Hereafter

down and get you for the meeting tonight.”

“You don’t have to do that,” I said, even as my blood ran cold, remembering the looks on the faces of Nadia’s crew that afternoon.

“Just for now,” he said. “Until we figure it all out. Which we will do.”

I nodded, trying to feel as confident as he seemed. “Okay.”

I went to push the gate open, but he didn’t move. When I looked up at him, I could have sworn he caught his breath. “You sure you’re all right?”

My palms began to itch, and there was a slight hitch in my pulse, but I ignored it. This was Joaquin. He was a player. He’d screwed over my sister. And I was with Tristan. Wherever he was. I heard a loud caw and saw them coming, five dark splotches against the purple sky. The crows swooped in and landed on the apex of our roof, one, two, three, four, five. Overhead, the seagull circled and bleated, but it was clearly outnumbered. It finally turned and soared out to sea.

“Yeah,” I said. “I’m fine. I’ll see you later.”

I shoved the gate open, forcing him to take a step back, and strode inside without a second glance. As soon as I inhaled the familiar, musty scent of the house, I started to relax. I was home. I was safe.

Then I spotted Darcy at the kitchen table, and my heart froze. Maybe I wasn’t so safe.

“Hey, Darcy,” I said casually, hoping that if I acted like nothing was wrong, she’d follow suit.

But Darcy just made a grunting, scoffing sound in the back of her throat and pushed her chair back.

“Darcy,” I implored her.

“Leave me alone,” she said, one foot already on the bottom step.

My pulse started to race in that sickly way it did whenever Darcy was mad at me, but there was no way I was going to let a misunderstanding about a guy get between us. Not again. Not now, when Nadia was busy turning everyone on this island against me. I caught up with Darcy just as she was about to slam the door to her room. I flattened my hand against it and stopped her, jamming my wrist.

“Darcy, if this is about Fisher, there’s nothing going on,” I said.

She groaned again and walked farther into her room, tossing a book onto the bed. It flapped closed, and I saw the ancient silver writing, faded, on the cloth cover. Wuthering Heights. Impressive.

“Did you or did you not sneak out of the house to have breakfast with both the guys I like?” Darcy demanded.

I paled. She’d seen Joaquin, too? “It’s not like I—”

“Answer the question!” she fumed.

“Okay, yes,” I stated. “Yes. I did. But do you really think I’m going to go after Joaquin? Or Fisher?”

She flopped down on her window seat, turning her palms up atop her thighs.

“No, I don’t think you’re interested in either one of them. Not really,” she said. “But do you have any idea how this feels? It’s like you’re trying to hurt me. You. My own sister.”

She drew her legs up, facing away from me with forced casualness, as if she were fine and not vibrating with 5,000 megahertz of anger and sorrow. My chest heaved, desperate to just tell her the truth. Desperate to fix things between us however possible.

But I couldn’t. Because if I told her the truth, I would damn her to the Shadowlands. I so wished she’d just perform a selfless act already, so this would all be a done deal. What I wouldn’t give to slap a Lifer bracelet on her wrist and tell her everything. But all I could do was keep my mouth shut and hope that it would happen. And soon.

“I’m sorry,” I said finally, quietly. “I guess I’ll just go.”

“Fine,” she spat. “Go!”

I turned on my heel but paused at the door, my fingers curling around the beveled trim.

“But, Darcy, there is one thing you should know,” I said, looking halfway over my shoulder.

She sighed. “What?”

“I would never intentionally do anything to hurt you,” I said. “Never.”

Then I slipped into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

5 souls

I stared at the Scrabble board in the center of the kitchen table, but the letters might as well have been hieroglyphics. My vision blurred in and out. Nothing made sense. Darcy hated me. Joaquin, quite possibly, liked me. But worst of all was Nadia. Clearly, she was determined to turn the town, and especially the mayor, against me. And now she might even be working on Tristan. What if she convinced him? What if she and her angry mob stopped glowering from safe distances and came after me?

“Bam!” my father shouted suddenly, nearly knocking me off my chair. “Quixotic! Q on a triple-letter, X on a triple-word; that’s one hundred and eighty-eight points! Read it and weep.”

I stared at him, trying to pull myself into his present. A present where he was alive and well, devouring ice cream, playing Scrabble with his daughter, and kicking her sorry ass. He licked a drop of chocolate sauce off his lip and smiled.

“Sorry,” he said when he saw my face. “That was a tad over the top. But you gotta admit…”

He gestured at the board, waiting for me to give him his props.

“Yes, Dad. You are a genius,” I said in a jokingly toneless voice. “Get over yourself.”

I looked down at the makeshift score sheet he’d drawn out for us, two columns labeled R for Rory and D for Dad, and it reminded me of the tally I’d found down at the cave. I wondered what Pete had done with it, where it was now, whether the mayor had seen it.

“Do you want to take a break?” my father asked. “I’m not really sure your head is in this tonight.”

A survey of the board proved him right. My words were stellar little pieces of brilliance like dog, from, and mat. With one word he’d pretty much annihilated my score.

“I guess not,” I told him, leaning back in my chair, feeling impossibly heavy. Outside the window screens, the waves sloshed against the shore, the low tide marking a steady, low rhythm.

“Everything okay, Rory?” my dad asked, his brow creasing with concern. “You look like you’ve got the weight of the world on your shoulders.”

Not the other world. Just this one, I thought. I gazed across the kitchen table at him, hesitating. Over the past few years I had barely spoken to my father, other than to inform him when I’d be home, that I had a doctor’s appointment, that I needed money for a haircut. It had been forever since my dad had offered to talk.

“Have you ever felt like you could trust someone one day and felt completely opposite the next?” I asked, toying with my tiles on their wooden rack.

He narrowed his brown eyes. “Is this about a boy?”

“Dad!” I said, blushing slightly. “Just answer the question.”

He leaned back as well, mimicking my pose, and thought. “Yes. Yes, I have,” he said at last.

“And? What did you do?” I asked.

“Well, Rory, things aren’t always exactly what they seem,” he said. “So I gave the person a chance to explain and then decided whether or not it was enough for me to trust them again.”

“And? Was it?” I asked hopefully.

He frowned and picked up his spoon, swirling it in the melted remains of his sundae.

“In my case, no,” he said, causing my heart to drop. “But that doesn’t necessarily mean it’ll be the same for you.”

“I know,” I replied.

I balled my hands into fists on the table, stacked them one on top of the other, and brought my chin down