Soon—too soon, it seemed, for all of them—Annabel had to return home. In comfortable silence, she and Archer walked back along the trail until they reached the jungle, when she sighed happily. “I’ve missed your family.”
Archer cocked his head at her. “Don’t you see them all the time?”
Annabel trailed her fingers through the undergrowth beside the path, the backs of her nails tapping softly against the stiff leaves and autumn flowers. “I did at first, after you disappeared . . . But then your mom found Eriadin, and Aden and I . . .”
He looked away. “Right.”
“You found someone too, didn’t you?” she asked. “Sefia?”
Found her and lost her. He nodded.
Annabel gave him the simple, curious smile that used to make him spill all his secrets—who’d given him a black eye, what he’d gotten for her birthday. But he was not the boy he’d been—now his secrets were deep and painful.
But he wouldn’t think about that. He wasn’t the chief of the bloodletters anymore. He was someone different, he told himself, someone who wanted to stay.
“Why isn’t she here?” Annabel asked.
They stepped from the path, wandering through the trees until they found the cliff, where they could see the village of Jocoxa along the eastern curve of the bay.
“It’s . . . complicated,” Archer said.
Annabel sat down among the sprawling roots of an old tree, which made a sort of bench near the edge of the bluff.
“With her, nothing was ever easy,” he continued. “Not like it was with—”
“Us.”
“Yeah.” He shrugged. “Except there is no ‘us’ anymore.”
“Could there be?”
He looked out toward the village, where the lamps glowed yellow through the curtained windows and the sailboats bobbed softly at their moorings.
This had been home once. Could it be again? If he could forget Sefia, the bloodletters, the guilt, the violence, the way his longing for it remained kindled even now, like a candle flame floating in the vast black ocean?
“I don’t know,” he said.
Annabel bit the inside of her cheek. “I didn’t invite Aden tonight,” she confessed.
“I figured.”
“You did?”
Archer chuckled. “You haven’t changed a bit, Bel. I can still read you like a book.”
“Like a what?”
“Sorry. Nothing.”
“Where is she, Sefia?” Annabel asked.
He sighed and sat beside her, placing the empty cake box between them. “Deliene, I think. I don’t know for sure.” Again, he felt the absence of the worry stone at his throat.
“Do you want her to come back?” Annabel pleated the folds of her dress, not daring to look at him.
“Bel . . .” he began.
She leaned over, mimicking him. “Cal . . .”
He almost didn’t say anything. But he must not have been as immune to her charms as he thought, because the wall inside him cracked. “That’s not my name,” he said, surprised to hear the truth on his lips.
“That’s always been your name,” she chided him.
“Not anymore,” he said, holding her gaze, needing her to believe.
“That’s okay.” A smile dimpled her round face. “I don’t mind getting to know you again.”
He buried his face in his hands so he couldn’t see her bright-eyed earnestness anymore. “I don’t think you’d say that, if you knew.”
“Knew what?”
And because he couldn’t resist her, even now, the wall he’d so painstakingly built came crumbling down. “I’ve killed people, Bel,” he began, and once he started it was like he couldn’t stop. It all came flooding out of him, all the things he’d tried to keep hidden, all the things he’d tried to forget. “I’ve killed so many people I’ve lost count. Some because I had to. Some because I wanted to. Some because I couldn’t tell the difference anymore. I couldn’t stop. I’m afraid I still can’t. I’m not Calvin anymore. I’ll never be him again.”
“I know,” Annabel said, so matter-of-factly, he looked up, surprised. She bit her lip. “I mean, I didn’t know all of that, but I knew you weren’t the same. How could you be? But I still believe in you, whatever you’ve done, whatever your name is now.”
He swallowed. “Archer.”
“Archer, then.” She extended her hand. “I’m Annabel.”
He took it.
“Nice to meet you.” She leaned in, and for a second he thought she was going to kiss him, and it scared him, because he wanted it. Missed it. Longed for it. Although he could not help thinking of Sefia and their last kiss on the cliff, with the wind buffeting around them.
Wild.
Complicated.
Thrilling.
Instead, Annabel kissed him on the cheek, her soft pink lips lingering on his skin. And he wanted so badly to turn, to put his mouth on hers, to gather her up in his arms.
Maybe that would drive out his memories of Sefia. Maybe that would help him let go. Maybe if he kissed Annabel, they’d slide back into the love they used to share, simple and straightforward. Maybe with her, he wouldn’t need walls, and he could be all the different boys he’d been, all of them at once—the lighthouse keeper, the animal, the killer, the captain, the commander, the lover—and maybe . . . maybe he’d finally be home.