The world beyond the window of my room is obsidian, darkness so thick and opaque I can’t see anything past the branches that scratch and poke the glass. I’m frozen under the blankets of my bed. My breathing comes out weak, grating, but I’ll die if I don’t inhale soon. When I try to scream, only a weak sound comes from behind my closed lips. Moving is like wading through the heaviest quicksand.
Wake up. I need to wake up.
I have a 360-degree view of the room. Bubbles fizzle beyond the glass and algae scrapes the window. At three knocks, I freeze. A man floats outside and looks in on me. The top half of his face is obscured by shadows, but his smile is luminescent. Bright white teeth, a wide grin, a fist that taps slowly. Foam festers from his lips as he mouths something at me. He waves his hand. Back and forth, back and forth, before he opens the window. Water comes rushing in and fills my airways with the taste of seaweed and raw fish.
“Liv! Liv!”
I wake up drenched in sweat.
Keely is above me. Her hands are firm on my shoulders, worry all over her face. Half-buttoned pajamas hang off her thin frame. Remnants of glow-in-the-dark star stickers remain on the ceiling from when this was Keely’s playroom. Low, brassy thunder rumbles outside, and raindrops pound the window. A flash of lightning flickers before everything goes dark again. The green digital clock reads 5:08 a.m.
“Keely.” I put my hand on my sweaty forehead.
“Liv, you were screaming.”
“I was? I . . .”
My thoughts race, trip over each other, and fall down. I can’t keep up with reality. That dream had been so real that the pain of drowning still reverberates through my lungs.
“I’m okay,” I lie. “I’m good.”
Keely fidgets with her bracelet. I can smell alcohol on her; she was partying again last night while I stayed home. It’s been a week since what happened with Miles, and I’ve managed to avoid him, but my nightmares are getting worse.
“I don’t think you are,” Keely says. “This is the third night I’ve woken up to you screaming. If my parents hear you—”
“They’ll call my parents. I know. But they’re just night terrors, they happen at home too. It’s not a big deal.”
“If you say so,” Keely says, unsure. “You going back to sleep? Because I think I’m up for good now. I’m still a little tipsy, so the hangover hasn’t started yet, but I can feel it coming.”
“Yeah.” I swing my legs off the bed. “Let’s just stay up.”
Through the windows, the dark blue sky is brightening, and a gentle rain falls. The lights in the halls are dim but the coffeemaker crackles from the kitchen, along with the strong smell of espresso. When Keely and I reach the corner of the hall, she halts.
“What?” I whisper.
“Shh!”
Roger and Sun are talking in the kitchen.
“It makes me sick, Sun,” Roger says. “This whole thing doesn’t sit right.”
We peek around the corner. Sun’s arms are crossed over her lilac housecoat while Roger is already dressed for work. There’s an ill air between them.
“And you really have no idea who could be doing it?” Sun asks, voice hushed.
“There are no leads. No DNA. We got an expert in and she says she’s seen this behavior before—called it potential zoosadism.”
“But what does that mean?”
“It means that these crimes, the way this person is splaying out these animals, is possibly sexual.”
Keely and exchange a horrified glance. We shouldn’t be hearing this. When I go to leave, to head back to my room, I knock a console table. Shit.
“Keely?” Sun calls out. “Are you over there?”
Caught in the act, Keely and I step from behind the wall.
“You girls are up early.” Roger throws back his coffee and kisses the side of Sun’s head. “I better head to work. Have a good day, girls.”
He leaves, and the house rattles as he shuts the front door behind him. With a grim expression, Sun moves to the kitchen counter. “Are you two hungry? Did you want breakfast?”
“I’m okay, Mom,” Keely mumbles. “Maybe I’ll have cereal in a bit.”
“Same,” I say.
“Okay.” She forces a smile. “I’m going to go get ready for the day then.”
Once Sun is gone, Keely focuses on me.
“Holy crap,” she whispers. “This animal shit is still going on.”
“I know.” A shiver moves through my spine. “It really freaks me out, Keel.”
“Ditto.”
