Different face—middle-aged, with a mustache and a scowl, his eyes flashing anger as he shoved me back.
"Get your hands off me!" he snarled, his voice thick with accent, his gray suit drenched but the same cut, the umbrella swinging like a weapon.
I let go, the frustration mounting, the mystery wrapping around me like the rain.
"Mistake," I muttered, but he was already walking away, cursing under his breath.
I looked around, the street emptier now, the rain pounding harder, the unease turning to a cold certainty. I was being lured, pulled farther from City Hall, from Natalie, from the safety of the crowd.
But by who? And for what?
One more time. I saw him ahead, the umbrella a black spot in the gray, and I moved faster, the rain stinging my eyes. The mystery had me now, a hook I couldn't shake, the calm I'd prided myself on fraying at the edges.
I reached him, spun him hard.
Wrong. A burly man, his face red with rage, swung at me with the umbrella, the handle glancing off my shoulder.
"You crazy?" he yelled, his voice booming over the rain, his gray suit soaked but identical, his eyes wild with anger.
I dodged, the impact jolting me, the unease exploding into full alarm.
Four times. Four duplicates, each a tease, each pulling me deeper into the unknown.
I stood there, breathing hard now, the rain pounding down, the street deserted except for the distant hum of the city. I was far from City Hall, the mystery a living thing, watching, waiting.
I pulled out my phone, thinking to call Atlas, when a kid—no more than ten, his jacket zipped against the rain—came running down the middle of the street, waving his hands like he was signaling a plane.
I waited, the rain blurring my vision, the kid skidding to a halt in front of me, his breath coming in puffs.
"Mister!" he gasped, his eyes wide. "Some guy in a suit gave me a hundred bucks to give you this."
He pulled a tiny envelope from his pocket, shoved it into my hand, waved once, and bolted back the way he came, his sneakers splashing through puddles.
I looked around again, feeling the eyes on me, the mystery closing in like the storm, but seeing nothing but the pounding rain and the city holding its breath for the final deluge.
The envelope was small, damp at the edges, and I opened it carefully, pulling out a simple note. The words stared back at me:We are watching. Make the right choice.
The rain fell harder, the mystery hanging there, a cliffhanger in the downpour.
What had my new brothers lured me into?
19
NATALIE
The rain never stopped. It just changed its voice—snare to timpani, hiss to hammer—like a drummer switching sticks. Charleston knew that rhythm the way you know the shape of your own mouth.
None of it was new. The Lowcountry had always breathed water. The only thing that changed, storm after storm, was whether we’d learned anything since the last one.
Under the pop-up tent by City Hall, Kimmy shoved her phone into my hands like a bouquet. The screen was a riot of red hearts, comments, and a hashtag screaming up the charts: #CharlestonLoveStory.
“Nationwide,” she said, delighted and already out of breath. Her eyeliner was halfway to raccoon. She wore it like a medal. “They’re calling you Taylor and Travis if they were Southern and useful.”
I snorted.
“They love you,” she sang. “They love him. They love both of you being competent and hot during a flood. Use it.”
I wasn’t about to apologize for Ethan—for us—any more than I’d apologize for telling people to get their sedans off Lockwood. Let them see me. Let them see him. If a love story made the city lift its head and listen to a flood brief, then God bless romance and the algorithm it rode in on.
