by Kate Brian
“I’ll go with you.” He took his jacket down as well and slipped his arms into the sleeves. I started to turn him down but held my tongue. There was no reason to go out there alone.
“You want us to come?” Fisher asked.
“It’s okay. You stay here in case she shows,” Joaquin said, zipping up his jacket. “You can tell Liam a little more about what he’s in for.”
“Great,” Liam said enthusiastically. “Because I have a ton of questions. Starting with Babe Ruth…”
“Hopefully we’ll be right back,” I said. Then I led Joaquin back out into the rain. “Sorry,” I said as we were instantly drenched. “You didn’t get your fifteen minutes of dry.”
“Maybe later,” he replied.
We made our way down the creaking, swaying steps and through the alleyway. The boardwalk that ran along the bay and was fronted by various restaurants and businesses was deserted aside from the Swan, which was full of voices, music, and clinking glasses. We turned the corner and started up the hill toward town, Joaquin walking behind me on the narrow stretch of sidewalk. Every second, I kept hoping Darcy would appear at the top of the hill, and each moment that she didn’t, my pulse started to race a bit faster. Finally, out of breath and scared, we reached the top of the hill.
We were standing at the southwest corner of town, close to the ferry dock. The scent of burned wood still hung in the air. The park at the center of town was empty, and my eyes darted to the suspicious library window. It was dark.
“She isn’t here,” I said.
There was no reply other than the rain pattering against my hood. It was a sound I was getting seriously sick of hearing.
“So we’ll walk up to the clinic,” Joaquin said casually, though his eyes were darting over the town square with concern. “I’m sure she’s there.”
Before the words had completely faded into the air, something in the atmosphere changed. My heart hit my throat as I realized that the fog overhead was moving. Since we hadn’t ushered anyone in days, the fog had become constant, but instead of surrounding us in an endless whiteout, it hung like an ominous and solid cloud two stories above our heads, giving the town the illusion that it had been topped off by a thick blanket of gray cotton candy. But now the mist swirled and withdrew, pulling back over the island like the lid of a huge picnic basket sliding open to reveal the luscious wonders inside. The rain still fell, but the clouds overhead were spotty, and stars shone through in the black sky. I looked across the town and saw rooftops and spires I hadn’t seen in what felt like forever, lights at the tip-tops of buildings, and the bridge far off to the northwest.
“Wow,” I breathed. After days of murky, creepy darkness, nothing had ever seemed so beautiful.
Then Joaquin’s hand clasped my forearm, his fingers contracting into my flesh. “Rory.”
The realization slammed into me like a truck. If the fog was rolling out, someone had been ushered.
“Ohmigod.”
We rushed to the edge of the sidewalk and looked up at the bluff on the far end of the island where the mayor’s house sat overlooking the town. The weather vane atop the highest peak spun wildly on its axis, as if struggling with tornado-force winds. Then, suddenly, it slammed to a stop, the gold swan shivering against the clouds.
My heart dropped into my toes. The vane pointed south.
One hand reached up to cover my lips. Not again. Please not again.
“It’s not done,” Joaquin said.
The vane had started to spin once more, but this time it stopped much quicker. Again, it pointed south, straight and true. Two more souls had been sent to the Shadowlands.
Tristan and Nadia were back in business.
Mud splashed along the side of the road as Joaquin’s pickup truck navigated the bumps and craters created by the storm. I clung to the handle just over my head, my teeth grinding together as I held my breath.
How had they done it? How had they gotten past the search parties and the guards and managed to grab two innocent visitors and usher them? And why? Why take more? When was it ever going to be enough?
Wet, twisted reeds slapped against the passenger-side door as the raindrops wound across the window. When I looked out at the lights shimmering downtown, it looked so peaceful, as if everything was exactly as it should be. Except it wasn’t. Not at all.
Suddenly Joaquin jammed on his brakes. I flew forward, the seat belt locking into place one second too late and nearly choking me.
“Shit.”
