Explaining the circumstances surrounding my conception took a while. But once Lily seemed to have wrapped her mind around the abbreviated version of Sawyer’s Messed-Up Origins 101—the pact, Greer’s involvement, exactly what I’d been talking to Ana about at the hospital—the decision to go back through the recordings with a fine-tooth comb didn’t take us long.
We started back at the beginning—not just the three recordings Lily had played for me, but every conversation John David had caught. The rest of them were fairly run-of-the-mill—no mention of bodies or blackmail or how and when Aunt Olivia had discovered that her husband was my father.
“I can’t stay here,” Lily told me once we’d finished. “I just… I can’t be in this house right now, Sawyer.”
I let my gaze travel to the roses the White Gloves had left us—and the envelopes.
“I’m with you,” I told Lily. “Let’s get the hell out of Dodge.”
King’s Island. 10 p.m. That was all our invitations said. Once we ascertained that John David was occupied with decorating his golf cart—and once we had promised to return in time to put the finishing touches on it in the morning—we did get the hell out of Dodge, via Jet Skis.
Riding separately from Lily, I leaned into the wind as we cut across the main channel. As far as we can, as fast as we can. I’d missed Lily these past weeks. I’d missed being us. Whatever she needed from me, I’d give her.
Anywhere she ran, I’d run, too.
Water sprayed the right side of my body as Lily sped past me. We wove in and out of a larger boat’s wake. Farther. Faster. I could feel the sun on my face and forearms and the tops of my feet.
But no matter how loud the roar of the engine beneath me was, no matter how free I should have felt, I still couldn’t outrun the realizations of the past hour: that Aunt Olivia had known about her husband’s mistress—not to mention the truth about my paternity—for an indeterminate amount of time; that Uncle J.D. had apparently been giving Ana money; that years ago, long before either Lily or I had been conceived, Aunt Olivia had blackmailed her husband into marriage.
You won’t tell anyone what happened, I could hear Uncle J.D. saying. You have as much to lose as I do if the truth about that body comes out.
Right after the Lady of the Lake had washed ashore, Aunt Olivia had gone on a strike against weekend trips to Regal Lake. She’d filled our days with crafts and togetherness and left zero time for us to follow up on what we’d stumbled into. That wasn’t suspicious per se.
Not in isolation.
That body . . .
I hoped Lily was having an easier time outrunning her thoughts than I was having with mine. Barring that, I was cautiously optimistic that whatever the White Gloves had planned for this evening would do the trick.
It was still light outside when Lily and I made it to King’s Cove. We stayed out on the water until the sun started its descent. As daylight began to give way, we cut our engines and waded into the shallows, throwing the entire weight of our bodies into pulling the Jet Skis up onto the shore.
King’s Island wasn’t more than a hundred yards across. There was no dock and only one crumbling building, made of siding and wood. The closer we got to it, the more apparent it became that, at some point, there had been a fire here. Parts of the house had burned and had never been replaced.
There was no roof.
“What time is it?” Lily asked me.
I wasn’t wearing a watch, so I made my best guess based on the sun’s position, sinking down past the horizon. “Eight thirty, eight forty-five?”
“That gives us another hour to kill.” Lily placed her hand on the wall of the abandoned house. She stared at it for almost a minute, then headed inside. I followed. “If I asked you to fight me,” she said softly, “would you?”
My stomach dropped, like an elevator whose cables had been abruptly cut, and a chill crawled up my spine. I’d thought that I’d been forgiven. I’d thought Lily and I were us again. Even when she’d been giving me the silent treatment, I’d never thought she wanted to hurt me.
Not physically.
“What?” I managed to say.
“I’ve never fought anyone before.” Lily sounded far too reflective for my liking. “Never really gotten physical—unless you count that time you ended up turning the hose on Campbell and me.” She laid her hand lightly on the wall, and then, before I could stop her, she pulled the other arm back, curled her fingers into a fist, and drove it into the charred wood.
Hard.
She reared back and did it again. I checked the impulse to grab her and keep her from punching the wall for a third time. Walker had told me that she was angry, but this was fury. Rage.
It was hers.
“All these years,” she gritted out, plowing her hand into the wall again. “I thought my family was perfect.” Another hit. “I thought I had to be perfect for them.”
She was scaring me now. The silent treatment hadn’t been pleasant, but it had been in character. This was something else.
“If I agree to fight you,” I said, eyeing the blood now dripping from her fist, “will you stop hitting the wall?”
Lily let her hand drop to her side and turned to me. “Mama likes for things to be perfect. And Daddy . . .”
She couldn’t finish that sentence.
“I was mad at you for them, Sawyer.” She shook her head. “But now? I think I’m mad for me.” She swallowed hard, bringing her hand up and resting a bloody knuckle against her mouth. “You didn’t even give me the chance to choose you. And maybe I wouldn’t have. Maybe you were right not to trust me, but that doesn’t make it hurt any less.”
She turned back to the wall. Her entire body shook, then tensed.
“I’m not good at trusting people,” I said. My voice came out ragged and low. “That’s not your fault. This whole situation? It’s not your fault, and it’s not mine. It just is.” I could have left it there, but then she reared back for another hit. “Put your thumb on the outside of your fist when you punch,” I advised. “Otherwise, you’re just asking to break it.”
“Advice for the ages,” a voice commented behind us.
Lily froze, then let both hands drop to her sides. I turned sharply and saw Campbell standing in what had once been the doorway.
“Don’t let me interrupt you,” she said airily. “Please, go on.”
Lily cast a sidelong glance at me. “It’s not her fault, either, but perhaps a flying tackle would not go astray?”
“Bring it on, blondie.” Campbell smiled. “I’m an Ames. We’re taught how to fight dirty from the crib.”
Lily was not at a loss for a response for long. “Speaking of Ames family members and cribs—I understand that Sawyer isn’t your sister and that your real half-sibling is still out there somewhere.”
“Adopted, presumably,” Campbell replied smoothly.
Sadie-Grace chose that exact moment to stick her head in through the doorway. “I can’t talk about adoption,” she said solemnly. “Greer told me that I’m not allowed to say that word.”