by McCall Hoyle
I manage to restart the engine but stall out a second time before I close the gap between Zeke’s shack and the dunes. It’s no use. Driving this contraption solo is almost as dumb as surfing in the face of an oncoming hurricane, and I prefer not to do stupid. Defeated, I crawl back to the passenger seat to fume and curse the universe.
I don’t want to give Finn the satisfaction of chasing after him, so I search the floorboard for something more interesting to read than surfing magazines or homeopathic textbooks. I accidentally knock the duct-taped book with the silly title off its spot on the donut box, and the reinforced cover falls open. The pages are dog-eared and highlighted all over the place. Annotations cover every speck of white space in the margins. Mr. Richards would be impressed. I’m pretty sure in middle school, Finn paid less-than-stellar attention to detail when reading and taking notes, but high school Finn is certainly invested in not sweating the small stuff.
Despite my curiosity, it seems like an invasion of privacy to mess with such a well-loved book, so I close it, returning it to its place of honor atop the Krispy Kreme shrine. Then I stare out the side window and draft a mental T-chart, weighing the pros and cons of going to get Finn versus waiting on him to return.
Pros: I want to get out of here. Now. For me, for Mom, for Mere, for Jim . . . for my general safety. For Finn’s safety too, however little he seems to care about it.
The cons side of the T-chart remains empty. As I search for a reason to wait on Finn’s return, besides my pride and the fact the sky has turned charcoal gray, I twist the key in the ignition to turn on the radio.
It crackles to life in the middle of another hurricane announcement. “. . . water is inches from Highway 12 in Hatteras. Dare County Emergency Management has started door-to-door inquiries to ensure residents have evacuated. Several factors have combined to create especially dangerous conditions. Repeat: please evacuate now.”
Enough is enough. I flick the radio off in the middle of the man’s dramatic pause, jump down to the sand, and storm toward the dunes. Movement in the tangled trees beside Zeke’s shack catches my eye. I freeze, zeroing in on a chestnut horse hunkered down in the knotted stand of spindly trunks that camouflage him. The poor thing couldn’t have picked a worse time to lose his herd. Wherever they are, they seem to have left him to fend for himself.
I turn away, unable to look at him once I realize just how much I feel like that lonely horse. Dull pressure squeezes my heart. As I tromp toward the ocean, I recite facts I learned from Dad about the horses he fought to protect. Humans generally do more harm than good when they interfere. A horse died a few years ago after tourists fed it apples and carrots and other treats its system couldn’t handle. The fact I repeat again and again is how the horses have survived here for over five hundred years. They were left behind by Spanish explorers who couldn’t scrape out a life. Humans wouldn’t thrive here for several hundred years, but the horses did just fine under the harshest conditions.
The horse will be fine. And I will be too.
Breathless, I crest the mountain of sand and spot a pair of jeans, flip-flops, and a T-shirt piled on the ground. The beach is empty. But still, I would never just strip down to my underwear on the wide-open beach. Obviously, Finn has zero issues with that.
I glance out to sea and spy two white boards bobbing in the angry surf. Waving a hand above my head, I try to get Finn or Zeke’s attention. Apparently, they’re hyper-focused on staying afloat in the churning water and dimming light. As I watch, Finn angles his board toward the beach. His broad shoulders and strong strokes look determined. He rises with a forming wave. In one fluid movement, he pushes himself to standing. Turning parallel to the beach, he glides in front of the racing funnel of white until it consumes him and the back of the board. Air catches in my throat. There’s no way he can escape the water surrounding him on all sides.
But he does.
Somehow, he shoots out a tiny opening in the funnel and races ahead of the collapsing wall of water. He shouts a cry of victory over the crashing waves. I watch, speechless. It’s beautiful in a kind of terrifying way.
I shake off the trance. There is no way—no way—I’m going to be sucked in by his cool wetsuit or daring stunts. I wave both hands over my head, jumping up and down for added emphasis. By some miracle, he turns his head in my direction. When he does, the tail end of the wave he just outran charges in and capsizes him.
