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Chapter1
Kaye
The island where my sister died looms out from the waves like a headstone draped in ivy.
The Pacific is choppy and dark as the sun begins to set, throwing long red slants through seasick clouds, and my stomach twists as the ferry rolls and lolls up and down, and the trees on the island shimmer like mirages, barely there at this distance. I glimpse buildings, a dock, something glowing on the beach. Signs of life, but so far away that they’re meaningless.
I grip the railing. The metal’s cold beneath my fingers and slick with saltwater. It sprays against my face but I don’t turn away.
Did my sister feel the same sense of dread when she first saw this place?
“It’s pretty, isn’t it?” Dom joins me at the railing, leaning forward as the wind blows through his dark hair. He’s tall and handsome with dark brown eyes, dark tan skin, and dimples on both cheeks. “I checked it out on Google Earth, but it’s way better in person.”
Saint Parras Island is barely a hunk of rock jutting out of the water off the coast of California, not far from the much larger Santa Catalina Island. I’d never heard of it until Lucy told me she was going to college there.Imagine it, Kaye, an entire island with only a single college and nothing else. It’s going to be paradise.I still smile when I think about the day she got her acceptance letter, how happy she was, how she thought this would be the beginning of a better life. She was practically bouncing off the walls with joy.I’m out of here, Kaye, and I’m never looking back. God, imagine real freedom.
She lasted less than a year.
“Pretty,” I murmur, not paying attention to Dom. His cousin Nathan appears at his elbow, slightly shorter, broader shoulders and chest, with curly dark hair and forest green eyes.
“I’ve heard all sorts of rumors about Saint Parras College,” Nathan says, leaning forward over the railing and balancing with his feet off the ground. My stomach twists—if he loses his balance too much, he’ll tumble down into that black ocean and we’ll never find him.
“Stop that,” Dom says, yanking his cousin back. “The rumors are all bullshit. The whole island thing is just a marketing and PR illusion. Saint Parras is just a fancy private school for rich assholes that happens to have nice beaches.”
“Rich assholes like you and me?” Nathan looks over and grins at me. “Dom pretends like we’re not from money, but we were born with that cliché silver spoon lodged firmly down our throats.”
“We work for what we have.” Dom glares at his cousin. “You know you shouldn’t talk like that.”
“Sure, right, we totally struggle, if that’s what you tell yourself, although I don’t think you’ve worked a day in your life.” Nathan sighs and drums his knuckles on the railing. “Seriously though, I’ve heard all sorts of stuff about that island. About pirates haunting the waves and secret coves filled with sunken ships and missing treasure. About how it was a base for smuggling during Prohibition and they say the old rum’s still hidden in barrels beneath the rocks. That sort of stuff.”
“Bullshit,” Dom says quietly, but both boys stare straight ahead as the island gets larger and larger, and I know what they’re seeing: mystery and excitement and four years of college on a remote tropical island with a few hundred other rich and bored kids. They see parties and drinking and bonfires on the beach and girls looking to sleep with boys like them.
I see my dead sister’s body broken on the rocks in the shallow water at the base of a steep cliff, her neck twisted, her limbs splayed out.
I tug at my blonds hair and let the cousins chatter on about Saint Parras and all the things they’d heard about it. I don’t know much about the school and never wanted to attend in the first place. The island thing seemed contrived and weird—like, why would someone build a college in the middle of the ocean, cut off from civilization? Parras was Lucy’s paradise, her chance to get away from our family and to begin fresh in a place even our father’s influence couldn’t follow her.
She could’ve gone anywhere, but she chose this place, this island, her tomb. Straight As, debate club, field hockey, class president, valedictorian. Lucy was the model student, the sort of girl any institution would’ve gladly recruited, except all she wanted was exclusive, little-known Saint Parras. It was the only place she applied and nobody was surprise when she got in. Mom was over the moon, and even Dad showed a glimmer of pride—which is a lot from a man that never smiled.
I’m the opposite of my perfect, dead sister. My grades were fine, I can’t play sports, I’m not interested in debate or chess or clubs in general. I wanted to go to a state school or somewhere close to home back on the East Coast, but the second the call came about Lucy’s death, I knew I had to do whatever was necessary to get accepted to this place.
It became my mission, my obsession. I’ve done nothing but think about Saint Parras, obsess about the trails and the history, research the staff and the teachers and the students.
Because for all the stories the administration spun about what happened the night my sister fell off a cliff, I know it wasn’t an accident and Lucy wasn’t suicidal.
The island grows as we get closer. The ferry docks along a low jetty that juts out from a series of white-sand beaches. The glow I saw earlier is a bonfire with several students gathered around it, talking and laughing and roasting marshmallows. It looks like something from a movie. Beyond the trees lining the edge of the dunes, buildings appear against the darkening sky, whitewashed stone facades with red colonial roofs and old Spanish architecture. My future. Saint Parras College.
The dock hands tie the ferry off and the other students begin to disembark; several dozen filter down the gangway and onto the planks and toward the college that would be their life for the next few months.
“Once you’re on the island, there’s no leaving until semester break,” Nathan says, nudging me with his elbow. “We’re trapped out here, all alone. Kind of scary, right? What if some giant wave appears and just—” He gestures like he’s smashing a tiny village. “You know what I mean?” He grins, showing straight white teeth. I wonder if my sister ever felt trapped, or if this was her idea of freedom.
“He’s teasing you,” Dom says from my other side. “There are no waves like that out here. And the school gets shipments twice a week and they let students head to the mainland on weekends. There are at least another couple ferries with more students on their way over the next few days if you change your mind and want to run away.”
“Don’t spoil all the mystery,” Nathan says with a sigh. “I like to imagine we’re living in our own little society, totally disconnected from the rest of the world.”
“I’m not running away,” I say softly, but the boys don’t seem to hear. They’re too busy excitedly looking around.
“We have high-speed internet and cable TV.” Dom frowns at his cousin, head tilted to the side. “It’s not exactly a remote location. And anyway, it’s an accredited institution of higher learning, not some backwoods private party resort. We’re here to study.”
“Right, study.” Nathan rolls his eyes and both guys laugh.
