Liam raised his hand as if he were hoping to be called on in class. “I know I’m new to this stuff, but that does sound about right.”
Joaquin’s whole expression shifted. He looked at me as if dumbfounded and impressed at the same time. Which was kind of nice.
“Rory,” he said slowly. “You’re a genius.”
“Wait a minute, now,” Dorn began.
“Let’s do it,” Joaquin said, with a giddiness in his tone that I hadn’t heard before.
Dorn lifted both his meaty hands. “Uh-uh. No way.”
“You’re coming with me?” I asked Joaquin, ignoring Dorn. My terror melted away to more of a simmering nervousness. I knew I had to do this, but having company seemed like a good idea.
“Like I’d really let you snag the glory.” He smiled shakily.
“I hate to burst your bubble, but you two aren’t going anywhere,” Dorn barked.
There was a rumble of thunder in the distance, and we looked up at the sky. A drop of rain fell like a dart into my right eye. It stung like acid. I pressed the heel of my hand into it and blinked it away.
“Think about it, Dorn,” Joaquin said, getting right in the man’s face. “How big of an idiot would you feel like if you found out Tristan was sitting ten feet away from you and you didn’t know it?”
“I know I’d feel like a huge idiot,” Liam put in helpfully.
There was a beat as Dorn narrowed his eyes. He was going to say no and have us escorted back to town or something. I couldn’t let that happen. Not when I was so sure we were this close. This close to finding Tristan, to getting my dad back, to saving Darcy.
“If we find him, we’ll let you take the credit,” I offered.
Dorn titled his head. I could see the glint in his eyes as he imagined delivering the news to the mayor that he had apprehended Tristan. “Yeah?”
“Sure. Why not?” Joaquin confirmed.
He frowned, considering, and the rain picked up, pinging off his broad shoulders.
“Okay, fine. You can go.”
“You bet your ass we can go,” Joaquin said, starting past him.
“Thank you!” I put in.
At that very moment, the rest of our posse showed up, breathless from the climb and soaking from head to toe. Fisher had removed his sunglasses and looked seriously pissed. Pete took one look at our belligerent stances and trained his eyes on the ground, his hood covering his face. The others hung back a bit as Fisher and Bea stormed over to us.
“What are you guys doing?” Bea asked, her hands on her hips.
“Searching the bridge for Tristan and Nadia,” Joaquin said, raising his eyebrows. “Wanna come?”
They all seemed to protest at once, but Joaquin and I ignored them and strode purposefully toward the bridge, Cori, Pete, and Lauren close behind us. We stepped up to the very lip, where its metal surface met the dirt of the road, and I stopped breathing.
The entrance was entirely obscured by swirling fog. The eerie hiss of the mist sent a shiver right through me. I pressed my fists together in front of me to try to keep myself from shaking noticeably.
You can do this, I told myself. I couldn’t even imagine how the bridge had looked to my father and Darcy. At least I had a choice. They had been dragged over against their will, terrified, probably screaming for help.
Joaquin and I looked at each other. He had my back. I could see it in his eyes. My fingers suddenly itched to hold his hand.
“You guys! Don’t do this!” Bea said, storming over to us. She shoved her hood off her hair to look us in the eye. “You have no idea what might happen to you. Good people are getting sent to the Shadowlands. How do you know you’re not just going to get sucked in there, too?”
“We don’t,” Joaquin said.
Lauren whimpered and cuddled into Fisher’s side. He covered his mouth with one hand, and even from a few yards away I could see that he was shaking. Cori paced back and forth, gnawing on her lower lip.
“I can’t be here for this,” Pete said, pulling his hood on as he stepped back and away from the group. “I can’t look.”
With his head down he marched off, Liam watching his back as he went. Liam was the only person who didn’t seem completely disturbed by what we were doing. Which made sense, since he could never have grasped the real gravity of the situation. He’d never seen anyone go over the bridge, never ushered anyone himself, never experienced the horror I’d felt when Aaron had gone to the Shadowlands after I’d sent him on his merry way. To him, this was just a creepy bridge. He’d never seen firsthand what it could do.
