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Just then, lighting breaks overhead, illuminating a shadow that moves along the window. I let out a scream and scramble to my feet, tripping backward against the wall. I don’t know what I’m expecting. Who I’m expecting. My mother’s ghost? Santos’s?
Sirens wail in the distance. I shake my head to clear it. There’s no one here. It’s just me. My heart thuds against my chest as I look around. What am I doing here? There’s only one thing to be done, isn’t there?
I shift my gaze to the door that leads to the catwalk. I remember my father talking about the lock they’d installed after my mother’s death. Too late, he’d said. She’d have found another way, I think.
Confused, I go to it, turn the handle to push it open. The sound it makes is one I’d forgotten, but now that I hear it again, it reminds me of that night fifteen years ago, the night my mother jumped to her death. It’s like fate when I step out onto the wooden planks laid over the damaged catwalk and stand in the fury of the storm.
Are you so unaccustomed to being wanted?
He’d wanted me.
And now he’s gone. I made sure of that.
A sob breaks from my chest, and I take a step toward the railing, ignoring the yellow tape warning of danger.
I can almost see my mother as she disappeared that night, her hair a dark river down her back. My hands shake as I reach for the rail. I grip it and make myself look down. Rain slashes my face, my clothes, soaking me through as the sea crashes against the cliffs, the water so high the rocks are almost invisible.
Is this where she went over? I don’t know. I close my eyes, listen to the chaos around me, and wonder what I’m doing here. Am I going to jump, too? Is that why I came?
“Stop!”
I gasp, startled, spinning around, the railing wobbly behind me. The beacon pans over the sea and between that and the lamp at the window, I can make out the face of the man who must have been the shadow I saw. Except that it doesn’t belong here. He doesn’t belong here. I bring my trembling hands before me holding the letter opener between myself and the hulking man with the scar that circles his neck. The cool, steel eyes trap me as they take in the state of me.
Thiago Avery’s eyes.
He holds his hands out, palms up, and looks me over. I look down at myself, too, to see what he sees. The bloody mess of me. I wonder if he hears the low keening coming from inside my chest over the fury of the storm.
“What did you do?” he asks, taking a step toward me.
I walk backwards away from him, away from the door that leads back into the lighthouse.
He follows me, but he’s cautious. “Stop. It’s not safe.”
The wind seems to grow angrier as I look over my shoulder and down at the sea below.
“You can’t be here, Madelena,” he says.
When I look back at him, he’s closer. “Get away from me!” I yell, brandishing the letter opener between us.
He looks at it, then back at me. I see another shadow through the window, this one inside the lighthouse. I’m sure I’m not imagining it when Thiago glances at it as the shape moves.
“Give me that,” Thiago says.
I look up at his open palm and shake my head.
“I am not your enemy,” he says, taking another step toward me. I’m almost out of space. The railing is broken, and the catwalk is closed off a few feet from me. I can’t go around. That shape inside moves again, and again, Thiago glances at it. When he looks back at me, he seems angry. “Your enemy is much closer to home, and in his veins is the blood of a monster.”
The sound of the heavy metal door opening has us both turning, me trying to see around Thiago, him looking over his shoulder. Between the darkness and the rain, I can’t see who it is. What I know, though, is that I need to get away. Heavy footsteps approach us, and as I look around me for an escape, the railing I’m holding onto whines.
A moment later, there’s a sharp crack, and I scream as it gives way and cling to it as my feet lose purchase on the slippery planks.
Thiago calls out my name, lunging toward me and just as my grip beings to slide from the railing and I’m sure I’m going to go over, a hand wraps around my wrist and I’m jerked to a stop, jerked again when he hauls me up onto the catwalk. The air is knocked out of me for the second time this night as I crash against the wall, my head hitting unyielding stone. My vision falters, going dark, stars dancing. I’m going to be sick again.
Thiago says something, or someone else does. I force my eyes to open. Lightning crashes, illuminating the sky, and I see Thiago. His attention is on the man who is a shadow to me. Just before the night falls dark again, I watch that shadow lunge for Thiago.
I scream, rain pelting me when I look up to see that terrible scar circling Thiago’s neck, the cold steel of his eyes, and finally, the terror in those eyes as a hand slams against his chest. Thiago reaches for that hand, managing to catch the wrist momentarily, but it’s too late. He’s lost his balance.
Something clatters to the catwalk, bouncing and I hear the grunt of air leaving Thiago’s lungs and then the scream as his body goes toppling over the edge, that broken railing hanging useless behind him.
Before I can process what’s just happened, before I can scream or even breathe, the man who just pushed Thiago over grips my jaw and slams my head so hard against the wall that this time, there are no stars, no blurry vision. No momentary reprieve. There is only darkness.
