Jack closed his eyes and Shane was sitting beside him, football in his hands. You might have a little competition at quarterback, big brother.
And Jack was grinning because this was the third day of their vacation and they had forever till they had to go home again. A million hours of sun and sand and surf. And they were playing catch and the storm was moving on. They were still playing catch.
Please, God, let us still be playing catch.
But when Jack opened his eyes he wasn’t on the beach, he was sitting in the front seat of the ambulance and his mother was still crying beside him and when he looked back, his father was still there next to Shane. And Shane still wasn’t moving, no matter how hard the paramedics worked to make him breathe again.
The next two hours passed with Jack in the most horrible fog. He kept closing his eyes and finding himself in a place where yesterday lived. He didn’t fully realize what had happened or why they were in a hospital until his father found him in the waiting room.
Shane had taken in too much water, his dad was saying. The paramedics did everything they could. They needed to take his body home and…
“No!” Jack tried to stand, but he couldn’t make himself move. Instead he fell to the cold, dusty hospital floor and he could see the headlines. East Coast Teen Dies Saving Little Girl. And everyone would know his name. Shane Ryder. Not because he was President of the United States, but because his life had been cut short.
His best friend. His brother.
The ache in Jack was worse than anything in all his life. Shane, where are you? He couldn’t see, couldn’t believe it. Couldn’t move. And one single thought pulled at Jack harder than the ocean current.
All of this was his fault. It had to be. He should’ve swum faster, rescued the little girl and then made it back to help Shane. There had to have been a way. But now Shane wasn’t going to Georgetown Prep in the fall and Jack wasn’t ever going to play catch with him on the beach again. His brother was gone.
And Jack would spend the rest of his life paying for it.
THE WATER WOULDN’T take her.
All she had wanted was to stay still, to slip down, down to the bottom of the ocean. So that God would take her to the edge of the ocean, where her mother and brother lived. But her arms hadn’t listened to her heart. They kept drawing and pulling and grabbing at the water. And her lungs kept breathing.
Then she had seen something else.
Two boys swimming out to get her. And there on the shore, Aunt Betsy, waving at her, all wild-like. And the two Palace guards standing nearby with their guns. Like they might shoot her if she didn’t get back to shore.
When the first boy reached her, Eliza tried to get away. No, she tried to shout. I want my Mama. I want my brother. Daniel, I’m here! But the boy had put her on his back and started swimming toward the beach.
Closer and closer and closer.
And with every passing second, as Aunt Betsy came into view, the truth became clearer. Her aunt was desperate to see Eliza saved. Not because she loved her. But because of the plans her father had for her. Big plans for some far-off day. Plans that involved drugs and men and money. At least that’s what Eliza thought.
“No!” she screamed and the sound made her eyes fly open. What was this?
She sat straight up, her breaths coming hard and fast. Where was she? She wasn’t in the ocean, she was in bed. Her bed. The sheets were silky satin and the bed coverings were fluffy white. Eliza put her hand to her chest and felt her heartbeat. Boom, boom, boom. Like a scary drum.
She ran her hands over her arms and her hair and it hit her. This wasn’t the ocean and she wasn’t on the boy’s back. She wasn’t drowning and her mother and brother were not here to help her.
Eliza was back in the Palace.
And the armed guards were just outside her door. She could see their shadows.
If she had fallen beneath the surface of the ocean, she would finally be with Mama and Daniel. Eating dinner with them on the other side of the sea. Instead she was here, in the room where her daddy kept her. The room that smelled like fine linen and perfume, across the house from the place where the other girls were sold to different men every night. She slid back down under the covers and snuggled her cheek into the pillow. No matter what she dreamed tonight, when she woke up she wouldn’t be in heaven like she had hoped.
She’d be in hell.
CHAPTER THREE
Fire consumed their young men, and their young women had no wedding songs.
—Psalm 78:63
Every once in a while, when the warm salty breeze drifted up off the Caribbean Sea over shimmering sand, when it brushed against Eliza’s tired face as she sat alone on the beach at the base of the familiar cliff, reading yet another book from the Palace library, she would close the cover and look up. And on her very best days in that moment she could still see the God of her childhood.
There at the far edge of the ocean. The way she had a decade ago.
Eliza shaded her eyes, and stared out at the horizon, searching for God. But He wasn’t there. Not today. He hadn’t been for a long time. A sigh drifted up from her frigid heart. Never mind. Nine days from now things would get worse. Much worse. Her fear about what was coming
