I wanted to be sad, but I couldn’t. He was never like me, and I shouldn’t have kept him here. He’s the brother I should have had if my daddy, Otto, had lived. My mother never talks about Otto. Didn’t let me have photos of him and just shook her head and walked away if I mentioned his name. But I kept my memories. I have almost perfect recall. Strange brain, I have.
Daddy spoke like Mom and me, with a Southern drawl, and we were always laughing together. He’d lift me onto his shoulders whenever we walked to the park, just because. Mom laughed a lot back then, too. She and Daddy would fight, but then they’d make up and kiss.
I rarely saw Daddy James and Mom kissing. Just a peck on the cheek. Not real kissing.
Everyone was gathering around. Trying to make sense of everything they’d just seen and been through.
But everything that happens is filtered through people’s minds. And no one can make sense of someone else’s mind. Not really. Unless you can walk inside and see the framework and walls and halls and rooms of memory, you’ll never really know.
Cormack reached me first. His arms went around me.
His arms felt like walls, except walls of flesh and blood and warmth.
I sensed his mind marked and stained by the sight of me pushing a knife into Daddy James.
A sharp, unexpected night wind blowing down on the dandelions.
“Kara,” he said quietly. “It’s time to go.”
83. Evie
THE ISLAND BECAME A DARK SMUDGE against the sky as the Coast Guard boat headed back out to sea. I kept watching, needing to witness the moment when the island vanished altogether.
Commander Liourdis had requested that we not tell him our stories yet. He said he couldn’t determine what was truth or fiction, and I didn’t blame him. He’d called for Hellenic Coast Guard patrols and the Hellenic Police to head out to the island and investigate.
I didn’t know whether the guards and police would find Poppy dead or alive when they got there. A dark part of me hoped that she’d live and be put away in jail the rest of her life. She’d be mourning the loss of the man she loved—Brother Vito—for a long time, just like she’d made so many others suffer the loss of loved ones. She deserved to know pain.
Constance stood on the deck with her daughter, holding her as though she was terrified that if she let go, Kara would be gone forever. Kara stared out to the island, her expression blank, frozen.
Richard and Cormack leaned on the boat’s railing, Richard gazing up at the sky, Cormack casting quick glances in Kara’s direction. I caught Kara stealing a return look.
The others were still having cuts tended to.
The lives of Jennifer Bloom and James Lundquist were on tenterhooks. Both had lost a lot of blood. I prayed if only one of them were to live, then that person would be Jennifer. I’d last seen Sethi by Jennifer’s side, with his forehead bent down to her chest and his shoulders hitching as he sobbed. She hadn’t regained consciousness.
I was both terrified of someone as dangerous as James living and terrified of him dying. If he died, all his knowledge about the membership of Yeqon’s Saviours would be gone. As their leader, he’d know more than anyone. There might well be more of the Saviours who didn’t come to the island for the challenges due to illness or whatever else. And the few that had been left alive on the island might be sailing away right now. My stomach twisted at the thought of Saviours being out there in the world, ready to rebuild that cult of evil.
A bandaged Gray emerged from the interior of the ship. Moving behind me, he locked his arms around my shoulders and kissed my temple.
A tremor passed through my body as I moved around to face him. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Better than new.” The familiar creases appeared at the outer edges of his eyes as he smiled. The handsome face that had grown pale during the Sydney winter had suddenly become sun browned under the Mediterranean sun. He had a week’s growth of light-brown stubble, which I’d never seen him with before. And he’d dyed his blonde hair dark. He was a different man than I’d known. Had this whole insane thing changed him, or had this always been the man inside Gray? I didn’t know. I didn’t deserve either version of Gray. I was still having trouble processing Gray even being here.
“How am I ever going to explain myself and what I did to our daughters?” My voice was paper thin in between the sound of the boat’s motor and the ocean.
“C’mon, Evie,” he said gently. “They’re too young to be told much at all. All they need to know is that Mummy wasn’t well and she went away to get better. And now she’s back.”