We don’t see Sun for the rest of the morning. By the time it’s light outside, Keely and I are watching TV in the living room. I’m curled on the La-Z-Boy, still in my pajamas, while Keely shovels Lucky Charms into her mouth and flips through the channels. She lands on MTV, where a rerun of Jersey Shore plays.
“Ugh, can’t we have anything new?” she says and flips the station.
Through the curtains, the front yard is gray. The rain has been on and off all morning, and right now it sprinkles against the glass. Last night’s nightmare weighs on my mind. I don’t know who that man was, or what he wanted from me. But the feeling that he wanted to harm me is all-consuming. Goosebumps raise the hairs on my arms, and I rub them out. How can someone so imaginary feel so real?
“Liv, Cindy Huang is having a party next week,” Keely says and scrolls through her phone. “You in?”
“Sure.” I can’t avoid every party, and maybe another week will be enough time to recover from what happened with Miles, but when my phone buzzes in my hand, I nearly spill my cereal.
It’s him. He’s sent me dozens of messages over the past week.
Can we talk please?
You can’t ignore me forever
Just give me a chance to explain.
Liv, I’m so sorry if I upset you.
Can we just talk?
God, just leave me alone, Miles. But it’s true—I can’t ignore him forever, not in this small town. I’m typing up a reply when Keely says, “Oh my God, my dad’s on TV!”
Dropping my phone, I turn my attention to the TV, where a woman with glossy brown hair holds an umbrella and a microphone as the wind whips around her. Behind her, Roger and other cops crowd around town hall. Caution tape barricades the steps.
“Another desecrated animal carcass has been found downtown, this time, right on the steps of town hall,” the woman says. “I will warn you—the following imagery is graphic, and highly disturbing.”
The camera cuts to a faraway shot of town hall’s steps. It zooms in. The image is slightly blurred, but I can still make out the mangled carcass of a deer strewn over the steps, its throat slit, its head hanging back with its tongue out, barely connected to the trachea. The image is only on the screen for a few seconds before Roger’s concerned face appears, and the reporter holds a microphone to him.
“We live in a very small community, so this type of behavior is being closely monitored,” Roger says. “We’re taking it seriously.”
“Would you say residents should be worried?” the reporter asks.
“Right now, we have no reason to believe there is any real danger. That said, I would still advise everyone to keep their pets inside. Lock your doors and windows at night, and err on the side of caution when it comes to traveling alone at night.”
“Do you think Caldwell citizens are in danger?”
“The victims have only been woodland animals so far, and we have no evidence to suggest anything else—or anyone else—could be targeted.”
“Does there appear to be a motive behind these killings?”
“It’s unclear. But we’re urging everyone—please, if you’ve seen anything suspicious, come down to the station and give a statement. Any small detail can help us put an end to this vandalism.”
“Thank you, Officer Myers.”
Keely shuts off the TV. “Oh my God. I know my dad can’t say much on TV, but I seriously think this is getting weird, and . . .”
I tune out Keely’s words, lost in a haze of images of torn-up animals and last night’s dream. My phone buzzes in my hand and startles me. It’s Miles, and his words make my heart drop.
I’m outside.
Keely doesn’t notice me zip out of the room to the front door. With bated breath, I peek out the window. Lightning flickers. The rain picks up, slams hard from the cloudy sky, and ricochets off the puddled concrete. Miles stands at the end of the driveway, his hair and clothes soaking wet.
My hands shake as I type a message to him.
Please go away, Miles. I’m not ready to talk.
Just give me a chance.
No. Please leave.
I dare to look out the window again. Miles stares down at his phone with a pensive expression on his face, and when he glances at the house, I duck behind the door. When I look back outside, Miles is gone.
The storm clears up by the late afternoon. Keely has a date with Shawn that I didn’t want to intrude on, so I go for a walk. Even though being near the beach is still difficult, I want to check on Mr. Jenkens’s shop. Waves crash all around me as I take the boardwalk to the shore. Warm, damp sand touches my feet through my flip-flops, and though the sky is clear, the post-storm smell of rain hangs in the air.