Holding my breath, I clamp my hand over my mouth. He’s gone. I know what it’s like to be knocked off a boogie board and dragged under on a typical summer day—to tumble and scrape against a carpet of crushed shells, to want to reach for the surface when you have no idea which direction is up or down. And today is anything but typical.
I run toward the water as Zeke paddles toward shore. Apparently he has eyes in the back of his head or something and saw the whole thing. “Finn!” he shouts.
A board rockets from the water fifty yards down the beach. There’s no cocky surfer attached to it. I sprint toward it, but the loose sand makes speed difficult.
No. No. No. This can’t be happening. I told him it was stupid. “Finn! Finn!” I scream as though he’s going to hear me under the turbulent water.
The boy’s arrogant and annoying and impulsive, and I told him this was idiotic. But I would never, never wish anything bad on him. And now it’s my fault, my fault he’s—I don’t dare think the words.
“Dear God, please, please—” I’ll pray, beg, whatever it takes to bring Finn to the surface. I couldn’t live with myself or the guilt if he died. I should’ve been more emphatic about not surfing.
But I wasn’t.
And now Finn is gone.
CHAPTER NINE
Let the great world spin for ever down the ringing grooves of change.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
There!” Zeke yells as he charges up the beach toward me.
I squint in the general direction of his pointed finger, but I don’t see anything. Then the surf retreats, leaving behind a life-size lump of black. I take off. My calves scream in protest against the sand pulling at my feet. Zeke catches up to me seconds later. Without words, we each grab an arm and drag a limp Finn to safety.
Zeke rolls Finn onto his back for a better look.
He’s not dead—not even unconscious. The idiot is laughing. Laughing.
“That was . . . awesome.” He pushes himself up on an elbow.
My pulse pounds in my throat. I fight the urge to draw back and kick him in the ribs. Glaring down at him with my best death stare, I cross my arms over my chest. “You scared me, idiot.”
One corner of his mouth turns up. “Aww, see, I knew you cared, Bookworm.”
I almost growl. “You . . . you . . . jerk. You scared the crap out of me.”
“Jerk? That’s the best you’ve got . . .” His voice trails off as he wipes salt water from his face with the back of his hand.
Refusing to be baited into another ridiculous argument, I swipe at the tangled hair whipping around my face. “How can you even joke at a time like this? I thought you were dead.”
The wind whips at the ocean frothing behind him. These are not your typical Outer Banks waves with their dependable and evenly timed crest-trough-crest rhythm. These waves are higher, harder breaking, and hungrier. They almost made a meal of Finn.
Dad once told me three things must work together to create waves like this—a hurricane force trifecta of speed, distance, and duration. Then I remember what one of the radio announcers said about the Category 2 storm and the timing of the high tide, and the sense of urgency I’ve been fighting to keep under wraps suddenly threatens to overflow.
Zeke offers Finn his hand. He takes it and lets himself be pulled to standing. “Not dead but close,” Finn says. “I bet mouth-to-mouth would speed the recovery.”
My jaw clicks when it falls open. “Not in this lifetime. By the way, Highway 12 is almost under water in Hatteras. We might want to get this show on the road unless we p
lan to ride it out here.”
Zeke gives Finn a little shove toward the dunes. The man seems a thousand times more frightened by the thought of overnight, female company than he does by Finn’s stupid stunt or the threat of an oncoming hurricane.
Ch-ching.
Score two for me.
In another lifetime, I might be curious about Zeke and his loner life out on the beach. In this lifetime, all I care about is getting to Mom. If she doesn’t hear from me soon, she’ll freak, and she can’t afford to be distracted while pulling a heavy load and looking out for Mere.
“Hey, what about my board?” Finn asks.
“Dude, that thing’s history,” Zeke says as they follow me toward the dunes, and Finn looks sadder than I’ve ever seen him.
No one speaks till we reach the shack. Neither of them comments on the fact that the Blazer’s parked in an entirely different spot or that the clouds are getting darker and we’re losing sunlight.
