3

CASS

I know who you are.

The words have played on repeat in my head the entire morning ever since I opened the envelope on my porch. I thought of them as I made love to Logan and as I clung desperately to him afterward, wondering how long it will be until he knows the truth and refuses to touch me ever again. And I think of them now as I navigate my motorbike down the winding road that leads away from our house.

I wonder for the millionth time who could have recognized me. I’m not that girl anymore. I replaced my mousy brown hair with blond highlights, accentuated by hours spent in the sun, my pale skin turned tan from the same. I swapped out the round glasses for contacts, and I started going by my middle name when I got to Koh Sang. It wasn’t much, but it was enough. No one expected to find that girl here on an island in the middle of nowhere, a place where news of the outside world barely infiltrates, so no one ever thought to look.

Until now.

I turn off my street and guide my motorbike onto the narrow lane of Kumvit, the closest thing our little island—home to only a few hundred locals and one resort—has to an urban center. I pass open-air restaurants modeled fully in teakwood and locals pulling open the metal gates of their souvenir shops, each hawking identical versions of Thai beer–logoed tank tops, fake Nikes, and knockoff Ray-Bans. The lane eventually opens up onto the beach road that leads around the entire perimeter of Koh Sang. The shops and restaurants become fewer and farther between until they disappear entirely, giving way to the untamed jungle on one side and the beauty of Pho Tau beach on the other. Wooden long-tail boats group together in front of dive shops in ad hoc marinas, and farther out, paddle boarders struggle to remain balanced on the water. Back on the shore, a massive palm tree shoots out at almost a ninety-degree angle, parallel to the beach, so long that its coconut-bunched palms nearly reach the water.

But this morning, I’m too distracted to even acknowledge the beauty. I need to get to the bottom of who sent me this envelope before they decide to make good on their threat.

After a few minutes, I pull into a small patch of pavement jutting out from the street, big enough to fit three motorbikes stacked next to one another, one for each full-time staff member of the resort’s dive shop.

My skin sticks to the seat as I pull myself away from my bike, a painful reminder of the day’s heat. Thankfully, it’s only a few steps from my bike to the door of the shop, a small octagonal hut that has come to serve as my second home on the island.

As I walk, I pause, struck by the sudden feeling of being watched. I spin around, prepared to expose anyone who may be watching, but the road is empty except for a truck hurtling past. I stand there for a few seconds, long enough for a pinprick of sweat to form on my hairline, but I still don’t see anyone. Trying to shake off the feeling, I head into the shop.

Doug’s bright Australian accent greets me as I walk through the door. “Well, if it isn’t the future Mrs. McMillan! Congrats!”

He steps out from behind the small desk, which bears a stack of clipboards and an outdated PC, and wraps me in a bear hug.

“Thanks,” I say, slapping him gingerly on the back, my fingers grazing his long, matted hair.

Doug got here a few years before I did. All I know from his past is that he’s from Melbourne. It’s somewhat of an unwritten rule that we keep talk about our lives before the island to a minimum. If someone wants to share, that’s fine, but it’s not expected. Which more than works for me. At the time I arrived, Doug was still a dive instructor, but Frederic, the resort’s owner, has since appointed him to dive shop manager. This essentially means that Doug’s my babysitter when Frederic is out of town on business, as he is now.

“Looking forward to tonight,” he says, handing me the clipboard on the top of the stack. “We’ll make it a ripper of an engagement party.”

I smile in return, forcing down the bile rising in my throat and silently hoping that whoever has found me doesn’t choose tonight to expose me. I flip through the clipboard, totaling the number of guests in my head.

“Only four?” I confirm.

“Yup, Full Moon Party over on Koh Phangan tonight. Four’s pretty good, considering.”

He’s right. Once a month, the neighboring island hosts an all-night rager on the beach, a party so raucous it’s become legend on the backpacking circuit. It’s popular enough that it draws guests away from the other islands, including Koh Sang. As sales began to decline in the last few months, Frederic started hosting our own Koh Sang version of the Full Moon Party, complete with neon body paint, fishbowl concoctions of juice and unidentifiable liquor, and fire dancers, but even so, it pales in comparison to the original.

