Chapter 17

It's alreadylate afternoon and though I'm not sure what excuse I'm going to give my father for my absence, I head up the dune path to the cottage. I can always tell him I went for an early-morning walk on the beach and then fell asleep on the sand—which actually sounds great. Right now, mysteries and lies aside, all I care about is my nice soft bed.

Behind me, boots crunch over the beachgrass. I wheel around, breathless.

"Liam?"

"Guess again, Miss Hollywood."

I force my voice even. "Why are you here, Wade?"

"Just being neighborly and all, helping a girl who's probably tired from her long night of adventure."

I survey the path to the cottage. There's no place for me to run. "I should get home."

Wade closes the distance between us. "When you went out in the wee hours, you didn't forget about the bog-holes, did you?" he drawls. "Wouldn't want you slipping into one."

"What do you want?"

"Just want to keep visitors to the island safe, is all."

I push past him and keep walking, but he trails me to the cottage's backyard. I dart up the steps to the balcony and pray my father's home. Wade peers up at me but makes no attempt to climb the stairs.

"It was real nice running into you, Rosalie. Just hope you remember to keep your nose out of places it doesn't belong."

He sounds just like his father. "Leave. Now."

"I feel your vibrations right through the soil," he says, smarmy smile gone. "I can hear this island's breath. And tell when its rhythms are disrupted."

A chill races up my spine. My legs wobble beneath me. "You're all crazy," I say and storm inside the cottage, slamming and bolting the door behind me.

But are they?I've felt the island speak to me, too. Is it possible an entire group of people can share the same delusions?

I hurry down to the living room to look for my dad, but he's not here. Grabbing a fireplace poker, I peer through the curtains to the backyard, then the front. Wade's gone. For now.

I close and lock all the windows, draw the curtains, climb the stairs to my room, and collapse onto my bed, still clutching the poker. My head spins with images from the miracle plant expedition, the carved symbols I found, Evan's strange illness, and now Wade's threats.

It's unfathomable why people on this island tolerate the Lambert bullies. I didn't flee my mother's gilded cage for the Salttain Island crime syndicate to put me in another one.

Though I don't feel safe venturing out to the General Store, I do need to do research after I get some sleep. Upload this photo of the glyphs and see where that leads. I'm not sure what I can share with my Reddit pals that won't make them write me off as a total whack job.

Unshed tears prick at the back of my eyes. Tyler would have been able to explain it all. Why did he have to go and die?

If only Liam would come back.

Though I'm not ready to admit why I care so much.

* * *

After a too-long nap,I find my father reading on the balcony. If he's noticed I was gone, he doesn't mention it, so I spend the afternoon with him, pouring through the Field Guide, taking notes, and ineptly trying to draw what I failed to capture with my phone. We don't speak much, and Dad turns in early, claiming another headache.

Finally, when the sun sets on the interminable day, I peer out to the yard to find the Lady Skirts ablaze and lining the path like it's a city street at night. I grab the fireplace poker in case Wade shows up, throw on a t-shirt and jeans, and bound downstairs, charging through the yard and down toward the beach.

I pause at the head of the dunes. The sand sparkles with diamond brilliance, water lapping around a wooden contraption abandoned at the shoreline. As I draw closer, I realize it's an easel turned on its side. "Evan!"

I charge into the water. Face down, Evan is pulled under by the churning waves. I battle the surf, adrenaline fueling my wild strokes, but he's out of my reach as we're both swept further from shore.

When I finally reach him, he's chalky pale, lips blue, motionless. The lights of the Lady Skirts grow distant as the waves pull us further out. I kick crazily against the current, but the closer to shore I get, yet another wave drags us out.

Please, not this again. Am I living in a recurring nightmare?

Something smooth and cold bumps my leg, propelling us through the waves to shallow water. Moonlight glistens on slick fur as the seal dives deep and swims off.

I've got no time to marvel at the wonders of the sea. Hefting Evan onto the sand, I blink away images of Tyler dead on the beach, a wax-pale gash on his forehead.

Evan gags and coughs up gouts of sea water.

"What the hell did you think you were doing?" I shriek.

He blinks at me, gaze bleary. "Lovely night…" he chokes out between coughs, "for a swim."

"Not funny! We nearly drowned. You're lucky I found you!"

"Am I?" The fingers on his recently-healed hand curl in, the lesions fusing three fingers together. "Happened this afternoon," he says. "It was so quick. But it—it doesn't hurt. I just…I just can't hold a brush anymore."

"We need to get you home."

"I promised myself if I couldn't paint, I'd call it quits," he says. "The Lady Skirts were all lit up. Figured it was Liam calling me to join him."

"No, Evan," I say. "Liam wants you to live. Don't you dare give up while there's still hope."

"Myths. Fairytales we talked ourselves into believing. That's what this place does to you. Let me die out here, not strapped to a bed like some medical experiment gone wrong."

My mind races. Maybe, the key to helping Evan is understanding his malady. If no one can figure out what's wrong with him, how can they help him?

Evan stumbles to his feet, but when I try to help him, he shrugs me off. "I'm okay."

I start to gather up his easel, but the thing is ruined. He must have banged it up before he brought it out here.

He watches me, shaking his head. "It's too dangerous for you to harvest that plant. Or to get too much. But I'll make you a deal. If you can get enough to heal my fingers so I can paint a little each night, I won't do anything stupid. For now."

I study his lanky form in the moonlight, wet hair falling in straggles around the gaunt lines of his face. "I'm not sure if I can find any more, but I promise to try."