“I have to do this, Bea,” I said quietly. “If there’s a chance he’s on the bridge, I have to find him. I have to help my family.”
Bea’s eyes suddenly flooded with tears. “Don’t. Rory, you don’t—”
I reached out and squeezed her hand. “It’s going to be okay,” I told her, barely believing it myself.
She looked desperately at Joaquin, but Fisher was the one who spoke up. “Jay, you’re not really going to do this. You’re not seriously going to tell me you think this is a good idea.”
“It may not be a good idea, but it’s the only idea we’ve got,” he said.
He reached over to take my hand and gave it a squeeze. My heart flooded and a faint blush crept up my cheeks. “You ready?” he asked.
I nodded, even though, of course, I wasn’t. “Let’s go.”
“No,” Lauren cried. “You guys! No! Don’t do this! Don’t—”
We took our first step into the wall of fog, and her frantic pleas were cut off. It was as if someone had hit a cosmic mute button and the world went silent, save for the mist. I took a breath. The fog undulated as I exhaled. Joaquin’s arm was warm and steady. He gave me a bolstering look.
“Okay?” he said.
“Okay.”
We took another slow, tentative step. Then a third, a fourth, a fifth. The air grew markedly colder with each breath. Joaquin adjusted his grip on my hand, and I could feel the slick sweat that had pooled between our palms.
“Tristan?” he called loudly, clearly.
There was nothing. Nothing but the hissing of the mist. We walked a bit farther, and I realized suddenly that it wasn’t even raining here in the murky grayness. The bridge was immune to the weather. Except for the fog.
“Tristan?” I said, then gulped. “Nadia?”
It was worth a try, but there was no response. My spine crawled, and I steeled myself, holding on tighter to Joaquin’s hand. Even if they were here, they wouldn’t be able to see us any better than we could see them. Right?
We took another tentative step. Another. And then we heard the laugh—and the whispering. Joaquin and I froze.
“…look at them…”
“…she thinks that she’s…”
“…can’t even…”
“…dead…”
A cold dread settled in my bones. I stood, holding my breath and listening.
“Who’s there?” Joaquin said at full voice.
The response was a single, sarcastic laugh. Male, female—I couldn’t tell. All I knew was that it was laughing at me. Then, a single icy finger trailed ever so slowly down the back of my neck. I gasped and then realized with a sinking feeling that I was no longer holding Joaquin’s hand. It was as if someone had grabbed him from behind and dragged him away so fast he didn’t even have time to scream.
“Joaquin!” I shouted. “Joaquin!”
The mist gathered around the spot where he’d stood, forming into a perfect wall as if he’d never even been there. Hot tears of terror coursed down my face.
“Joaquin! Where are you?” I could still feel the warmth of his fingers against mine. “Where are you?”
Silence, as complete and total as death. My fingernails drilled into my palms. I was alone.
Someone blew on my neck. I let out a screech and whirled around. Nothing but the mist.
“Stop it. Please,” I whimpered. “Please. Please don’t hurt him. I just want to find my sister. My dad. Please just leave us alone.”
“Rory!” a voice sang out teasingly. “Rooooreeee!”
And then, the whistling. “The Long and Winding Road.” It was being whistled directly into my ear.
I ran for my life, forgetting everything other than my own survival. I sprinted straight ahead—away from the voice—barreling through the fog, certain at every moment that I would run right into the waiting arms of my tormentor, Steven Nell. I looked over my shoulder, to the left, to the right. There was nothing but the mist. The unforgiving, unrelenting mist.
As I kept running, an awful thought began to scratch at the back of my mind. What if I ran right into the Shadowlands? But no. It wasn’t possible. I needed a coin to open the portal. My only hope was to stay on the bridge. To keep going. If I kept going, maybe I’d find Joaquin or Tristan or Nadia—someone. Anyone who could tell me how to find my way back.
