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If it really were Garrett, I’d want to say something, to tell him how sorry I am that this happened. Whatever he’s done, he did not deserve this. His family does not deserve this. But there isn’t time to alleviate my own guilt. I didn’t bring him here. I tried to warn him—over and over I tried to warn him.
“I want to talk to the other one,” I say, my voice firming with each word. “Let me speak to it, please.”
His lip curls. “What the fuck are you talking about, Laney?”
Kit says, “We need to speak to—”
Garrett pounds on the door. “You’ll speak to me, asshole. Stop pretending I’m not here. Stop treating me like something you scraped off your fucking shoe. You think I don’t see that? You and that dyke sister of yours act like you’re so much better than me.”
That is Garrett. Not some entity manipulating his voice. That ranting should harden my heart, but all I can think is that Garrett is in there, trapped in that mangled body.
Does he know what’s happened to him? Is he even aware of it? From the way he’s standing, the way he’s pounding, I don’t think he does. Like Sadie, he doesn’t seem to register his injuries, and that is a blessing. It’s horrible to witness, but it is a blessing.
“We need to speak to whoever is doing this,” Kit says, his voice as calm as if he’d just waited through a spate of pleasantries. “We need—”
“Kit!” Jayla shouts.
Madison. Something must be happening with Madison.
I wheel to run back to the great room. Then I see what Jayladoes. Sadie stands at the bank of great-room windows, and there’s just enough moonlight for me to be sure it’s her and not a vision of her. Dark avian shapes still dot the deck railing, silent and still and seeming to watch Sadie as she stands, equally silent and still at the window.
I take a few steps that way, and Sadie’s head snaps up, an almost crow-like movement, unnaturally sharp. Jayla lifts her flashlight to shine on Sadie, and then drops the beam fast as she makes a noise of revulsion. I don’t see Sadie’s injuries, though. Oh, they’re there—I can tell by the crooked outline of her form—but all I see is her eyes. Black gleaming eyes. Her head jerks from me to Jayla and then back, those birdlike movements, quick and darting.
Then her mouth opens, and the other voice comes out. The one that is somehow quiet and booming at the same time, like a whisper that pounds in my skull. The sound seems to come from everywhere, and when I turn around, Garrett has gone still, his eyes now black holes, his mouth open as he speaks the same words.
“You made an oath. You broke that oath.”
“No,” I say. “There’s been a mistake. I didn’t make any oath.”
“This is your island.”
“Yes, but I didn’t make the oath, whatever it was.”
Jayla’s on her feet now. “Laney is not responsible for—”
“Silence!” The entire house shakes with the force of that single word. “I am not speaking to you.”
Those bird eyes turn my way again. “Youareresponsible for what they did because you made the oath.”
“I didn’t make any—”
“Who are you?” Kit says. “What are you?”
Those eyes swing his way, mouth opening, but he lifts his hands.
“Yes, you aren’t talking to me,” he says. “But I’m not arguing. I’m trying to clarify. Laney can’t understand what’s happening if she doesn’t know what you are.”
“I am me,” Sadie and Garrett snarl together. “I amme.”
“But what—”
“Do you want pretty words? I could say them in a dozen languages long forgotten.” The voice spits a stream of indecipherable words. “Does that help? All of them are me, and none of them are me. I amme.I am not a word.”
“Did someone bring you here?” I ask.
A sound between a snort and a snarl. “Bring me here? To myself?Iam here.Thisis me.”
“This isn’t getting us—” Jayla mutters, but at a look from Kit, she stops.
