“There’s magic in you, Grey.”
And for the first time ever, I almost believe that.
The sky is turning light in the east. But off to the south, there’s a solid wall of black. It’s the light in the sky that scares me, though. Not the dark.
“You have to leave,” I tell him. “You need to get out of here.”
He smiles at me. “I’m not afraid of the hurricane. I was born into the storm. Remember?”
“I know,” I tell him. “But you need to be afraid of Hart. He’s got a gun, and he’s convinced you killed Elora.” Fear grips me all over again. “There’s a supply boat coming this morning. I’m gonna make him leave with me. But if he finds you, he’ll kill you.” My heart is being split right down the middle. “He’s messed up right now. Half out of his mind. But he’s not a bad guy, he just –” Thinking about Hart makes it all hurt again. “Elora was everything. To both of us.”
“I understand.” Zale reaches out to run his fingers through my hair, and I lean into the tenderness of his touch. “You have to love deep to grieve deep like dat.”
I nod and swallow hard. “That’s why Hart went back to Keller’s Island that night. When Elora disappeared. Even though he knew your father was dead. He needed to feel like he was doing something. You know? He needed to look absolutely everywhere. Even if it didn’t make any sense.”
Zale stares down at me, and something flickers through his eyes. “Grey, Hart never came back to Keller’s Island the night Elora disappeared.”
“He did,” I argue. “He said he came back here and got the four-wheeler. Then he drove out there. He told me he ended up covered in bug bites.”
Zale shakes his head. “I was there the whole night, Grey. I went back there right after I saw Elora on the dock. And Hart never came around. If he’d come poking around back there, I’d have known it.” The wind is ripping at the shingles on the roof, and the sound of them flapping is like a flock of birds coming home to roost. “Nobody came around looking for Elora that night. Nobody at all.”
When Zale leaves, I stagger back inside. My head is heavy. My stomach, too. Like they’re both full of mud.
Why would Hart lie to me?
I slump in a corner and pull my knees up to my chest. I miss Zale already. I need that energy of his. My whole body aches. I’m confused. And I’m so bone-tired. The kind of exhausted that comes from fighting and fighting and fighting.
And losing.
And losing.
And losing.
How long has it been since I slept? Really slept.
Days?
Weeks?
Months?
And that’s when that flash hits me. Elora yelling into the storm. I scratch and claw at it. I grab it and dig my fingernails in. Try to hang on long enough to see something useful.
But I can’t see her face.
And I can’t hear whose name she’s screaming. I only feel the sound tearing its way out of my throat.
Her throat.
My eyes burn.
So I close them. Just for a second.
And somehow, I fall asleep like that. Huddled up against the wall.
When I wake up, Hart is standing in the doorway. Watching me. And there’s no Evie.
“You didn’t find her.”
“No,” he says. “Looked all night. Not a trace of ’er.”
My chest constricts, and the next words come out all pained.
“Did you find him?”
Zale.
Hart shakes his head. “I didn’t find shit.”
I let myself take a deep breath. Because that means Zale is probably safe. At least for now.
Hart looks at me in disgust, so I know he feels my relief.
I want to ask him about what Zale told me. How he said that Hart never showed up at Keller’s Island that night. Back in February. And how that doesn’t make sense. Because it’s one of the very first things Hart told me.
But I can’t figure out how to ask without letting Hart know that Zale is the one who gave me that information. That he was here just a few hours ago. That I kissed him in the gathering storm. And telling Hart any of that seems like a really bad idea.
So I convince myself it’s a misunderstanding. A mix-up. Some kind of confusion.
Things must have been so wild that night. With the wind and the downpour. And Elora disappearing.
It’s seven o’clock in the morning. The supply boat should be here soon.
I hear rain pounding the roof.
I rub the sleep out of my eyes and follow Hart into the kitchen. The radio is still on. Twelve hours till Elizabeth blows into Plaquemines Parish. That’s what the announcer is saying. But he warns that we’re already getting intense bands of precipitation and gale-force winds. Waloons they call them down here.