Joaquin jammed the shift into park and threw open the door with a loud creak. I squinted through the windshield as the wipers continued to thwap like mad, and gasped. There was a body in the road.
I clambered out the door and raced to Joaquin’s side. He was crouched over the prone form of one of the librarians, a thick man I’d seen walking around town with all manner of books tucked under his arms. He had a bushy mustache and small, silver-framed glasses, which had been tossed aside in the muck.
“Willis? Willis, are you okay?” Joaquin shook his shoulder.
I heard a groan behind me and saw another man lying on the road. He was unfamiliar but dressed in the same yellow parka as Willis’s. I ran over to him as he lifted his head, and helped him sit up. His fingers fluttered up to touch his skull, where a huge lump protruded through his thinning blond hair.
“What happened?” I asked, holding him up.
“I don’t know. Someone jumped us from behind. I didn’t see a thing.” He blinked up and squinted at the clouds moving at a fast clip across the starry sky. “The fog! Someone was ushered?”
“Looks that way,” Joaquin muttered.
I glanced around, trying to find footprints, tire tracks, anything that could help us figure out where Tristan and Nadia had gone after they’d done the deed. That was when I saw a glint in the light at the edge of the headlight beams. I shoved a soaked lock of hair off my face and crawled for it. I was inches away when I realized what it was, and my vision began to swim. I sat down hard on my hip, a choking noise escaping my lips.
No. It couldn’t be. No, no, no.
“Rory? What is it?” Joaquin asked.
I reached out for the delicate gold chain. One wing on the tiny butterfly was dented and the chain was broken.
“It’s Darcy’s,” I said flatly as Joaquin shone a flashlight over the necklace. I pushed myself to my feet, quaking from head to toe as my fist closed around the chain. “It’s Darcy’s, Joaquin!” I whirled on Willis and his partner, my eyes nearly popping from my skull. “Did you see her? Did you see my sister?”
The librarian shook his head, his jaw hanging low. He seemed shell-shocked, as if he hardly understood what I was saying.
“Joaquin, can a Lifer be ushered?” I asked, tears stinging my eyes as sobs packed my throat. “They can’t, can they? Tell me they can’t.”
“She…isn’t technically a Lifer. Not yet.”
“What?” I blurted.
“You don’t become a Lifer until you choose our way. Until you get the bracelet and are initiated. Darcy’s still…”
“A visitor,” I breathed.
“Rory.” Joaquin’s voice cracked, and he stopped.
“No,” I said, my vision blurring. “No. This can’t be happening. It can’t.” I took a shaky step back toward the bridge, where the fog still swirled, as always, around its entrance. “Darcy!” I screamed. “Darcy, can you hear me?”
The only reply was the hissing of the mist.
“Darcy, please! Please answer me! Please!”
I fell to my knees, clutching the necklace and sobbing through my uselessness. Deep inside, I knew it was pointless. I knew there was nothing I could do. She was already gone. My heart tore at the thought of Darcy in pain. Darcy afraid. Darcy in the Shadowlands. Tristan had taken my father and now my sister. Why? Why was he doing this to us?
He probably thought I was too weak to fight back. Too new. Too helpless and confused and scared. But he was wrong. He’d awakened something inside me. Something primal and protective and determined. I could feel it building up in my gut, filling my heart with pure red anger, making my fingertips itch for something to claw at, something to strangle, something to maim. I clutched the butterfly until its wings pierced my flesh and turned around slowly to face Joaquin.
“Find him,” I said through my teeth.
“We will,” he promised me. “I swear to you, we will.”
“Good. And when we do, he’s mine.” I shoved the necklace into my pocket and stalked past them toward the truck.
“What’re you going to do to him?” Willis asked tremulously.
“I’m going to give him exactly what he deserves,” I said, yanking open the door. “I’m going to send him straight to Oblivion.”
