Chapter 7

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THE DOOR SWINGS SHUT BEHINDme, and I face the storm beyond the porch.

I’ve had plenty of terrible ideas, but this one takes the taro biscuit. With each step into the hailing rain, I wonder if I should wait. By tomorrow, the skies will be clear.

Then lightning flashes again, illuminating the body, and I remember this is a person. They might already be dead, but on the off chance they’re not, I can’t leave them to the mercy of the elements. So I keep on, toward the waterline and through the downpour, until after a light-year and then some, I reach them.

A boy—and not a bad-looking one, I decide at the next crack of lightning and thunder, if you ignore (or consider) the fact he’s unapologetically naked.

Admire later.I’m trying to figure out how to transport him when the surf crashes into me and nearly knocks me over. Shit, that’s cold. More waves are surging—I can hear them, roaring closer—and I was already drenched but now I’m inhaling rainwater.

Time to get out of here.

I heave my cargo up by the armpits and start hauling. The slick makes everything harder. The sand’s become a swamp and twice, I almost slip.

Third time’s the charm.

I land hard on my back while the naked boy lands on me, and maybe it’d be comical if he didn’t weigh as much as Hubert. With a guttural cry, I push him half off. The effort leaves me winded, and I lie there, trying to catch my breath, while the sky waterboards me.

That’s when his other half lifts.

He’s awake.

I mean, he must be. Lightning—his hair’s in his eyes and I can’t see if they’re open or not but—blackness—he’s leaning over me and no longer crushing me and that’s an improvement even if I’m still trapped. Beneath him.

A human.

The rain emits a faint sheen where it lands, creating the illusion it’s evaporating off him. In reality, it’s streaming down his hair, his face, and onto mine. I blink the water out of my eyes. My brain feels sodden. What do I do? What do I say?

“Hey.” It registers, in the back of my brain, that this is my first time talking to another person in three years—a monumental moment, not that the storm cares. “Mind getting—”

The request dies in my throat.

My throat, twist-tied off in his chokehold.

What—why? My eyes burn. My skull balloons. Just a bad dream. A bad dream. But if there’s one thing I’ve learned since arriving on this island, it’s that nothing is a bad dream and thinking so is what gets you killed from starvation, dehydration, or—in this case—boys on the beach.

I scrabble at his hands. His grip is iron. I knee him in the balls. He doesn’t flinch. Maybe he isn’t a boy after all.

My tongue is meat in my mouth. My chest is lead. Lightning—a phantom ringing—blackness—a void.

The thunder goes quiet.

Then a blue light. A room, dimly lit, dream-hazy. A man in a white suit. A casket. My voice—I won’t let her follow me—like a thought in my head, and I see myself, standing apart from myself, I reach to touch other-me but I can’t feel her and am I … dead?

Find me, Cee.

No, not dead. Dead-me wouldn’t be able to hear Kay’s voice. The sound of it returns sensation to my limbs and skin—just in time for me to feel the boy’s fingers loosen. His hands fall from my throat. His body thuds to the side. I hear U-me’s voice, reliably monotone. “Strongly disagree.” Then the rain drowns everything out like applause. It batters me, no-holds-barred now that the boy is gone. My gasps turn to gurgles and I choke again—on spit and air. I gulp it down, then finally roll. Onto my side. Onto my elbows. I lift my head, and through the rain, I see the gleam of U-me’s metal body.

She’s by the boy, who’s now lying facedown on the sand. I don’t know what she did—bot headbutt?—but it was effective. He’s out, and I’m not strangled.

“Thanks, love,” I croak, my voice a stranger’s. “I owe you one.”

“Agree.”

Together, we consider the boy.

“Now, what are we going to do with him?”