I was panting. About to pass out. How long had I been running? How long did I have to go before I—
“Rory, honey, stop.”
“Mom?”
I tripped. My knees hit the metal roadway with a jarring slam. I gasped in relief. I’d heard my mother’s voice. I’d heard her. I sucked in a few breaths, my lungs on fire, and tried to focus, pressing my palms into the grooved metal ground. I took comfort in its very existence. At least it was familiar. It was something real.
“Mom?” I pushed myself up again, turning around in circles. “Mom?”
“…which way is she…”
“…doesn’t know…”
“…so naive she is, so very…”
“…straight ahead, honey. Straight ahead.”
Something moved in the mist, and I ran toward it. “Joaquin?” I paused and gathered myself, squinting. Suddenly I smelled something familiar. The spicy scent of Tristan’s shampoo. I felt his presence as clearly as if he were standing beside me, holding my hand. It was as if I could hear his heartbeat.
“Tristan?” I said, my voice cracking. “Tristan, is that you?”
There was a clearing up ahead. I could almost see. Was it the portal to the Light? The Shadowlands? Was it Joaquin? Tristan? Was my mother really here? I ran as fast as I could, holding on to hope, trying to blot out the fear. But as I ran, something pulled at my hair. Not the fog, not the rain, but something alive. Long, hungry fingers reached for me, snagging in my hair, trying to drag me back. The harder I ran, the farther they reached, now scratching at my ears, now whisking against my cheeks.
“…don’t go, don’t go, we can’t let you go…don’t go, don’t go, we can’t let you go…”
“Help me!” I screeched. “Someone, help me!”
I stumbled forward, my lungs burning. All I could feel were my feet pounding the ground and fear coursing through my veins. I ran and I ran and I ran until the rain suddenly battered my face—and I collided with Joaquin.
“Rory?” he said, grasping my elbows. “Oh my god. I thought I’d lost you.”
“You’re here!” I threw my arms around him and hugged him. “You’re all right!”
Joaquin cupped the back of my neck with one hand and tilted his head into my hair. “It’s okay. You’re okay.”
When I finally got control of myself, I looked up, over his shoulders. The others were still standing there, in the exact same poses they’d been in when we left. I looked over my shoulder at the bridge, disoriented. I’d run in a straight line, hadn’t I? How could I have come back to the exact spot I’d left?
“I don’t understand,” I said, grasping Joaquin’s jacket as I tried to calm my racing thoughts. “How long were we gone? How long were we in there?”
“Three seconds,” Bea replied. “What the hell did you see?”
Joaquin and I locked eyes. I shook my head. I’d run for at least five minutes. Maybe ten. After three years of cross-country races I knew how to judge the length of my run.
“He wasn’t there,” I said, unable to imagine trying to explain what had gone on inside the mist. “He wasn’t…He wasn’t there.”
Joaquin held me to him, his arms locked tightly around me as the rain consumed us. Then, through my wet lashes, I saw a flash of pink, and suddenly Krista was running through the muck in our direction.
“Krista? What’s wrong?” Bea called out.
“The mayor sent me to get you. She’s losing it, guys,” Krista said, gasping for breath as she braced her hands over her knees. “You better come back. Like, now.”
Standing under the same white party tent we’d used for Krista’s anniversary party almost a week ago, which had been erected over the flagstone patio behind the mayor’s house, we could hear the patients inside getting ready to move out. Between the pane dividers on the French doors, I saw the mayor hovering over a map of the town with a few visitors, explaining where to go as a group headed to the front door. The clinic was emptying.
“Dude, your boy’s on the prowl,” Fisher said, tilting his head toward the side of the house.
Joaquin walked around to see better, and I automatically went with him. Jack Lancet, one of Joaquin’s more evil charges, was pacing outside one of the east-facing windows, looking through the panes with a creepy smile on. The man had been executed after murdering three helpless children.