I should be annoyed. Fewer guests mean fewer tips, but I can’t help but be grateful, particularly as the dull ache in my head has only grown since this morning.

With a nod to Doug, I head out of the shop, clipboard tucked under my arm. I walk down the beach, about fifty meters or so to the pathway that leads up to the rest of the resort. Once I reach it, I peer into the Tiki Palms, spotting Brooke seated at one of the corner tables, her honey-colored hair trailing down the side of her torso in a long, messy braid. She’s talking with someone—a man seated across from her—and when he shifts, the sunlight glints off the unmistakable red of his hair. Neil.

Despite everything, I feel a smile form on my lips. It’s no secret that Neil has developed a bit of a crush on Brooke—as have most men on the island—and given the way she’s smiling at him now, it seems there’s a chance it might be reciprocal.

I was a bit awestruck when I first met Brooke two weeks ago. She was extroverted and charming and beautiful—all the qualities you would expect in a travel influencer, I suppose, but everything I’m not. Her confidence was palpable when she struck up that first conversation with me at the Tiki Palms. She was so open, it felt like we had known each other for years. And indeed, there was something familiar about her that I couldn’t quite peg down.

As soon as I got home that day, I looked up the Instagram handle she had mentioned—@BrookeaTrip—and once the first search result loaded, it flooded my screen with high-definition photos of beautiful mountains and cobblestoned city streets. Brooke was front and center in all of them, of course, her dark-lashed blue eyes fixed on the camera, her body curvy and compact and always dressed in some fashionable—and usually revealing—outfit, her long hair perfectly styled. It felt masochistic, scrolling through the photos and videos of her travels, glossed with the perfection that only social media can deliver, as I lay there on my couch draped in one of Logan’s old formless T-shirts. But I couldn’t stop. I gorged myself on her beauty and the powerful captions she wove beneath each post that confidently called out the corruption and autocracy in the countries she visited, speaking her mind in an easy way I could only dream of.

Since then, I’ve found reasons to seek her out, always drinking in her attention, reveling in the pride I feel when people see us together. It’s the same feeling I get when I stand next to Logan, his arm wrapped tightly around my hips. Like I’m worthy.

I want to call out to her now, but I’m reluctant to interrupt whatever’s going on between them. Instead, I continue hurriedly up the path, lined with carefully clipped shrubs and magenta flowers, up to the training pool. I immediately spot my students, huddled together near a group of lawn chairs under a beach umbrella.

I pause before heading over. The public-speaking anxiety I still get whenever I have to introduce myself to a new group is worse than normal. Because each new arrival on the island, every strange face, now feels like a threat. Could whoever left me that note be in my class? Or are they suntanning at the beach? Or partying over at the resort’s main pool?

Koh Sang isn’t that big. But someone here is trying to ruin me.

I take in a deep breath and try to force the thoughts away as I walk toward the group.

“Good morning, everyone,” I call, hoping that my practiced authoritative teacher voice drones out any wavers that may sneak in. “I’m Cass, and I’m going to be your divemaster. Thank you all for choosing the Koh Sang Dive Resort for your Discover Scuba Diving course. By the end of the next two days, you will have learned everything you need to dive safely and effectively, and you will have completed two open-water dives.”

I pull up my clipboard, using it to minimize the slight tremble in my hands. “Let me just take attendance real quick and have you all introduce yourselves.”

I scan the first sheet of paper. “Ariel and Tamar Abramson.” I look expectantly at the pale couple standing before me. I peg them to be in their early thirties, on the older side for our clientele. The woman’s short black hair is cropped bluntly at her chin, and she looks a bit anxious. But the man standing next to her draws my attention. He’s tall and well built with a military-like buzz cut. His lips are pursed in a tight line, his eyes hard and cold. There’s something discomfiting about him that I can’t quite put my finger on. He doesn’t respond when I say his name, although I see his shoulders tense.