I kneel on the ridge just out of view and watch. I watch Rory fall to her knees. Watch her spit and shout and swear. Watch her storm to the truck and slam the door. Little Rory Miller’s pissed as hell, and I’m loving every minute of it. I mean, taking Darcy was a stroke of genius. Just when she thought she and her sister could make a perfect little afterlife for themselves here, I took it away. If she wasn’t invested enough before, she will be now.
She’s playing perfectly into my hands.
The next morning, I stood shivering inside the mouth of the cave beneath the bridge, my face tight and dry from lack of sleep, feeling the emptiness of the place in every inch of my bones. Clearly Tristan and Nadia had abandoned this particular hideout. Clearly they were never coming back.
Joaquin and Fisher stepped up on either side of me and flicked on their flashlights, joining the beams with my own. Bea, Lauren, Cori, and Pete brought up the rear. Every one of us wore head-to-toe raingear, and the mud that had splattered up our legs and covered our shoes made us look like a group of ragtag roadside-ditch workers. Bea had on a weathered Dodgers cap over her red hair, while Lauren wore a bright yellow Paddington Bear–style rain hat that hid her face down to her nose. Pete’s hair was so wet the normally red locks looked black. Cori leaned against him with gray smudges beneath her eyes and her dirty hair tied into two haphazard braids.
“Why are we here, again?” Pete asked. I noticed bandages on several of his fingers as he pushed his hood back, and the prominent Adam’s apple in the center of his long neck bobbed when he talked. “I sincerely doubt they’re here waiting for us.”
“It’s the last place we know for sure Tristan and Nadia stayed, and they left some stuff behind,” Joaquin said. “It might be a long shot, but we’ve gotta search it for clues.”
“So let’s do it,” Fisher said, his voice a mere croak. Even though it was pitch-black in here, he wore dark sunglasses that hid what I’m sure were bloodshot eyes. My heart went out to him. I imagined he’d spent the night the same way I had, tossing and turning, waking from horrible dreams of Darcy being tortured, Darcy terrified, Darcy alone, alone, alone.
I’d taken the spare bed in Krista’s room, not wanting to go back to my empty house by myself, and this morning she’d told me I’d been crying out in my sleep. So even when I’d thought I was resting, I clearly wasn’t.
“Back there.” Joaquin pointed, and we followed Fisher inside, forming a long, snaking single line.
Fisher had to duck considerably until we made it into the widest chamber, and even then the ceiling was so low he had to crouch. I flashed my beam toward the back of the cave and froze. The tools, food, and clothing that had been there yesterday were gone.
“They came back for their stuff!” I blurted.
“What?” Joaquin moved quickly to the spot and looked around. The place was empty. “Damn, T. You’ve got some balls, I’ll give you that.”
“How can you take this so lightly?” I demanded. “They must have known we’d been here, and they still came back?”
“It’s like they’re taunting us,” Bea agreed.
“Spitting in our faces,” Pete said, his breath short.
“You guys! I found something.”
Cori crouched at the spot where my flashlight beam had come to rest, and tugged something out of a crack in the wall. It was a tiny piece of paper, rolled up into a tight tube. As she unrolled it, Fisher went to stand next to her, holding his light over the page. They gave it a quick glance, and Fisher paled. Cori’s eyes darted uncertainly to me, like she suddenly found me very intimidating.
“What is it?” Lauren asked.
Cori cleared her throat. “It’s for Rory,” she said meekly, holding the paper out in my direction but training her eyes on my shoes.
My pulse pounded in my very fingertips as I took the fragile page from her. Instantly, I recognized Tristan’s handwriting. My eyes darted over the scrawled lines, falling on key words like trust, father, and love.
“What’s it say?” Lauren asked, stepping up next to me to read over my shoulder.
“‘Dear Rory. I didn’t do this.’” My voice was cracking already. I coughed and continued to read. “‘I didn’t do this. Those coins were planted in my room. I keep seeing the look on your face that day in my bedroom, and it’s killing me, knowing you don’t believe me.’”
My voice caught and I realized this wasn’t going to work. I shoved the page at Lauren and covered my face with my hands. He was lying. He had to be. First he’d taken my father, then my sister, and now he was trying to win me back. But why? Why was he doing this to me?
