I blink at him, confused, but then I see his open laptop on the desk behind him, a document pulled up. An unusually sober Ray boarded up the windows this afternoon, so August has been shut away in here with his writing. I bet he hasn’t even checked the weather in the past few hours. He told me that he can get completely absorbed in his work, but that’s not what has me confused.
It’s how… excited he seems. Eager, almost. Like he can’t wait for waves and wind to pummel us.
That’s good, though. It’s the fuel I need to push into his room before turning to face him.
He leaves the door open, and there’s a wariness to his expression, the way he’s studying me.
“Geneva, I know you’re stressed and scared, but the other night was… well, it was a mistake, I get that now. Really unprofessional of me, and now that you may end up being a much bigger part of all this—”
I hold up a hand. “For fuck’s sake, August, I didn’t come in here looking for some kind of hurricane hookup.”
It’s insulting how relieved he suddenly looks, but I ignore that and press on. “I want you and Lo out. Now.”
Silence lands heavy between us, the wind outside muffled by all the boards.
“Now,” August repeats slowly. “In the middle of a hurricane.”
“It’s not here yet,” I tell him. “You can be in Montgomery before dawn, and there, the worst that might happen is you’ll get rained on.”
“Geneva,” he says, and I don’t like his tone, like he’s trying to placate a pissed-off horse. “You don’t want us to go. You don’t want to go through this alone. You’ll need help, or at least company. Don’t make decisions when you’re this freaked out.”
“Here’s a fun fact, August—the story of my life is going through shit alone. I very rarely have help, and Idefinitelydon’t have much company, and I am always—always—making decisions while freaked out. So yeah, I want you to leave. I’ll deal with this like I’ve dealt with everything else.”
“What’s going on here?” August asks, stepping a little closer. He hasn’t shaved in days now, his beard dark against his skin, which has gotten paler thanks to all his time locked in here with the book. He looks like he’s lost a little weight, too, and I try to remember if I’ve seen him leaving to eat or get groceries in the last few days.
I turn away from him, clutching the back of the desk chair, trying to gather my thoughts as the wind keeps pounding against the inn, as the lights start to flicker. “It’s just too much,” I say. “Lo and my mom, and my… and Landon, and you, and this book.”
I gesture to the computer screen, glancing at it as I do, and my eye snags on my name.
Leaning in closer, I read,And Geneva. In the end, she was the one I felt the most sorry for, the only one who didn’t, in some way, bring her own doom down on her head. But maybe it was natural that my sympathies would lie with her given
It stops there, and I whirl around.
August is still standing near the door, his hands held out at hip level, knees bent like he might bolt. “What is this?” I ask, slashing a hand toward the screen, but before he can answer, there’s a massive crash from the lobby, shaking the floorboards.
I move without thinking, my mind picturing a million andone disasters, some of which make sense (a heavy planter I forgot to move from the side porch falling over), some of which are nonsensical (a piece of the wreckedRosalietrying to beach itself at the door), but all of which fill me with a terror I hadn’t known I could feel.
Not for me or my safety, but for the Rosalie Inn itself.
My home.
The one thing left from a family that might not have been what I thought it was, but that was stillmine, was stillreal.
And under that terror there’s a fierce need to protect this place, to do whatever it takes to keep it standing.
Which is why it knocks the breath out of me to come into the lobby and discover one of the sheets of plywood pulled from the big window facing the sea. That’s what I’d heard, the board hitting the ground. And standing there, looking out at the raging sea and driving rain, is Lo.
She’s got a hammer in her hand. Where she found it, I have no idea, but the only question right now is the one I scream.
“What the fuck are you doing?”
“You wanted to see a storm!” she calls back without turning around. With her back to us and her hair down, her slim body clad in a long pink silk nightgown, Lo could be the girl in those pictures from four decades ago.
For a dizzying, maddening moment, I wonder if sheisthat girl, if being here has somehow turned back the years and when she turns around, she won’t be sixty anymore, but nineteen again.
Beautiful and young and deadly.
“And you justhadto see it,” she goes on, raising her voice along with the wind.
