“This is your fault. You did this.”
“No. You did this. You thought you could be one of them—human—but we’ve been dead for two hundred years—nothing will change that. Not even a boy you think you love.”
“How the hell would you know? You’ve never really loved anyone in your whole life. Only yourself. I don’t want to be miserable like you, stuck in that harbor for eternity.”
“You can’t change what we are.”
“Watch me,” I say, and I push away from the wall and dart back into the lighthouse.
“Where are you going?” she shouts after me.
“I’m going after him.”
TWENTY-TWO
The bonfire outside the greenhouse is a smoldering heap of coals, unable to survive in this downpour. And everyone who had come to the island for the summer solstice is now gone. A party cut short by the return of Gigi Kline.
The shadow of Bo is already headed down the path to the dock, and the wind and rain between us makes it seem like he’s miles away, a mirage on a desert highway. I open my mouth to yell down to him but then clamp my lips closed. He won’t stop anyway. He’s determined to leave this island . . . and me. For good.
So I start to run.
At the dock, the cluster of boats and dinghies that had been clotted together only a few hours earlier are now all gone. Only the skiff and the sailboat remain, thumping against the sides of the dock, the wind battering down on them like an angry fist.
Out on the water, several lights sweep through the dark, still searching for Gigi, unable to locate her, while the others must have given up and returned to the marina. She might still be out there somewhere, hidden. Midnight inching closer. Or maybe she’s already gone beneath the waves, Aurora dissolving back into the deepest dark of the harbor. But if I know my sister, she will find a way back to shore so she can wait out the last few minutes until midnight. Savor these fleeting moments until she has to return to the brutal sea. And Marguerite will do the same. Maybe she will stay atop the lighthouse, staring out over the island, watching the storm push inland over the Pacific, until she’s forced down to the water’s edge in the final seconds.
Bo is not in the skiff, so I scan the sailboat. He appears near the front starboard side, throwing the moor lines.
“Where are you going?” I shout up at him, just as he tosses the last bowline. But he doesn’t answer me. “Don’t leave like this,” I plead. “I want to tell you the truth—tell you everything.”
“It’s too late,” he replies. The auxiliary motor rumbles softly, and he walks to the steering wheel at the stern of the sailboat. It sounds just like I remember from three years ago—a gentle sputter, the wind aching to push against the sails once the boat reaches the open ocean and can grasp the Pacific winds.
“Please,” I beg, but the boat begins to drift forward from the dock.
I follow it until there is no more dock, and then I don’t have a choice. Two feet separate me from the stern of the sailboat where the blue script letters painted on the back read WINGSONG. Three feet. Four. I jump, my legs catapulting me forward, but I fall just short. My chest slams against the side, pain lancing across my ribs, and my hands scramble for something to keep from falling into the water. I find a metal cleat and wrap my fingers around it. But it’s slick, and my fingers start to give way. Seawater splashes up against the backs of my legs.
Then Bo’s hands tighten around my arms and pull me upward onto the boat. I gasp, touching my left side with my palm, pain shooting through my ribs with each deep breath. Bo is only inches away, still holding on to my right arm. And I look up into his eyes, hoping he sees me, the girl inside. The girl he’s known these last few weeks. But then he releases my arm and turns away, back to the helm of the sailboat. “You shouldn’t have done that,” he says.
“I just need to talk to you.”
“There’s nothing else you can say.”
He steers the boat not toward the marina, but out to sea, straight into the storm.
“You’re not going to town?”
“No.”
“You’re stealing a sailboat?”
“Borrowing it. Just until I get to the next harbor up the coast. I don’t want to see that cursed fucking town ever again.”
I press my fingers to my ribs again and wince. They’re bruised. Maybe cracked.
The sailboat heaves to the side, the wind fighting us, but I shuffle to where Bo is holding tight to the steering wheel, maneuvering us right out into the heart of the storm. The tide swells; waves crash over the bow then spill out the sides. We shouldn’t be out in this.
“Bo,” I say, and he actually looks at me. “I need you to know. . . .” My body shakes from the cold, from the knowing that I’m about to lose everything I thought I had. “I didn’t force you to care about me. I didn’t trick you into loving me. Whatever you felt for me was real.” I say it in the past tense, knowing that whatever he felt is probably now gone. “I’m not the monster you think I am.”
“You killed my brother.” His gaze peels me open, severs me in half, crushes me down to nothing. “You fucking killed him. And you lied to me.”
This I can’t make right. There’s nothing that can change it. It’s unforgivable.
“I know.”
Another wave slams into us, and I grab on to Bo instinctively then let him go just as quickly. “Why did you do it?” he asks. I’m not sure if he’s asking about his brother or asking why I lied about who I am. Probably both.
And the answers are tied up in each other. “This town took everything from me,” I say, blinking away the water on my lashes. “My life. The person I once loved. I was angry . . . no, I was more than angry, and I wanted them to pay for what they did to me. I took your brother into the harbor like I’ve taken so many boys over the years. I was numb. I didn’t care whose life I stole. Or how many people suffered.”
I grip the wood helm beside the steering wheel to keep from being thrown sideways by another wave. This storm is going to kill us both. But I keep talking—this might be the last chance I get to make Bo understand. “This summer, when I took Penny’s body for the third time, I awoke in her bed just like the last two years, but this time a new memory rested in her mind: a memory of you from the night before. She was already falling for you. She saw something that made her trust you. But I was in her body now. And you were on the island—the boy she brought across the harbor and let stay in the cottage. And for some reason I trusted you too. It was the first time I’ve trusted anyone in two hundred years.” I brush away a stream of tears with the back of my hand. “I could have killed you. I could have drowned you that first day. But for some reason I wanted to protect you. Keep you safe. I wanted to feel something again for someone—for you. I needed to know that my heart wasn’t completely dead, that a part of me was still human . . . could still fall in love.”