Mr. Jenkens’s fisherman’s supply shop is down by the shore, but it’s more of a shack with fishing net thrown over it. Mr. Jenkens hunches over a box that reads LIVE BAIT. It’s been more than a week since the bridge incident. West told me on Instagram that Jenkens had been committed to the hospital’s psychiatric ward for overnight observation.
“Mr. Jenkens!”
He shields his eyes from the sun with his hand and waves when he recognizes me. The rubbery smell of worms and fish surrounds me, and the ocean behind the shop stretches into oblivion.
“How are you?” I ask.
Mr. Jenkens ties up a plastic bag filled with a goopy glob of dirt and worms. “Okay.”
Out of pleasantries, I rock on my heels. “Do you want some help getting that garage cleaned up?”
“Oh . . . that. Weston dealt with it.” His speech is mumbly, so I have to really listen to understand. “Good kid. keep him.”
“Keep him? Oh no. I don’t think he’s mine to keep.”
He nods his head at the shop. “In there.”
“Pardon?”
Just as I finish my sentence, West comes out of the shop with a fishing rod over his shoulder. “Olive! What are you doing here?”
I avert my stare, heat flushing through me. “I came to see how Mr. Jenkens is doing. Keely’s out with Shawn.”
“Right on. The water’s calmed down since the storm, so I’m going fishing. Want to come with?”
The last time I went on a boat, I threw up. Maybe not the best idea. “I don’t know, West. Me on a boat is a recipe for disaster.”
“No pressure,” he says. “But it’s safe, I promise.”
“Ain’t she the kid who fell off that cliff?” Jenkens asks West.
“Yeah,” West says, “she’s scared of the water. You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to, Olive. But you said before that you want to get over it, so . . . one step at a time, right? I won’t let you fall in.”
West’s presence is like lying in a dim room surrounded by candles. Safe, comfortable, warm. I like the way he makes me feel. But I can’t go out on that water, not even with him. I’ll freak out, cry, panic, or worse: puke my guts out. Totally not cute.
At my silence, West says, “No worries . . . see you later, okay?”
The deck creaks beneath his boots as he heads down to the docks. I don’t want him to go—this is my shot to spend time alone with him.
“West, wait!”
With a grin, he gestures for me to follow.
A ball of anxiety grows inside me as we reach a rusty silver motorboat that already has some boxes in it. West gets in first. It rocks beneath him, and once he catches his balance, he offers me his hand. I stare at it.
“Just to warn you,” I say, “That night we met by the lighthouse, I totally threw up on the houseboat. I might freak again.”
West grabs a bright orange life jacket and gets out of the boat. He steadies himself on the dock in front of me, and his smell of earth and sea reaches my nose. When he holds open the life jacket, I turn my back to him and slide my arms through before we’re eye to eye again. His firm hands grip both sides of the vest, and he clicks the buckles over my clothes before he fastens the straps.
“Too tight?” he asks.
Face burning, I shake my head.
“Good. You’re not going under water in this.” West hops back into the boat and reoffers me his hand. His calluses are rough against my skin, and when my feet thump onto the boat, I immediately crash into the seat.
“You good?” West asks.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’m good.” My eyes clamp shut. The boat shifts, and oh God, this was a bad idea. But this is the closest I’ve come to facing my fears, so I snap the elastic and open my eyes to a world of blue as West revs the engine and rockets the boat forward. The sea pulses beneath us.
West says, “I was surprised to see you over here. For someone who’s scared of water, you seem pretty drawn to it. I figured you’d be off somewhere with my brother.”
“We aren’t really hanging out right now.”
“What, like in general, or just today?”
“In general, sort of . . .”
“Okay, I’ll bite. Why?”
Immediately, I’m back in Miles’s room with him on top of me, his lips nauseatingly close. “He tried to kiss me.”
“Oh. Don’t know what to say to that.” West’s silence makes me regret everything, but then he says, “Did you kiss him back?”
“No! He tried to kiss me. I didn’t want him to.”