Figures barrel towards us across the beach: two white-coated attendants carrying a gurney, followed by a woman I assume is a very out-of-breath Mrs. Bailey. When the men lift Evan up off his feet, he thrashes and tries to resist, but his efforts are useless. They lay him on the gurney and strap him down.

The woman, her blond hair askew, is a wreck. "What happened here, Evan?"

"Went for a swim," he says with a soft chuckle.

"You," she says, pointing at me. "You're Edward's daughter. Did you lure him out here? I've seen that painting he's doing of you."

"Mother." Evan struggles against the straps to sit up and fails. My heart lurches with pity and understanding. Like me, he's a prisoner of his mother's good intentions. "Not what happened."

"Get him inside," she snaps to the attendants. When she turns to me, her tone is acid. "I welcomed you to this island, but you didn't give me the courtesy of showing up. Your father will be ashamed to hear what you've done. From now on, stay away from my son!"

I consider responding, but the woman is too blind with fear and the need to blame someone. She storms after the men, who haul Evan's gurney away across the beach, leaving me alone.

And I've made yet another promise I may not be able to keep.

The Lady Skirts have guttered out. Then, like a thousand flashbulbs firing at once, they blaze to life. Tiny, diamond-like blossoms glitter on the sand as a figure emerges from the waves.

Moonlight glistens off Liam's bare chest, his hair as dark as the black water itself. Unclothed other than a sheath of seaweed wrapped around his middle, he wades to shore.

I swallow a gasp. "What the?—"

"Nice evening for a swim, isn't it?"

Too stunned to speak past my pounding heart, I want to throw my arms around him in relief. I also want to rush at him and beat on his chest in rage, but the fact that he's got so much exposed skin stops me from doing either one. Instead, I clench my fists. "Now you come? Where were you when Evan tried to drown himself? Where the hell have you been?"

"I came when I could," he says. "I'm sorry."

The Lady Skirts flicker as if they're linked to me instead of him. I'm more relieved than I realized that he's okay. "I-I thought you were dead."

He smiles. "Do I look dead?"

My cheeks heat and I look away. "Far from it."

Liam looks down, as if he's forgotten he has on next to nothing. "Whoops! I couldn't find a clean swimsuit." Then his smile dims. "I actually came to ask for your help. Again."

I tear my thoughts away from the soaking-wet boy. Maybe it's better if we both pretend he's not gleaming in the moonlight like a Roman god in a seaweed Speedo. "You didn't tell me how sick Evan was. I thought you wanted me to help him! What the hell is going on with you?"

Liam slumps. "I told you what he tried to do. There's a sickness inside of him. I'm tired, Rosalie. So damn tired. My sister hasn't woken up since Brody attacked her."

"Shit," I say. "Is she in the hospital?"

He shakes his head. "Hospitals can't help our kind."

"Your kind? Give me a break. Isn't anyone going to press charges? Try to prosecute that evil creep?"

"Just don't go there, okay?"

I tremble with fury and frustration. "You're all a bunch of lunatics on this island. Every last one of you."

"You don't actually believe that." Liam's silver eyes bore into mine. "It's only your Landsider science books that keep you from putting all the puzzle pieces together."

His cocky stance and the upward tilt of his bright eyes are so reminiscent of Tyler it hurts. I don't know what to make of Liam O'Donnell. What to believe anymore. I don't even know what to make of myself.

"Last night, I found enough salttain weed to heal the lesions on a few of his fingers," I say. "Not enough to beat back the crud that seems to be eating him alive. For that I'll need a truckload."

"Lesions?" His lip curls in disgust.

"Liam," I say, softly. "Something on this island is eating away at him. Not just his mind, but his body. It's like a rot."

He heaves a long exhale, then nods.

"What the hell is it?" I demand.

Liam shrugs…I shudder. Maybe what's wrong with Evan is contagious. But now's not the time to press him. "Didn't you hear me say I found some salttain? Just a little. But Evan needs a whole lot more."

Liam whirls on me so quickly, he almost drops his seaweed kilt. "You really found some?"

"I—uh—didn't exactly find it. I called it to me."

For a moment, he looks perplexed, as if I'd just told him I could sprout wings and fly. Then his expression shifts to shrewd. "I see," he says, pondering me.

"You see what?"

"An enigma. A Landsider with abilities only the most powerful of Islanders can wield. You know that no one has found even a trace of that plant in nearly a decade, right?"

I meet his gaze. "Don't pull this mystical island shaman crap on me. I'm probably the only scientist who ever tried."

Liam erupts in laughter that shakes his chest and, again, imperils the positioning of his seaweed fig leaf. I look away to hide my flushed face.

"You don't believe your own bullshit for a minute," he says, no longer laughing.

"I don't know what you're driving at."

He steps toward me, close enough so I can almost taste the salt on his wet skin.

"Rosalie," he says, his voice one with the surf and the wind. "Sometimes I wonder what you're not telling me."

I step backward, away from him, as if I'm teetering on the lip of an abyss. "Not telling you? You're the one keeping secrets around here!"

"Forget it then," he says. "All that matters right now is for you to find more salttain. You can be a space alien or a lucky idiot, I don't really care. Aurora needs it. And so does Evan. But don't try to go alone. Believe what you want, but danger is this island's biggest export. And we're in its crosshairs."

The Lady Skirts dim, then sputter out one by one. I'm about to slam him with more questions, but Liam has already turned and taken a running dive into the water, abandoning me on the beach.