“You sure you don’t want to go with us?” Finn takes his sandy clothes from Zeke and steps around to the driver’s side of the car. I study the ground, as there’s absolutely no telling what the boy does or does not wear under his wetsuit. And I’m not taking any chances.
“Yes,” Zeke says.
When I chance a quick look up, he’s glancing toward the dark patch of trees behind the shack where I saw the horse.
“I have stuff to do here,” he says. “I’ll head to the lighthouse if things get bad. If the lighthouse goes, the island goes. If the island goes, I may as well go with her.”
That’s cheerful, I think. I chew on my bottom lip, glancing through the windows of the Blazer. As Finn wiggles into his shirt, I pull open the passenger-side door and slide in.
Finn tightens his belt as he walks toward Zeke and pulls him in for that shoulder-bump, back-slap thing guys call a hug. “Be safe,” he says.
“Always, man.” Zeke heads to the shack as if it’s just another day in the life of an Outer Banks hermit.
Finn steps up onto the running board, then slides into the driver’s seat and throws the Blazer in reverse. My head jerks backward, but I don’t complain. I’m thrilled to finally be on the road, heading toward the mainland, heading toward safety, heading toward Mom.
We drive in silence. My practical backpack and duffel rest on the backseat right beside his water sports equipment and a Kit Kat wrapper. The wind blows harder now, and Finn has to drive much closer to the dunes on the ride south. I see no signs of the horses now—or any other wildlife. They’ve surely holed up somewhere away from the gale and the rising tide.
When we reach the paved road in Corolla, I almost start to relax, at least until Finn opens his big fat mouth.
“Since you’re in a hurry, we can take a shortcut,” he suggests, pointing toward a narrow street on our left.
The beach road here is paved and nothing like the four-wheel-drive beach road behind us, but it is the only main road this far north. During the summer, it’s bumper to bumper almost every day. But this is October. There’s nobody here and no reason to risk a downed power line or twists or turns or anything else on tight neighborhood streets, even if they shorten the distance some.
“No. Let’s take the main road. It’s safer.”
“What’s so great about safety? The best things in life aren’t safe—surfing, hang gliding. Even driving a car isn’t safe, is it?” He gives the steering wheel a quick turn, causing the front end to cross the yellow line as he whips us down a side street.
“You’re . . . you’re . . .” I grab the door handle. Words that would traumatize Mom ricochet in my head, but I don’t say them.
“Spit it out. Let it loose.” He seems amused by my stuttering.
If this were a movie, I’d demand he stop the car, smack the smirk off his face, and then go storming off on my own into the hurricane. But I’m not in a movie, and I’m not that impulsive. I release my death grip on the door handle and ball my hands into fists in my lap. “You’re a jerk, Finn Sanders.” I spit the words in his general direction without meeting his eyes, realizing I’ve used the same insult twice now.
Laughing, he smacks the steering wheel. “You’re funny, Sophie March.”
Refusing to look at him, I study the road ahead, steadying myself when we feel another blast of wind. Honestly, I didn’t know he remembered my last name. But clearly, he doesn’t remember me that well, because I don’t have a funny bone in my body—sarcastic, maybe. On a really good day, maybe even witty. Funny—not so much.
Before I can remind him that he doesn’t know anything about me anymore, that we’re not friends, that he stood me up for my first and only high school dance, something smashes into the windshield. He jerks the wheel, and the next thing I know we’re lurching off the side of the road. He overcorrects, yanking us back onto the smooth asphalt. But the back of the Blazer fishtails, whipping back and forth. Somehow, we remain on the road. Time slows, magnifying the crash of glass and the squeal of brakes.
Some sort of self-defense mechanism must kick in, because I watch the action unfold in front of me like something happening to someone on TV. Bracing my hands on the dashboard, I calmly accept the inevitably of what’s to come. Part of me wonders how Mom and Mere will make it without me. Part of me accepts the unavoidable. The ringing in my ears helps to mute the screech of metal on pavement.