“Brutal.” He pauses. “So to be perfectly clear, you don’t have a thing for my brother?”
“No.” I have a thing for you.
“Good to know.”
I watch him, study him. He’s focused on the waves around us, and the muscles on his arms flex as he directs the boat. The shoreline grows smaller as we soar farther out. I need to keep talking to him—I need to stay distracted, because it’s too late to turn back.
“Why is that good to know?” I shout over the sound of the engine.
“No reason. I don’t get along with Miles, if you haven’t noticed.”
“He sort of grabbed my wrist,” I blurt.
“What?”
“He wanted me to stay. But I get really anxious sometimes, so I snap this elastic band against my wrist. The skin is always sore, so when Miles grabbed it, it really hurt. I’ve been avoiding him ever since, even though he’s apologized to me a million times, and he says he didn’t mean to hurt me.”
West glances at my wrist and pauses. “If he hurt you, you’re right to stay away from him, Olive. He’s my brother, but I’m not going to defend him.”
“But do you think I should forgive him?”
“I can’t make that call for you.”
I’m quiet. West is right, only I can decide. But right now, staying away from Miles sounds good.
West stops the boat. When it sloshes around, I grab onto the sides and take a deep breath.
“You good?” West asks and sets up a fishing pole.
“Y-yeah.”
Water ebbs around us in every direction, and the coast is small and picturesque, like a postcard.
“I won’t pretend to understand why Miles does the shit he does,” West goes on. “I know he’s my half brother, but sometimes I wonder if we’re even related, period.”
“Wait, half brother?”
“Did you not know that?”
“No . . .”
West reaches into the pocket of his jeans, opens up his wallet, and tosses a picture to me. It flutters in the air and I catch it. It’s of a young woman with black hair and olive-toned skin. She’s on a bridge, and behind her is clearly Athens. I recognize the Parthenon in the distance.
“That’s my mom.” He takes the picture back and puts his wallet away. “She’s the reason I look like this, and they look like that.”
It makes sense. As a kid, I never questioned why West didn’t look anything like his siblings or their mom. Genetics can be weird; West’s dark features could have come from a distant relative or something.
“Why didn’t you guys ever tell me?” I ask.
“I was pretty ashamed of it when I was a kid. Not because of who my mom was, but because I was ‘the bastard child.’ Pretty sixteenth century, I know, but it’s how my dad and Beatrice viewed me. My dad even made me promise not to tell Miles and Faye. They only found out when they were like ten, and by then they were too ashamed to tell anyone I was their half brother too. Not much of a secret anymore, though.”
I think back to that day Beatrice had dragged West away too roughly by his arm, and it’s even more awful with this new information. “Well, what happened to your mom?”
“Died during childbirth.”
“I’m sorry.”
“It’s okay. I never knew her, so. My dad met her on a vacation in Greece. It was just a fling, but his moral code made him feel obligated to raise me, even though my mom’s parents wanted to.”
“I’m sorry . . . that’s awful. But Miles still said you were—” I stop myself.
“He said I was what?”
I take a deep breath and pray he won’t get mad at me for asking. “Miles said you were disowned.”
West laughs. “He’s dramatic. I wasn’t disowned, I left. Beatrice always hated my guts, and my dad’s always been a prick. I bailed when I was sixteen.”
“But don’t you—” I bite my tongue. “Sorry. I’m asking too many questions.”
“It’s cool. Don’t I what?”
“It’s just that most people would try to stick around, at least for the money.”
“The big house wasn’t doing shit for my happiness. But my dad did buy me my Corvette. He helps me out sometimes.”
Like with Amelia.
“What was your mom’s name?”
“Penelope.”
I scan our surroundings and shield my vision from the glare above us with my hand.
“Oh jeez,” I say, “we’re really far from shore.”
West puts a worm on his fishing hook. “You want me to take you back?”
“No. It’s okay, I’m okay.” Snap.