“That’s us,” the woman says. Her voice is clipped, in heavily accented English. “I am Tamar. I am here with my husband, Ariel.” She points toward him, but he remains unmoving. “We arrived yesterday. We are traveling from Tel Aviv.”

“Lovely to meet you two.” I look at the man again for a second too long before flipping to the next page on the clipboard. “Daniel Ayad—”

“Yeah, all right,” says a guy in a brash Cockney accent before I can finish pronouncing his name. An inch-long pink scar that runs along his cheek shifts up and down as he speaks. His swagger puts me at ease. I’ve dealt with thousands of travelers like him. “That’s me. Daniel Ayadebo. Yeah, I’m from London, on my gap year, and I’m starting off strong in Thailand. Gonna travel till the money runs out. Got here last night, and I’m loving it.” His eyes take in the girl next to him. She doesn’t return his glance.

He looks older than most of the guests who come on their gap year, but I don’t comment on it.

“Last but not least,” I say as I flip to the last page on my clipboard. “Lucy Dupin.”

I turn to the girl next to Daniel. She barely reaches his biceps. Her hair is piled up on her head, mostly hidden under a light pink baseball cap, but wisps of light brown curls peek out from beneath it. She looks back, fixing her light blue eyes firmly on mine.

I swallow, forcing myself to keep the clipboard steady, to stay smiling.

It’s her. She’s alive.

Her name touches my lips, light with memory. Robin.

The last time I saw her—really saw her—she was lying in that hotel room. Her slender body was dwarfed by the queen-size bed, her face chiseled as if in porcelain, and those big blue eyes wide open, the brightness slowly leaking out of them. My sister, gone forever.

It’s not really Robin standing in front of me now, of course. The closer I look, the more obvious the differences become. Robin was taller than this girl, her cheekbones more pronounced, her hair a few shades darker and curlier. But the eyes are the same. Those big blue doe eyes that belie an unexpected strength.

Still, I want to reach out and touch her. To hold Robin in my arms. But that’s impossible. Robin is buried beneath six feet of frozen ground in a cemetery in upstate New York, under a headstone that no one ever visits.

I can’t seem to find my voice. My brain is devoid of any words to continue our conversation. Instead, I’m back in that hotel room, watching Robin fade away, the life evaporating from her face.

Thankfully, the girl takes the cue. “I’m Lucy. I’m on a gap year as well.”

Her tone is confident, her words lilted. I scan through Lucy’s guest sheet until I reach her country of origin. Australia. There’s a flatness to her accent that distinguishes it from Doug’s; they must be from different parts of the country.

“Okay,” I say, clearing my throat, hoping my temporary lapse in composure wasn’t too noticeable. “Nice to meet you. We’ll be stuck together for the next two days, so it’s best we all get friendly. We’ll start with a few exercises in the pool to get you familiar with the equipment and the basics of breathing underwater, then we’ll hit the classroom to work the science and practical instruction portion of the class, and then tomorrow, we’ll move on to the fun part: the dives. But before all that, I want to start off with the most important topic I’ll address in this entire course: safety.”

I ignore Daniel’s groan. Most of these kids—or adults in Ariel and Tamar’s case—want to jump over safety instructions and get right to the good stuff. They don’t consider the risks inherent in breathing someone else’s air through a tube while you are meters below the surface.

But unlike them, I know how close death is, leaving its phantom fingerprints on everything. How little it takes to breach that shadowy curtain between this world and the next. A broken respirator, a knife, small white pills.

I run through the many risks inherent in scuba. Everything from permanent lung damage caused by holding your breath underwater or a rushed, panicked ascent, to ruptured eardrums resulting from a failure to equalize upon descent, to the most obvious danger: running out of air while you are meters below the surface. Slowly, gingerly, my body starts to relax, forgetting the unpleasant surprises of the morning and easing back into the routine of the class, becoming familiar with the students’ gaze on me.

