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“I don’t need a buddy. I just need to study. Talk while I’m doing that, and I will duct-tape your mouth shut. Got it?”
My knees wobble, and I want to fall to the floor and sob.
I can’t see anything. The room swirls into memories, all our firsts popping like fireworks. That first time we met. The first time I saw her smile. The first time I made her laugh. The first time I balled up the courage to ask her to a movie and she shrugged and said, “Sure, whatever,” in that too-cool Jayla way. The first time I dared call her my friend, feeling like I’d somehow managed to snatch a rare gem from under the oblivious eyes of our classmates.
My Jayla is gone.
My Jayla.
Except she’s not only mine. She has a girlfriend who might have been “the one.” She has parents who adore her. And then there’s Kit, and there is no way in hell he is going to wake up to hear me say that I did not go after his sister.
Don’t give up. Don’t walk away. Don’t abandon her, even if it’s too late.
I make it three steps before a small voice behind me rasps, “Laney?”
I turn, and there is enough light for me to see a figure in the back hall. Madison’s figure. She’s moving slowly, hand to her throat, and behind her, Garrett’s arm is outstretched on the floor. That arm twitches, and I race to Madison. I yank her away from Garrett’s body. His arm twitches once more, and then falls.
“Laney?” Madison rasps.
I guide her into the great room. She’s moving slowly, as if in a trance, not having seen Garrett, not seeing Kit as I steer her around his unconscious form. I take her to the sofa bed, and I lay her down. Her eyelids flutter shut.
I glance toward the window, remembering Jayla. I need to go after her. For Kit, I need to go after her.
But I can’t leave Madison. Earlier, I did. I ran to Jayla and let Madison stay in the crawlspace because I recognized who needed me more in that moment, and part of me screams that Jayla needs me—what if she’s still alive?—but it is that small, infantile piece that only reacts, cannot reason, can only feel. I saw what happened. I know she is gone. The pain of that has me doubling over in excruciating agony, but I know what I need to do.
Who needs me now? Madison.
“Mads?” I say. “I have to check on Kit—”
Her eyes fly open, and they are dark as night. I stagger backward, smacking into the coffee table. Madison’s head twists my way, those bird eyes fixed on mine.
I see those eyes—see that thing in her—and rage roils in me. Impotent rage, because I want to grab that thing and shake it and do whatever I can do to it… and I can do nothing, because it is in Madison. In mydaughter.
This thing murdered Jayla.Jayla,who’d done nothing wrong.
“Why her?” I rasp, barely able to speak through my rage. “Whyher?”
“You broke your oath. There is a price to pay.”
That rage turns the world red. “Jayla was not aprice.She was aperson.”
“You promised me peace. Then you brought strangers. You let them poke and prod at me, rip out plants, chop living trees for fires, torment foxes, kill rabbits for sport, pull fish from the lake and let them die, gasping on the rocks. Like I did to your friend.”
That is not the same thing!I want to scream the words, but I clamp them back because it has a hostage, the most precious hostage of all.
“I am sorry,” I say, as evenly as I can. “I will leave this island—”
“Oh, no, you will not. You are the guardian. You made an oath.”
“You killed my friend—myfriends—and you think I will stay—”
“You think me cruel? I would have forgiven you for waking me with the cries of the island. I would have acknowledged the mistake and accepted penance. But it was not enough. You letthem”—it spits the word—“on the island. Let them try to summondarknesshere. They kept coming back, and you did nothing. Then they killed him.”
“Killed…?” My heart seizes, and I whisper, “Nate.”
I remember what it said earlier.
“You said you let us stay because of Nate,” I say. “Because we came with him.”