A distant scream that might be Finn’s hangs in the air. The last thing I see before a neck-jerking impact is the line of mailboxes and stand of dark pine trees barreling toward us.
CHAPTER TEN
To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.
ALFRED, LORD TENNYSON
When something cold and wet smacks my cheek, I open my eyes. Blinking, I try to clear the fogginess clouding my thoughts. It’s more dark than light outside. Icy drops of water prick my face through the missing glass in the windshield before me. I glance to my left at the shadowy figure slumped over his deflated airbag and steering wheel, and a wave of memories crashes over me. Oh, God. We are in deep, deep trouble.
I have no idea how much time has passed. It’s probably only been a few minutes since the accident—otherwise it would be pitch dark by now. We’re on the back end of twilight and speeding toward real-deal darkness, but there’s still a bit of gray in the sky. However long it’s been, it was long enough for the wind to increase from a whistle to a roar. The person hanging forward against his seat belt is Finn, and he’s not cracking any jokes about mouth-to-mouth this time.
I push the airbag out of my lap and claw at my own seat belt, desperate to escape. The picture of my family’s crumpled car in the newspaper flashes behind my eyelids. I realize I could’ve died just now and left Mom with yet another tragedy.
A gust of wind rocks the car, distracting me from the panic gripping my heart and chest. When I squint into the murky shadows, the pine trees above us bend at precarious angles. Somewhere in the distance, a sharp crack of what sounds like splintering wood snaps above the droning wind.
I reach over to wiggle Finn’s elbow. “Finn. Wake up. We’ve got to get out of here.”
When I squeeze his shoulder, a groan escapes his pale lips. His head lolls to the side, eyelids fluttering a bit but not opening. I shiver as cold wind nibbles at the exposed skin on my face and neck. We need to hole up somewhere safe. Waiting for help is not an option, and anywhere would be better than a wrecked car beneath a stand of shallow-rooted pine trees.
Last I remember, we were racing down a residential side street. Then what must have been a massive tree branch hit us out of nowhere. The mailbox on the hood of the car means there must be at least one house beyond the trees and sandy hills to our left. I just have to find it in the dark. No, not me. We have to find it. Finn’s not my favorite person, but I’m not leaving him out here to fend for himself. Plus, he doesn’t look like he’ll be able to fend for himself anytime soon.
I unbuckle my seat belt, prepared to do whatever I need to do to keep us both safe. He’s in good sha
pe. I didn’t see an ounce of fat on him when he was dressing back at Zeke’s—not that I was looking. Yet he’s really tall and has to outweigh me by a lot. We’re not going anywhere till he can walk.
“Finn, please. Wake up.” I gently lift and tilt his head back against the headrest, thankful when his chest rises and falls. But he doesn’t respond. My fingers graze a massive bump near his temple. It’s too dark to tell how badly he’s hit his head, but I start to worry about a concussion. When I unbuckle him, he slides to the left against the door. His head touches the glass. He winces, his eyes opening to slits. I wave my hand in front of his face. “Finn. Finn. It’s Sophie.”
His eyelids flutter again, threatening to close.
I lean in so close his shallow breath brushes my cheeks. “Finn, stay with me, please. Look at me. We’ve got to get out of here.”
His lips part, but no sound comes out. The trees beside the car crackle and pop under the force of the wind. Finn’s Adam’s apple slides down his neck, and his eyes widen. He manages a wobbly nod, but even that seems to require tremendous effort.
“Look at me. Don’t close your eyes. I’m coming around to your side.” Without waiting for him to respond, I jump out of the Blazer. Obviously, I can’t take all my stuff, not if I’m going to have to help Finn walk. I’ll come back for the rest later, but I reach in the back, unzip my bag, and grab Mere’s compass.
Yanking Finn’s door open with one hand, I drag one of his long arms across my neck, then wiggle his legs out and pull him toward me. I wish he’d say something—anything—even something stupid. The cool wind and freezing rain bring him to his senses as I half drag, half lead him up a mound of sand that feels more like Mount Everest.