The next few hours pass in a steamy haze of normality. Instruction on the basics in the shade, followed by exercises and equipment tests in the pool, and topped with a few hours of the classroom component—a lesson on the science behind scuba, complete with textbooks and quizzes—in the upstairs level of the Tiki Palms. The students seem to be enjoying themselves for the most part. All of them, at least, except for Ariel, who I routinely catch staring into apparent nothingness, his body rigid, as if he’s prepared to jump up and run at a moment’s notice.

As the late-afternoon air hangs heavy around us, Daniel drops his head on the table in front of him and groans. “I thought the point of a gap year was to avoid being in a classroom. Fuck, this is worse than uni, innit?”

That’s my cue.

“All right, all right. I think we can call it for today. We’ll meet at the shop tomorrow morning at exactly eight for our first dive. Make sure you’re there early. We won’t be able to wait for you if you’re late.”

Daniel’s already slammed his book shut and sidled up to Lucy, my words having no more effect than a mosquito buzzing in his ear. He loops his arm around her shoulder with a lazy confidence, and I see her spine lock in straight. As they start to walk away, I remember something.

“Stay away from the alcohol tonight, guys. I know it’s Full Moon and all that, but a hangover makes for a miserable dive.”

Daniel and Lucy are already halfway down the stairs, giving no indication that they’ve heard me. I hear Tamar say something to Ariel in Hebrew before heading to the toilet. I bend over and busy myself cleaning up the books and pens left on the table, conscious of Ariel lingering near the stairs.

It all happens at once.

I register the toilet door slam shut with a loud bang. I’m making a mental note to remind someone to fix it when I feel something shift in the air.

I stand upright, momentarily forgetting my efforts at cleaning up, and survey the room. It’s empty, everyone gone. Except for Ariel.

There’s a rigid intensity to him that was absent during class. His muscles are taut, and even from several steps away, I can see his breaths coming in short, rapid succession. Anxiety radiates from him.

“Ariel,” I say his name as I rush toward him, aware something is wrong. “Are you—”

But he speaks before I can finish the question.

“It is not safe here.”

His voice is guttural, scratchy, as if it’s been days since he last spoke. Which it very well could be, as I haven’t heard him talk once in all the hours we’ve been together. His words snake in through my skin, gripping my veins, sucking the moisture from my throat, and jump-starting my pulse into an erratic, urgent rhythm.

“I—I don’t know what you mean,” I say.

“It is not safe,” he repeats. “There is something wrong about this place. You are not safe.”

Despite how quiet his voice is, his words take up all the space in the room. His gray eyes are glassy, yet they still bore holes into me.

I stare at him, unsure how to respond. His face is even paler than earlier, and his warning has sent shots of panic through my chest.

I open my mouth to say something, but another voice cuts through the room.

“Ariel!”

Tamar rushes toward us from the toilet. As soon as she’s next to Ariel, she places her palms on each side of his face, peering into his eyes. She repeats a phrase in Hebrew until I see Ariel loosen, the anxiety physically leaving him. His shoulders slump slightly, and his eyes shed their glassy sheen.

I watch as she pulls him in for a hug and his muscled frame slumps into her body. I realize Tamar must be stronger than her petite frame suggests.

Eventually, she pulls away, her voice gentle, soft enough for only Ariel to hear. As he begins to walk toward the stairs, Tamar turns to me.

“I am so sorry, Miss Cass,” she says in a hushed voice, apparently so that Ariel will not overhear. “My husband, he is not well.” She glances over her shoulder toward the staircase.

I want to know more, to understand that stark shift in Ariel. To comprehend the meaning of what he told me. But it’s clear that Tamar is eager to go after him. There’s a desperation in her eyes that I can’t ignore.

“It’s fine,” I say. I consider resting my hand on her arm as a reassuring gesture, but she’s gone before I can do so, already crossing the room to join her husband.

Instead, I’m left with that one word, echoing in her wake. Which couldn’t be further from the truth.

Because I’m anything but fine. Ariel’s words play in a jarring loop in my head. An ominous warning.

You are not safe.