I manage to get ahold of Amma, pressing my thumb into the delicate joint at her wrist. “Amma, Jesus Christ, stop,” I cry. “Eliza wouldn’t do anything to Nico.”
Amma drops her grip on Eliza, and whirls around to face me.
“You stupid bitch,” she snarls. “You think these people are your friends? You think you have any fucking clue what’s going on here?”
“Oh, because you’re one to talk about friends, aren’t you?” Brittany yells, her eyes wild, and then she looks at me.
“I know that Amma told you. About where we met. About my family.”
Brittany’s voice goes tight, her words thick and watery, and I nod, confused.
“And her poor, dead boyfriend, right?”
The fight goes out of Amma. Her shoulders sink, and she seems to stagger a little.
“You knew,” she says, her voice suddenly flat. “I knew you knew. Or you’d find out before I could explain, but Brittany—”
“Well, Lux,” Brittany continues as if Amma hadn’t spoken, “here’s a fun fact for you. Her boyfriend isn’t dead. Just in prison. Do you want to tell her why, Amma?”
The night seems to be spinning around us, the boat rocking under our feet, sky and water dark, and Eliza is holding Brittany’s arm, and Amma is reaching out for Brittany just as Jake comes forward, always the peacemaker, his arms out.
Amma must think he’s reaching for her because she thrashes wildly, and her elbow catches me hard in the face.
Pain explodes around my nose, and my vision spangles with stars, then goes dark. I feel a rush of blood pouring down my face.
I can’t be sure what happens next.
The yelling continues, and I’m backing away, but Amma is still advancing on me, and I’m slipping in drops of my own blood, Amma is reaching for me, I’m pulling back …
She slams into me. Does she stumble? Was she trying to tackle me? Was she pushed? I’ll never know. But the two of us are suddenly falling through space, and then the water closes over my head, as salty and warm as the blood still gushing from my nose.
It’s dark, and I’m in pain, the salt water stings everything. Amma’s hands are still grasping for me, and then she has ahold of me, and my brain is screaming for air, for freedom.
Suddenly, that day with the shark—the image of my foot connecting with her jaw, saving me, dooming her—flashes through my mind.
It wasn’t just a fantasy.
It was a premonition.
Amma’s hands are still on me, preventing me from breaking the surface, and I kick and shove, and there’s a hollow, clanging sound.
Amma’s hands fall from me.
There are shouts from above, someone calling my name, but in my pain and panic, I just swim.
Back to shore. Get back to shore, find Nico’s boat, find out what happened, go, go, go …
My muscles burn, my lungs are on fire, and the shore seems impossible to reach. Until, suddenly, I’m there, on my hands and knees in the sand, panting, gagging.
I try to crawl farther, but my body gives out, and I collapse, the world spinning into darkness.
When I open my eyes again, the sky is a soft pink, still navy at the edges, the sun not yet over the horizon.
Morning. No one has come for me, and when I lift my head, all I see is empty water.
The Azure Sky is gone.
I’m completely alone.
There’s crusted blood under my nose, around my mouth, on my chin, and I sit up in disgust, swiping at it, wincing at the soreness, panic already beating a frantic tattoo in my blood.
I’m alone, they left me, they left me, I’m alone on this island and there’s no water, there’s no food, I’m alone.
I stand and wade into the shallows, cupping my hands to splash my face, my whole body shaking as I try to breathe, try to think.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see something pale next to me, lying on the shore.
A hand, palm up, fingers curled.
I follow that hand up a long, slender arm to the sleeve of a black T-shirt.
Amma is lying in the water, looking up at the sky, her eyes wide and horribly, horribly blank.
Dead.
BEFORE
“I’m sorry, darling, but it seemed best to tell you the truth.”
Brittany sits on a bench with Chloe in a park. They’re still in Canberra, and even though it would be spring back home, it’s autumn here. The leaves are turning, the sun is still warm, but the breeze has grown cool. She stares at the phone Chloe has handed her, her eyes fixed on the picture.
It’s from two years ago.
It’s Amma smiling wide, on someone’s Facebook page. She’s a little thinner than she is now, and her hair is shorter, barely brushing her shoulders.