“People lie, Han, you know that.” Maya’s voice is dull.
“I know, but how would he have had the opportunity? We’ve been together most of the time.”
“Not all. I was just thinking about it, we’ve been in our own little bubbles after everything that’s happened, taken for granted that he’s been in his room, but he could have snuck out. There’ve been loads of times that he went up alone to the restaurant, said he was getting drinks or something to eat, but God knows what he was doing. I couldn’t tell you the exact movements of any of us, not really.”
Hana nods, churning it over. “But how could he do something like this? Something so wrong? Even if you hated someone’s guts it doesn’t give you the right to—” She breaks off, tears escaping, spilling down her cheeks.
“I don’t know. How do you ever get inside someone else’s head?” Maya pauses. “And Han, it’s not up to you to find answers. We’ve been through enough. Jo . . . she’s dead.” She tries to catch Hana’s eye. “We haven’t even talked about what’s happened yet, have we? Jo, I mean.”
Hana nods, and all at once she feels it catching up with her. All the anger she’s felt about Jo mixed with a strange kind of guilt. Regret. Love. A complex blend that she’s unable to parse, let alone grapple with. She can actually feel it, thick in her throat, all the emotion somehow stuck, clotted there.
“I can’t forgive her for what she did with Liam, but I loved her, Maya,” she says falteringly. “Bea too.” She swallows. “I loved them so much, and now they’re gone.”
“I know.” Maya takes her hand in hers, and it’s there, on the floor of the room with strangers asleep all around them, that the tears and the real feelings come rushing out. The tears are not just for her, but for Bea, Liam, all of it. All the emotions knotted together in one big ball, and it’s only now unraveling.
“I’m alone, Maya,” Hana says, for the first time not just saying it aloud but acknowledging it in her own head. “I’m all alone. My sisters are dead.” Her chest is heaving as it hits her. A sledgehammer of grief.
Maya looks at her. For a moment, Hana thinks she’s about to cry too, but then she reaches for Hana, pulls her down beside her, wraps her body tightly around hers.
Hana remembers them doing this as kids, the last time, the night of the fire. Maya always had bad nightmares, so Hana would curl up behind her until she went back to sleep.
“You’re not alone,” Maya says softly. “I promise you. You’ve got me. And this time, Han, I won’t leave you. I’m here for you as long as you need.”
89
Outside, Elin finds herself in the eye of the storm. Though it’s past dawn, the sky has barely lightened. Rain is torrential—coming at her sideways, lashing her face and neck. She can even taste it, the ground giving up what remained of the dry and dust, a heady, earthy scent.
The storm has wreaked devastation: chairs tossed around the terrace, broken branches scattering the path. Trees are ominously creaking around her, their trunks bending in the gusts.
On reaching the beach, there’s more damage: a pine uprooted and snarled across the sand, a Medusa. The rack Tom described has tipped over, the boards being lifted by the wind on one side before slamming hard back down to the beach on the other.
Looking around, Elin has the feeling that the retreat won’t survive this—that the storm and the island, the rock itself, won’t be sated until it’s swept the place clean, all traces of the man-made removed.
Slowly, she makes her way up onto the rocks leading to the wooden bridge. On the first, she hesitates, finding them slick with water. Each step is carefully taken, arms outstretched for balance. It takes several minutes before she reaches the start of the bridge. The thin slats are slippery, too, and Elin watches with trepidation as it sways violently from side to side.
Clamping her hands tightly around the ropes of the handrail, she tentatively begins moving forward. Fine spats of rain whip her face, into her eyes, blurring her view of the islet, but she keeps her gaze fixed ahead, determined to avoid looking down through the gaps. The water between them is no longer flat, the beautiful minty green of before, but dark and angry, frothing thin spumes of white into the air.
Fear pulses relentlessly in her chest, and it’s a relief when she finally steps onto solid ground on the other side. She rushes up the path and through the trees, the dense canopy a respite from the rain but not the wind, the branches above shaking furiously.