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If you plan to keep coming here.
Those are the unspoken words. I’m acting as if I’m not letting these assholes steal my island—steal my love of it—but that’s half bravado and half stubbornness. I found my caretaker’s severed hand. I found hisbody.
I cross my arms and gaze out over the choppy water. Something nudges the crook of my elbow, and I give a start, spinning to knock it away. A candy bar tumbles to the ground. Kit picks it up and squints into the sky.
“Damn seagulls,” he says. “If they’re not shitting on us, they’re dropping chocolate.”
I take the bar and read the label. “Microbatch single-origin chocolate, no less. Damnfoodieseagulls.”
“Right?”
I peel open the wrapper. I break off a square and hand it to him. He takes it, and we stand there.
“I love storms,” I say.
“I know.”
“Got a feeling I’ll love this one a lot less.”
“It’ll pass,” he says.
I shade my eyes, hoping to see a fishing boat, but the lake is—
“Kit?”
“Hmm?” He leans in to steal another piece of chocolate.
I point. He pops the chocolate in his mouth and shades his eyes.
“Those white things out there,” I say.
“Huh, they’re on every wave. Weird.”
I sock him in the shoulder. “Not the whitecaps. The floating things. I noticed them earlier. That’s actually why I fell into the crevice. I was getting a closer look, stepped too close to the edge and freaked out Jayla.”
“Who startled you into falling?”
“Something like that. But with everything that happened, I forgot what I’d been looking at.”
“Which was…?”
“I had no idea. Things floating on the water. They’re closer now.”
I pocket the candy bar and take off jogging along the beach. When I first saw the white objects, they’d been east of the island. Now they’ve drifted west, and they’re heading for shore.
The beach part soon ends, and I’m climbing on rock.
“I’m going to the point for a better look,” I say, though he hasn’t asked what I’m doing.
I need to fight my way past some treacherous boulders and twisted trees, but finally I’m at the tip. The debris is less than a hundred feet offshore. And itisdebris. Pieces of something.
“Kit…” I say as my stomach twists.
“I see it.”
“Is that…?”
“I can’t tell anything from here.”
