That gets his attention.
“Who left it for me?”
“Heath leaves the house most nights, yeah? ’Bout midnight?”
My spine stiffens. “Yeah. He and Luke check the nets.”
“…Do they?”
I flinch, dropping my head. There’s a heavy feeling in mystomach, a sudden coldness behind the back of my ribs. I didn’t want to believe Heath was a part of any of this, but there were times I wondered. In a halting voice, I ask, “Where do they go?”
He glances up the winding track, past the ghost gum, like he thinks he’s said too much already.
I press ahead. “Do you know there’s a video of Hannah’s attack?”
There it is. The hunger. That flash of heat and teeth, like his mouth is flooding with saliva, body aching with a craving that has nothing to do with choice.
“You watched it,” he says quietly. “Didn’t you?”
“I had to.”
“Right,” he murmurs. “And how manytimeshave you watched it?”
Since I got home from Rachel’s mum’s house, I’ve been bolting awake from fever dreams and reaching instinctively for the video. I watch it until I’m sick and sweating and my father murmurs approvingly in my ear,You can hear it, too, can’t you, Min?
“I had to,” I mutter again, lowering my gaze. “There’s something about the video…I can’t explain it, but there’s something I’m missing. Some clue. I feel it.”
That’s what I keep telling myself. I watch it not because I’m drawn to the violence. But because there’s something in the video that holds the key to solving it all.
He says nothing. I step forward, nudge his abdomen with my knee. “Would you lie to me?”
“Foryou.”
There’s a hum in my skin. A heavy pulse in my neck. Everywhere I turn, there are memories of us. The cabin. The creek.
I think of Chris, smell his peach soap, hear his work shirt rustle, see his nose wrinkle when I swear.
Then I think of a boy with a matted mullet. Magpie wing cradled between his palms. He splashes silently into the creek, drops to his knees, reaches up, offers me something. Everything.
My eyes drift to his forearm. He catches me watching and nods just once.Yes, you remember.
He raises his arm, the one with the Wicked Woods and the fish-girl-teeth.
And I grab it up greedily like I always did, stuff it in my mouth, bite down hard while he tugs at his board shorts and runs his tongue over his teeth.
Chapter 26
I clutch the monster book tighter, never reading a word. Jessie naps beside me, flat on her back, paws in the air. In the lounge room, Heath’s sprawled on the couch, watching TV with the sound on low. Occasionally, I hear the distant sound of a laugh track, and the noise makes my jaw clench. Makes me grip the book even tighter until my fists ache.
I glance at my phone: 11:50p.m.
Ten minutes to go.
As time ticks down, my stomach churns, my breathing accelerates. I feel like I’m running a race, even though I’m lying in bed.
The TV finally shuts off. Footsteps on the floor, coming closer, closer. Jess rolls over, lifts her head.
Heath knocks twice. “You decent?”
