bypassed the car byunspoken agreement. Tension jangled in the air between us. Liam said my name. He sounded concerned. The worrier of the two of us. At least he’d kept it together. Not like me. Not this time.
“Sophia, slow down.”
I realized I was walking so fast that Liam could barely keep up. I halted abruptly. Whatever brief respite I’d earned myself was gone now, my fear tangling around me once more.
The wind stirred my hair, whipping stray strands across my face. I clawed them back behind my ears. There was something wrong with me. Or something wrong with the air. I couldn’t get a deep enough breath.
“You’re panicking again,” Liam said quietly. He started to reach for me.
“Touch me and I’m going to fucking lose it,” I warned him. I shut my eyes, but it didn’t help. I saw the water. Saw the boat. Saw Hardcastle’s hand around my wrist, holding so tight it hurt—saw Lily’s hands, closed over mine in comfort.
I saw her broken on the ground, and I saw the yawning black of the ocean.
I turned on my heel and strode off the road. We were in a gap between the houses, just a spit of rock and sand and driftwood. It was too gray and nondescript to be beautiful.
I walked all the way to the edge of the water and two steps farther. Liam called after me again, and I wondered if he thought I would keep walking, the way she had, walk all the way into the sea and let the waves fold over me. It was an efficient way of vanishing.
But I stopped with cold water lapping over my shoes, up to myankles. It rushed out and I sank a centimeter into the sand as the water drew away the ground I rested on.
The girl who looks like me. Or is it the other way around?
“Tell me I’m real,” I whispered.
“Of course you’re real,” Liam said.
I looked back at him. Salt spray pricked my cheeks. “Am I? Or am I one of them? Just an echo? What if she’s the one that’s real?”
“You’re nothing like those things. What you told me about Mikhail’s echo and that other one—”
“But she’s not like that either,” I said. “She’s... strange. But that doesn’t mean anything, not if she grew up in that place. What if I’m not me at all? What if I’m the monster who stole a girl’s life?”
“You’re not a monster,” Liam said firmly.
“Maybe that’s why I don’t feel things properly,” I said. “Maybe that’s why it takes so long for emotions to catch up with me.”
“Or maybe it’s a natural fucking response to trauma,” Liam said. “Something happened to you here. And you don’t even know what it is so that you can deal with it. I was a complete shit to call you a sociopath, Sophia, especially when I’ve had enough therapy to have my own PhD by now. You’re real. You’re human. You’reyou.”
“I’m not even sure what that means.” I let out my breath, long and slow, and looked out over the water. Dr. Kapoor had chosen a house that faced Belaya Skala. The window of her bedroom, I realized, looked right out at the headland. “They know,” I said. “They know about this place.”
“You mean Dr. Kapoor and Hardcastle?” Liam asked.
“I mean all of them. Your mom. Hardcastle. Mrs. Popova. Everyone here knows. They know that Lily isn’t missing, that she hasn’t fallen down and passed out behind a rock or drowned in the ocean. They know the island took her. Is there even going to be a search? Or will they just send a boat over and wait on the shore long enough to make us think they tried?”
Liam didn’t answer. I crouched, letting the waves run over my hands. Foam flecked my wrists. Even in the summer, the water was shockingly cold. It had been cold then too. “Hardcastle was there,” I said. “I don’t remember much, but I remember him. There was a boat, and the waves, and he grabbed my wrist and...”
I shuddered. My hands were going numb in the cold water, and I let that numbness seep through me. I wouldn’t be afraid. I wouldn’t give anyone my fear.
