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“I didn’t want him to have any right to you,” I say. “That’s why I told my parents the truth. If Garrett decided to take responsibility and be your father…” I shake my head. “I needed my story out there first.”
“Garrett said it was consensual, right?” Madison says. “Sadie believed it, and that ended your friendship.”
“It ended a lot of things. Their father believed me. Their mother didn’t. Sadie’s parents split up before you were born.”
“They had other problems,” Jayla cut in. “Even I heard the fights in the little bit of time I spent at their house. But to Sadie, Laney accusing Garrett is what broke up her parents.”
“She begged me to take it back,” I say, my voice low, as I remember her pleas, her tears. “Begged me to save her family.”
“How the hell would that have helped?” Jayla says. “The problem was that one parent believed their son and the other didn’t. Even if you lied and said you’d wrongly accused him, it wouldn’t have changedthat.”
Kit comes in from the kitchen finally and walks over to where Madison can see him.
“Sadie wants to have contact with you, as your aunt,” Kit says. “Laney won’t want to interfere with that.”
I open my mouth, but Kit lifts a hand. “That isn’t to say you shouldn’t have any kind of relationship with her, Madison, but there’s a lot that needs to be discussed and Laney”—he glances my way—“is not necessarily the best person to discuss that with.”
I start to protest. Then I stop. He’s right, as uncomfortable as that is. What happened with Garrett was guaranteed to leave me with a lifetime of doubts and regrets, hammered in by every person who questioned my story. And the one who’d led the pack of deniers? My best friend.
Instead of cutting Sadie loose, I’ve accepted the guilt she piled on me, and there might always be part of me that wants to make it up to her. If I need to do that, fine. But I can’t pull Madison into it. Sadie cannot be trusted with Madison, unless Madison is aware that anything Sadie says about me—or Jayla, or maybe even Kit—could be a lie. Someone else needs to talk to Madison about that. I’d pull my punches.
“Does it matter?” Madison says, her voice dropping as her gaze turns toward the windows. She wraps her arms around herself. “Is Sadie going to… survive this?” She turns to me. “Is she even alive?”
“I hope so. She was the last time I saw her.”
“Was she? Are you sure?”
I flinch, and Madison twists to face me, hugging her legs. “Kit told me you found the people we think staged that stuff. Found their bodies. He said they were dead but moving. Reanimated.”
“I had to tell her,” Kit says. “Warn her. In case she saw something. And also let her know whatever’s out there, it’s not necessarily a person.”
“Can we stop this?” Madison says, lifting her hands to her ears, her sleeves tugged over them. “Just stop, okay? No more protecting-Madison bullshit.” She looks at me. “I get it. You’re responsible for me, and you want to do this right. You’re my guardian. You’re my aunt. And you’re my mother. That all makes it really complicated, and you’re scared of screwing up. I see it at home, too. Renting that shitty house so I don’t have to move out of my school district. Selling your motorcycle. Staying home every night, even if I’m out with friends, so you’ll be there when I get back. I don’t want you doing all this for me, Laney. I just want…” She waves her arms. “I want to be with you. Like before. I used to think how cool it’d be to live with you, and I feel like I ruined everything.”
“Younever—”
She presses her hands to her ears again. “I know, okay? I know you love me. I know you wanted to be my guardian. And I know thisisn’t the time to talk about any of this. So forget all that. The point is that I’m not a child, and I’m pretty sure I’m handling this whole thing better than any of you. We have dead people who aren’t dead. Call them zombies or whatever. I get it, and I’m dealing with it, and I’m not trying to tell myself maybe there’s a mistake, maybe there’s a natural explanation.” She looks across the three of us. “Can any ofyousay that?”
We don’t answer.
“I didn’t think so,” Madison continues. “I have no idea what’s going on, but I accept that it is. You said Sadie was badly hurt. Really badly hurt. Are you sure she’s alive?”
We look at each other, but again, we don’t answer.
Madison exhales. “Okay, so Garrett might be out there looking for his zombie sister. My father might be out there looking for my zombie aunt.” She shudders. “Nope, that’s weirder than the zombie part. Garrett and Sadie. They’re Garrett and Sadie.” She looks at me. “I know you’re going to say we need to warn Garrett, but I’ve heard enough to know it’s not going to work. He’ll say we’re all crazy, and we all hate him and Sadie, and he won’t abandon his sister. Yes?”
“Yes,” Kit says. “If he comes back—or comes near—we will warn him that it’s possible Sadie is already dead—and dangerous—but I can’t see him believing us.”
“Then as shitty as it is, we need to do what he said. Stay in here. Hole up until tomorrow, when the Hayeses will send help.”
I glance at Kit, my brows arching.
“I told Madison, but I didn’t mention it to you,” Kit says. “Because, at that point, we were trying to get off the island immediately. No one wanted to hear that it could be sometime tomorrow. Our parents know we’re here. I was supposed to have dinner at their place tonight, and on the way here, I called to cancel. They know Jayla and I are on Hemlock Island with you and Mads, but we’ll be back late tonight. I have a board meeting tomorrow morning and Mom is still on the board, so we were having breakfast to discuss strategy.”
“When you don’t show up, she’ll know something’s wrong,” I say.
“Well,” Jayla says. “First she’ll call me, desperately hoping it means you and Kit got back together again. But she’s going to know that’s not happening.” She glances at us. “Oh, not that you guyswon’tget back together. Everyone knows that’s coming. But Kit’s not going to skip a board meeting without at least boating to shore and calling to explain.”
So help will come. That’s an absolute. The moment their mother realizes they aren’t back yet, she’ll launch a commando search team, possibly with actual commandos. There’s no point in having mountains of money if you can’t use it to track down your missing children.
