“I despise nature,” said Lexi, elegantly slouched in a rattan chair. “So nature-y. It’s disgusting.”
“Did you see any birds?” asked Dorian. “I’m something of a secret birder.”
“Is there any other kind?” Lexi laughed, raising her glass in a faux cheers, sending champagne sloshing out onto the stones.
Finn began enumerating birds (red-tailed hawk, rosy finch) while I sipped my champagne (dry, very bubbly), but soon I could feel Lexi’s eyes on me. “So, Robin, we were just discussing the nature of evil.”
“Breezy topic.”
She shrugged. “It passes the time. What are your thoughts?”
“On evil?” I laughed. “I don’t think I have any.”
“But surely you must have some. You study witch hunts,” said Dorian. “Do you not think the people who burned innocents alive were evil?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t. I think there are evil acts, and I think people can behave in evil ways, but I don’t know that a person can be, like, evil exactly. Only flawed enough to commit an evil act.”
“Oh, people can be evil,” Dorian said with a disconcerting grin. “I know it for a fact.”
“How can you know something like that for a fact?”
“Because I have stood here on these very grounds and I’ve looked it in the eye. And let me tell you, once you see it, there’s no way to mistake it for anything else.”
The group grew quiet. A straggler bee buzzed around the flowery weeds that sprouted up between the flagstones at our feet. High in a tree, a bird called—a quick whoop followed by three short trills.
Finn cleared his throat. “On that note, let’s go in to dinner.”
Later that night, I was cleaning up around the cabana when I realized I still had Finn’s sunglasses. I decided to return them and say good night. I was starting to feel like we were becoming friends, and when you’re stranded in the middle of nowhere with a bunch of weirdos, that’s no small thing.
I found him sitting on his couch drinking a beer. He seemed different, pensive, and I realized he probably didn’t want me bothering him. Just because I was lonely and wanted to hang out didn’t mean he felt the same. So I put his sunglasses on the sideboard and was starting to leave when he said something odd.
“There was no dig.”
A thick silence enveloped the space around me. “What?” I said carefully.
“There was no dig, Robin. There wasn’t even a blog post.”
It was the same story Aspen had tried to foist on me, but this was different. His words hit me hard. Annoyed, I pulled out my phone and searched for the post. I would just show him. But when I tried to find it, I couldn’t. It didn’t seem to be there anymore.
“It’s gone, isn’t it?” he asked with a cruel smile.
“I know what I saw. I read it myself.”
He closed his eyes, frustrated. “No, I’m not saying it didn’t exist. I’m saying it was a plant.”
“A plant? To what end?”
“To get you here.”
I stood there, stunned. “What? You’re joking.”
“I’m not.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
He raised his beer. “Better to live a short noble life than a long selfish one.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
