“Don’t,” I say, and my voice doesn’t even sound like mine.
Lo blinks again, then steps closer to me, her brow puckering. “Have I done something?” she asks, and it’s right there on the tip of my tongue.
Well, Lo, that’s what I’m starting to wonder.
Instead, I take a deep breath. “I’m sorry,” I tell her. “I’m just really on edge about Edie, I’m running on a couple hours of sleep, and you just surprised me with this August stuff.”
I don’t know if she fully accepts that explanation. There’s something about the way she’s watching me, about how she’s fiddling with the silver ring on her middle finger. Lo is too self-possessed to fidget, too confident in her own skin, certain that she belongs in any room she walks into.
Finally, she gives me a tight smile, her hands falling to her side. “You must beexhausted, honey. I get it. I need a full eight hours and three cups of coffee, orsomeone’shead is getting bitten clean off!”
She laughs and pats my shoulder, but the only head I’m thinking of is Edie’s, covered in blood—and Landon Fitzroy’s, under that same porch, his own skull cratered.
I gesture toward the office. “I… need to…”
“Go on, go on,” she says with a wave, and if it weren’t for the way her hand goes back to that ring, twisting and twisting it, I’d think she was every bit as fine as she’s trying so hard to appear.
It’s weird, flipping on the light in the office, seeing the desk empty. Edie is always here before me; this is her “command center,” as she likes to call it. HerStar Trekmug still holds cold coffee from yesterday, and my throat goes tight again as I gently push the mug aside and sit down at the desk, robotically running through the usual checklist. Emails first—a couple asking if we do weddings, someone looking to book over Christmas, and then, right in a row, three cancellations, all for next week.
My eyes skate over them, my stomach knotting.
Looking at the weather…
With the potential for a bad storm…
Probably an overreaction, but better safe than sorry!
I’ve been so consumed with Lo and my mom, Edie and August, that I haven’t paid that much attention to the forecast in the last twenty-four hours. Or rather, I’ve always left that to Edie since it’s her particular obsession, trusting her to tell me when something is—literally—on the horizon.
Sure enough, when I pull up the NOAA website, there it is.
It’s far out still, somewhere over Central America, but it’s big. Bands spiral out from the eye like tentacles.
I know it’s the fear and exhaustion taking its toll, but looking at it—ather, Tropical Storm Lizzie—I can’t help thinking that she’s already reaching out for us, trying to pull herself across land and sea to demand her traditional sacrifice from St. Medard’s Bay.
I’m so absorbed that I don’t hear August come in, don’t even notice him until he’s right at the edge of the desk.
“Bad weather headed this way?” he asks, and I startle slightly, glancing up at him. I’d avoided mirrors this morning, but if Ilook as bad as August does, it’s going to take more than an extra cup of coffee to get me passing for human. His skin has a faint grayish pallor, stubble thick on his jaw, and his eyes are bloodshot. His hair is rumpled, a little greasy, and I realize he’s still in the same clothes he was wearing last night.
“Yeah,” I tell him, turning back to the computer and tapping the screen. “This bitch Lizzie is getting hotter and stronger, and it looks like she might head this way. Hopefully she fizzles out somewhere around Mexico, but if not…”
If not, we could just get a lot of rain.
If not, she could swing west and become Mississippi’s problem.
Or,if not, we find out whether the Rosalie has some luck left in her yet.
I turn off the monitor, those whirls and swirls already making me vaguely motion sick, and rest my elbows on the desk, pinching the bridge of my nose as I take a deep breath.
“Anyway. That’s my morning so far. Yours?”
August stands there, one hand flexing at his side, and I can tell he’s trying to figure out how to say something. Had he run into Lo on his way here?
“If it’s about last night—” I start, but he shakes his head, cutting me off.
“No. Well, yes, but not… it’s not about…” He trails off, looks away. It’s like he doesn’t want to meet my eyes right now, and that’s almost more alarming than those weather maps.
“August, what’s going on?”