“Sonofa—”
Joaquin stormed right over to him, grabbed him by the back of his coat, and flung him away. Lancet hit his knees, muddying the front of his pants, and looked up at Joaquin with pink shame painted across his cheeks.
For a split second, I felt sorry for him. He looked sad, almost disgusted with himself, as he cowered in the rain. Part of me wanted to go help him up, offer him a kind word. But then my logical side kicked in.
The guy is sick, Rory. Sick. He hurt—killed—little kids.
It was that one word that wedged itself inside my chest, though, and stuck, like something jagged and raw. Sick. Who was to say what made people do the things they did? Was it nature? Nurture? Their own logic? Their needs and their longings? What had made me kill Steven Nell that day? Why was it my instinct to lash out and take his life rather than to turn the other cheek?
This horrible ache settled deep inside me, and I longed for my mother and the comfort of her words in a way I hadn’t in a long time. At the same moment, I wished like hell that Tristan had made good on his promise to be there for me, to be trustworthy, to teach me everything I needed to know. He’d been doing this for so long that I was sure he had the answers to my deep, dark questions.
What if he’d been telling the truth in that note? What if there was still a chance…?
Suddenly Jack Lancet looked me in the eye and laughed. I felt my face harden, my jaw clench. It was as if he’d read my mind and was laughing at my naive hope.
Tristan was evil. I wouldn’t give him the chance to fool me again.
“Get the hell out of here,” Joaquin growled at Lancet. “We don’t want any trouble from you.”
Lancet pulled his lapels up around his chin and scurried off in a zigzag line, his laughter carrying back to us on the wind. I peeked through the window and saw two boys playing video games, a few little girls—including Darcy’s charge—busy with a tea party, and a handful of others reading books and stacking blocks. Krista’s makeshift playroom. Suddenly I went dizzy.
“I think I’m gonna be sick,” I said, touching a hand to my head.
Joaquin gently took my hand. “It’s okay. They’re safe. For now, anyway.”
Still, I made sure to watch Jack Lancet until he was finally down the hill and out of sight. When we rejoined our friends on the patio, Krista was lifting a cardboard box onto the table.
“Before you go in, everyone, take on
e of these.” She was very authoritative suddenly, very in-charge, and I remembered my mom once saying that in times of crisis, we find out what we’re really made of.
My mom. I shuddered as I heard her voice again, warning me to stop on the bridge. Had I really just imagined it? Or had she somehow been there?
“Rory? Here.”
I blinked. Krista held out a compact black walkie-talkie to me. It had red buttons on the side, and a short, rubber-encased antenna. Beeps and static sounded out as my friends fiddled with their new toys.
“Everyone, make sure you’re set to channel one,” Krista told us, holding up her walkie and pressing one of the side buttons to show us how to change it. “These have a really good range, so we should be able to stay in touch no matter where we are on the island.”
“And modern technology finally gets its hold on Juniper Landing,” Kevin said with a grin.
I wasn’t even going to touch the irony of that.
Suddenly the back door opened and a few of our new visitors streamed out, including Myra Schwartz, who offered me a wave and a smile, which I happily returned. She was looking stronger, the cut on her forehead covered by a gauze bandage.
“Hurricane watch!” she said. “Can you believe it?”
I had no clue what she was talking about, so I shrugged in response. Luckily, she kept walking and headed across the bluff and down the hill with the others.
“Hurricane watch?” Fisher said under his breath.
“That’s what the mayor’s come up with to explain the lack of cell service. Big storm moving up the coast, taking out power lines and cell towers.” Krista rolled her eyes.
“Not bad,” Bea said with a thoughtful frown. “Explains the weather, too.”
“Let’s get in there,” Krista said, glancing over her shoulder as the mayor walked into her office. “She sent me to get you over half an hour ago.”
We formed a single line, headed down the side of the living room toward the office. People slipped into jackets and gathered up purses and bags, a few gamely checking their phones. I felt a shiver as my eyes met Selma Tse’s. She and her brother brushed by us on their way out the door.