It’s not a question, so I don’t reply. He doesn’t want words from me. And I find that, once again, with him, I don’t have any. I’m frozen. Invisible.
“You’ll stay here until I decide what to do with you.” To the guard, he says, “Strip him of everything and lock him in the timeout room.”
As my father turns to leave, I see my chance vanishing. I see howIam about to vanish.
“I saw Ernesto,” I call out.
My father spins back my way, and I see the difference in his eyes. I see that he sees me, now.
“What are you talking about?” he demands. It hurts that he comes stalking my way for that, summoned by something he cares about.
Why?I want to ask.Why do you care about Ernesto and not me? What’s so wrong with me that you don’t want me, that you chose to replace me with my cousin?
But that thought freezes inside me—and it dies. Because I don’twantto be chosen by this man. And I’mgladthat he doesn’t like me, that he doesn’t respect me. I’mproudthat he knew there was no point in trying to make me like him—because why the hell would I want to be?
Itsickensme that I’m related to him. I don’t know if he himself abused Andre. I don’t know if I’ll ever know that. But men like him did.
So no, I don’t want him to like me. I don’t want him to love me. I just want him to come a little closer.
“I saw Ernesto,” I repeat.
“Where?”
I’m afraid, trembling slightly, but I don’t mind it. Fear is good. It means that something will happen.
“In a pool of blood,” I say.
My father grabs the front of my jacket. He starts to lift me from my chair, and I let him. I rise with him. I reach for the letter opener as he demands, “What the fuck are you talking abou—ahhh!” He screams as I stab the letter opener somewhere near his groin and yank it out.
He slams me to the ground before I get a chance to stab him again. I slash wildly, catching his face and ripping open a bright red line before he wrestles the letter opener from my hand. The guard is shouting, rushing over—
A huge boom shakes the house, rattling the windows. It freezes my father and the guard for a second, long enough that I knee my father in the groin. He falls off me, and I bolt up, darting for the door. I expect a bullet or a hand on my back, but there’s nothing. My father and his guard are breaking the windows to shoot out. So I just run.
I race down a hallway, heading toward the front where I was brought in, but I hear gunshots, so I dart into another room. It’s a billiards room, and I run past the pool table, racing toward a set of double doors. I fumble with the deadbolt and get it unlocked. I yank open the doors and bolt out onto a patio.
I seem to be on the side of the house. There’s a fire somewhere in front, and gunshots are cracking everywhere. Men are shouting. Some scream.
When shots fire close behind me, I nearly jump out of my skin.
I bolt into the woods.
TWENTY-NINE
Andre
I’m still mostly calm and mostly following Noah’s orders as we work our way through the house. He knows what he’s doing. He’s clear and direct, and he kills a lot of men. There’s a small part of my brain that’s recognizing in his actions how he managed to orchestrate such a sophisticated and brutal attack on the Island.
Noah and I sweep into an office where it looks like there’s been a fight—toppled chair, blood on the floor, plus a bloodied letter opener. Some windows are broken and casings litter the floor, but the room is empty.
We move along the hallway back to the lodge’s central room where we entered through the now-shattered floor-to-ceiling windows. The room is high-ceilinged and spacious with a huge fireplace and mounted hunting trophies. Movement in a doorway has my gun swinging that way, but it’s Dante. He and Wes enter the room.
Frustration twists viciously inside me. Where the hell is Elias?
Abruptly, I’m done with this methodical work. My brain simply stops engaging with it. It’s a switch being flipped, but it’s not exactly what I expected. I thought I would be angry. Iamangry, but the anger is still deep. There’s no frenzy, not yet. But the logical part of me is justgone.
I turn away from the others and walk off. Noah calls after me, but it registers only dimly. I prowl through the house. I’m alert but not methodical, not like I was with Noah.
I’m prowling. Hunting. I’m imagining Elias as my prey. What he would do. Where he would go.
