“Almost there,” I say, although I’m not sure if that’s actually true. The forced cheeriness in my voice makes me cringe. WhenI glance up in my rearview mirror, Oliver’s still staring out the window.
A yellow sign flashes ahead:Road ends .5 miles.I breathe out, trying to work out what I’m going to say to Theo.Don’t kill Oliver’s parents.That’s all there is to say, isn’t there?
Another sign.End of road. Trees crowd in tight, and I press down on the brakes, because the road literally does end, cutting off abruptly in front of a big red and white barrier fence. A row of pine trees rises behind it. On one of them, rather conspicuously, is a large, battered sign readingDANGER. KEEP OUT.
Not that it stops Oliver. He’s already scrambling out of the car.
“Hold up!” I cut the engine and jump out after him, leaving my car parked in the middle of the road. Oliver looks over at me dolefully.
“Hurry,” he says.
“Don’t go in the woods by yourself,” I say. “Theo, um, might be able to know we’re here, but it’s gonna take him a while to get over to us, okay?”
Theo kicks at the gravel on the road, sending a few stones skittering into the underbrush. I look over at my car, sigh, and decide it’s fine where it is. No one should be coming down this dead-end of a road.
Oliver stamps his foot.
“I’m coming, I’m coming.” I look down at the map on my phone. All I can see are splotches of green and splotches of blue. There aren’t any trails, because, as I damn well know, it’s dangerous. But I can see, more or less, that we’re standing on the edge of the peninsula, and I think I have a good sense of how I can get us over to the lake shore. Oliverisright; Theo will sense us, and I’m sure he’ll come looking. But it’ll be easier to walk along the shore than cut across the woods.
I take a deep breath and look over at Oliver. God, I hope I’m not making a huge mistake.
But I still plaster on a smile and say, “Are you ready to go find him?”
26
THEO
I’m drawing water when I smell Chloe in my territory.
I let the bucket clatter back down into the well and sniff, certain it’s my imagination, that it’s just the lingering impression of her from last night. I’ve been smelling her all morning—on my fingers, on my clothes, in my hair.
But no. The wind gusts, and it’s not just her. Oliver’s here, too. But the direction’s all wrong. They’re on the other side of the peninsula, opposite the lake houses.
I hoist the bucket back up and set it beside the well, frowning. Something’s wrong. I don’t sense that, exactly—I suspect they’re too far away—but I can think of no other reason why they’d be on that side of the peninsula.
So I take off, following their scent through my woods. Tracking them. Something tugs in my chest, almost like the killing moon. But I focus on Chloe’s scent, on the memory of last night, and it settles, vanishing back in the darkness where it lives.
The wind sweeping across my territory makes it easy to track them, especially since I’m used to weaving through the dense overgrowth of my woods. They’re walking along the lakeshore, taking the long way around, but I’m able to intercept themnot far from the edge of my territory. I stop just inside the treeline and peer out through the shadows—my father taught me caution, and I cling to it, even now. But all I see are the two of them in the distance, the wind blowing Chloe’s hair back away from her face. Oliver’s a small dark figure beside her.
Somethingiswrong.
I sense it immediately, the scent as sharp as blood. Chloe’s worried, a tight, knotting feeling that makes my heart constrict. But Oliver’s sorrow is nearly overwhelming. I haven’t tasted something like that in a long, long time. Not since I was a child myself.
Not since I died the first time.
I burst out of the trees, making myself known. Chloe sees me first, and she bends down to say something to Oliver, her voice muffled by the wind blowing the trees around. Oliver jerks his head up, though, and his sorrow changes, just for a moment, into something like hope.
That’s an odd feeling, someone feeling hopewhen they see me.
He takes off running down the beach, little arms pumping. I don’t know what to make of it, especially not when he reaches me and flings his arms around my legs, burying his face in my hip. Chloe jogs up after him, her worry thicker than before.
“Something happened,” she signs.
Oliver peels himself away from my leg and looks up at me, and that’s when I see it. The bruises around his left eye.
Rage swells through me, fiery and terrifying. I stumble back, my blood pumping furiously, because I’m also terrified that it will overtake me and I will do something that I don’t want to.
“Who did that?” I sign, my hands shaking uncontrollably.
