He walks over to me slowly and leans down into my face. I blink back in surprise.
“Run to campus,” he whispers harshly. “Go find Lesley. She’ll know what to do.”
“But why—”
He turns away and rips off his shirt, tossing it aside, and my question dies on my tongue. Before I can speak again, he’s already running ahead along the path and disappears around a winding bend.
I’m left alone. For several seconds, I just stand there.
Until the urgency of the situation hits home, and I start to run.
Chapter9
Kaye
Isit on the back porch of Calico House with my knees pulled to my chest. Nathan paces back and forth on the grass and Dom’s sipping from a cold beer, looking grim. Lesley’s sitting in a porch swing, lazily drifting back and forth. Everything’s quiet, still, barely moving, only the creak of old wood and metal breaks the silence, and the anxiety and worry everyone’s feeling hangs heavy in the air like sickly yellow fog.
Dom takes a long drink and sighs.
“What are the chances Emilio is dead?” he asks.
Everyone glares at him. “Don’t be an asshole,” Lesley snaps. “Emilio’s not dead. He’s a good swimmer.”
“He’s a decent swimmer,” Nathan corrects. “He’s good at navigating that boat around the shoals but otherwise?” He shrugs and shakes his head. “We’re from Arizona, not some island. We learned to swim in a damn backyard pool, not the ocean.”
“Stop it,” Lesley says again, sharper this time. She sounds more desperate and upset than I ever guessed she could and I wonder for the hundredth time how she’s connected to Emilio and why they’re so close. What happened between them? “You two barely know him right now, okay? A lot’s happened these last three years. He’s a strong swimmer. He’ll be fine.”
She sounds like she’s trying to talk herself into it and I want to believe her. I try not to indulge in worst-case scenario fantasies. Emilio isn’t dead, he’s only busy and he’ll be back soon. I stare at my hands and tune them out as they chatter at each other, all their nervous energy suddenly turned to arguing about who knows Emilio the best, while my mind’s a wild buzz, going over what happened and why and what I could’ve done different.
After sending him down to help the people on the boat, I ran back to campus as fast as I could and found a security guard. He didn’t believe me at first, and it wasn’t until I made a scene that he finally decided to call in a crew to go check out the wreck. I tried to follow them back, but they refused to let me come along. After about ten minutes or so, I heard sirens as more Jeeps and trucks from campus began to speed around the island, the emergency vehicles heading in the direction of the crashed boat. I tried asking around to figure out what was going on and if Emilio was okay, but either nobody knew or nobody was talking.
Now I’m stuck at Calico House. Lesley sent Dirk and Jayson to check out what’s going on up near the cliffs, but we haven’t heard from them in a half-hour. That’s a lot time to deal with constant second-guessing and what-ifs.
My stomach’s a mess of worry and I don’t know why. If Emilio drowns in the ocean trying to save those strangers, why would it matter to me? He killed my sister, or at least he had a hand in what happened to her. I came here to get revenge on him, so what does it matter if he drowns today and saves me the trouble of killing him myself?
There would be too many unanswered questions. I can keep telling myself that’s all there is, that I want the truth and won’t ever get it if he dies today, but that’s not the only thing making me so upset.
It’s everything else that’s happening with him. It’s the way he looks at me, the way he touches me. It’s his fingers in my hair and his lips against my throat. It’s the way his eyes light up when I walk into a room and the way he gravitates toward me like I’ve got a hold of him and he can’t get away from it. It’s the way he loves my voice, even though it’s damaged and strange. It’s the way he whispers my name and calls me his pet.
If he dies now, I’ll lose all that.
“I don’t know why we’re arguing about this,” Lesley says, glaring at Nathan and Dom as she crosses her arms. “There’s only one person responsible if Emilio gets hurt.”
Everyone turns to stare at me and I feel my cheeks turn red.
“We don’t need to start casting blame,” Nathan says but his voice sounds weak.
“Bullshit. She sent Emilio down there to try to help those people. That’s what you said, right?” Lesley stalks toward me.
“Stop it,” Dom says. “You’re not helping.”
“I’m not trying to. Why are you here, Kaye? What’s your obsession with Emilio? I’ve seen the way you stare at him. Something’s going down between you two, and it’s not just that he’s fucking you. No, you’re like some kind of psycho stalker, aren’t you?”
“Enough,” Dom says.
Lesley gets right in my face, finger jabbing into my chest. “Tell me the truth. Why the fuck are you here? Why did Emilio let you into this society?”
“I don’t know,” I say and shove her away from me. She looks surprised and I sit on the edge of my seat, glaring at her. Rage bursts through me, rage and a helplessness. She’s right to suspect me, but she’s wrong to think my motives are ugly.