“‘I will do anything to regain your trust,’” Lauren read slowly, quietly. “‘I’m going to find a way into the Shadowlands. I’m going to get your father and Aaron and the others back if it kills me.’”
She paused and I pulled my quivering hands down, watching her as she finished.
“‘I love you,’” she read. “‘Tristan.’”
The page fluttered as Lauren handed it back to me. I pocketed it quickly, hugging myself as tightly as I could to stop the shaking, and glanced up at Joaquin. He looked as if he’d just seen a ghost.
“He didn’t risk coming here to get his stuff,” Bea said, her voice barely a whisper. “He risked coming here so he could leave that for you.”
“He’s telling the truth,” Lauren said firmly. “He’s trying to fix things.”
“You don’t know that.” I didn’t mean to snap, but I did. A by-product of the tension that was begging for any kind of release. “You only want to believe it.”
“Look at the note again,” Lauren said, gesturing at my pocket. “He didn’t mention your sister.”
“So?”
“So, if he was doing this, he’d know your sister had gone over, too. He’d have included her,” Lauren asserted.
“Not if he was being smart,” Fisher pointed out. “Not if he realized a person who’d fled five days ago wouldn’t know about Darcy.”
“I can’t take this anymore,” I cried, holding my hands to my head, feeling as if it was about to split in two. “I can’t.”
“We have to find them,” Fisher said.
Bea sighed. “But we’ve looked everywhere. We’ve searched every inch of the island. It’s not like he went back to the mainland,” she added sarcastically. “So unless he’s hiding underwater somewhere…”
I felt something catch in the back of my mind. We had searched every inch of the island, because the island was the entire world in this in-between. Except, of course, that it wasn’t. There was the water. And the things that traveled over the water. Like the ferry, the Jet Skis, the surfboards and kayaks and canoes. And there was also one particularly foreboding structure that stood above the water. A place where no Lifer would ever think to look, because no Lifer had ever stepped foot on it for more than ten seconds.
There was the bridge.
“You’re out of your mind, you know,” Joaquin called aft
er me as I trudged through hollows and puddles toward the bridge. I had climbed up the cliff in record time, my adrenaline spurring me to inhuman feats of strength and daring, but Joaquin had stayed right on my heels. If any of the others had decided to follow us, they hadn’t yet made it to the top. “What, exactly, do you think this is going to accomplish?”
I ignored him and kept walking. Up ahead, I saw that Officer Dorn was stationed at the bridge with Liam. They did a double take when they saw me coming and moved to intercept me.
“Hey,” Liam said, lifting a hand. His new Lifer bracelet was caught on the end of his sleeve, the leather hard and pristine. Last night, after Darcy had gone missing, Joaquin, Lauren, and Bea had given him what I’d heard was the quickest initiation ever.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Dorn asked, stepping in front of me.
I lifted my face, letting the rain sluice down it and along my neck. “I’m going to find the entrance to the Shadowlands.”
Dorn laughed. At that moment, Joaquin caught up to me.
“Are you kidding me?” he asked, his dark eyes desperate. “You can’t do that!”
“Why not?” I demanded. “Has anyone ever tried?”
Joaquin crossed his arms over his chest, the rivulets of water forming new patterns down his sleeves. “Not that I know of. I mean, I’ve gone a few steps into the mist when a visitor is giving me trouble, but that’s about it.”
“So? Then how do you know I can’t do it?” I gritted my teeth and took a breath, trying to stay calm. If I got hysterical right now, they’d never let me cross. “We’ve searched the entire island for Tristan and Nadia, right?”
“Yeah,” Dorn replied. “Two or three times already.”
“So what if they’re on the bridge?” I asked, my heart skipping erratically. “It’s the only place no Lifer ever goes, and I’d bet that Tristan is counting on that—counting on our fear of the unknown to keep him safe. What better place to hide than the one place no one in their right mind would ever look?”