He throws his line out. I stare at West’s back, at the crisp black T-shirt that clings to his toned shoulders, the skin of his neck bronzed from the sun. Inhaling in a deep, clean breath of ocean air, I shut my eyes and allow my body to melt into the seat. The boat rocks and lulls. Seagulls squawk over our heads. Maybe this isn’t so bad, after all.
“Got a bite.” West flexes as he reels in the line, and a scaly black sea bass pops out of the water. West takes it off the hook. When it drops on the boat’s floor, I scream. “What?” West picks it up, and it wiggles and flaps in his hands. “What did you think I was going to do with it?”
“I don’t know! Put it back?”
“The city turned you into a punk, Olive. You’ve got to reconnect with your roots. Here, hold this fish.”
“No!”
He throws it at me. I scream and fall back. My foot slips and sends me tumbling right over the edge of the boat. I brace myself for impact.
Dark water. The current jerks me back and forth.
Sturdy hands grip my arms and pull me back into the boat. It rocks like crazy beneath us. My heart pounds, but I’m dry—and when my bearings return, I realize West is holding me, and my legs are awkwardly tangled in his.
“You good?” he asks with an uncomfortable laugh. Mortified, I go to roll off him, but the boat is too narrow.
“Sorry!”
West pulls me firmly onto my seat. “No, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have thrown the fish. That was out of line. Looks like the sucker got away anyway.”
I’m safe, but the terror of almost falling in paralyzes me. “West, I need to go back,” I squeak out. “Please.”
As West starts the motor and directs us to land, I grip the sides of the boat. My teeth chatter, even with the sun beating down. When West docks the boat, he helps me off and steadies me by taking both of my hands. I’m too numb to even process his touch on my skin. West unbuckles my life jacket and throws it on the boat, then places his hand on the small of my back.
“Olive, you good?”
On autopilot, I nod. People walk up the beach while a group of other fishermen waits to get by us. Quickly as he can, West ties up his boat, then directs me off the dock, and as soon as the sand touches my feet, I can breathe again.
“Shit, what do they want,” West mutters, and my head snaps to the side.
Miles and Faye are coming up the beach toward us. Oh no, not here, not now. I don’t even realize I’ve ducked behind West until Miles and Faye are right in front of us.
“I thought I might find you out here, Weston,” Faye says, not glancing at me. “Dad’s looking for you. I think he wants to talk to you alone about Amelia or something. You’ve been avoiding his calls.”
“Why doesn’t he come see me himself? It’s not like I’m hiding.”
“I don’t know, but he’s trying to care. Can’t you see that?”
“It’s not your job to tell me this shit, Faye. He can come say it to my face.”
“Can you please just go see him so he’ll shut up about it? He said he changed his mind about helping with Amelia.”
West grunts. “Fuck’s sake, fine, I’ll go see him.” He faces me. “I’ve got to go, Olive. You need a ride?”
I can feel Miles staring at me. “I’ll walk,” I say.
“All right, see you.” West half smiles and thaws my still-frozen state. He slaps Miles’s shoulder hard enough to knock him back before he takes off, leaving me alone with his siblings. Faye’s anger radiates. I know her well enough to tell when she’s mad at me.
“So you can go on little boat dates with Weston, but you can’t sacrifice five minutes of your day to talk to Miles?”
“I . . .” Of course this is what it’s about. Did Miles even tell Faye the full story? That he tried to kiss me—twice—without my consent before he grabbed me? Maybe she wouldn’t even care if she knew the full truth. I manage to say, “I have my reasons, Faye.”
Miles’s cheeks are splotchy and red, focused on the shoreline beside us. “Stop it, Faye,” he mutters. “Let’s just go. She doesn’t have to talk to me.”
“She’s being a stuck-up bitch, Miles.”
“Stop.” He tugs at her arm. “We’re leaving.”
My lips are zipped shut, but there’s nothing to say anyway. I don’t forgive Miles, and I won’t pretend to. Faye starts ranting at Miles as they take off down the beach, but thank God they actually leave. Miles glances at me once over his shoulder, and our eyes lock as the sea crashes behind me.
The realization hits me like a tidal wave. The man in my dream last night was Miles.