“If you kill her, you’re no sister to me, Eleanor.”
How did she know to say that? I still immediately, fighting against the hunger to loosen my grip. Bridget gasps beneath me.
If Liney isn’t my sister.
And she was the first living person I saw.
No.
“Take it back,” I grunt. “Now, Liney!”
I turn to her. Tears streak down her cheeks. She’s hyperventilating. I need her to calm down.
“I told you to stay there,” I spit. Rage is all I’ve got fueling me. “Why couldn’t you do what I said?”
Bridget strains to speak and kicks my legs. Liney looks from me, to her, to me again.
“Let her go.”
“No.”
We’ve reached an impasse. I haven’t killed Bridget, but Liney’s threatwas clear. My suspicions were correct. Between us two, she’s chosen a side.
I shove Bridget down one last time and get up, backing off and tumbling into the sand. My breath comes as ragged as hers when she leans into Liney’s waiting arms. She coughs out seawater. An oily dark substance stretches out from the sand and flexes its tendrils to grip Bridget.
A cacophony of violence and frustration roils inside me. While the spiral’s power has fizzled into nothing, its aftershocks linger. That heat, that purpose. Now that I’m coming down, the world is hard to keep in focus.
“That was uncalled for,” Bridget croaks.
Uncalled for.That’s mild. An attempted murder. And a failure. At the words of my own sister. Why did I think a Devil’s task would be easy?
We sit in the sand, staring at each other. She wants me to explain myself, but exhaustion clouds me. I ease the power left in my body back to the spiral, which finally accepts defeat. My arms ache from the inside out. There’s electricity in the air, like before a thunderstorm.
“Your eyes glow,” Bridget mutters. “Do you know that?”
I can’t fathom how to explain. I don’twantto explain to a woman who should be dead.
The cogs of her mind turn, trying to determine my motive for attacking her so furiously, then giving up. “I’m no demon.”
A laugh bubbles up from my chest. I lean up to look at her. “I know you’re not a demon.”
Bridget’s expression stresses taut. I’ve bewildered her entirely. “Then why—”
“I knownow,” I correct, my wits finally catching up. “If you were, my power would’ve exorcised it. Back to hell.”
The lie flows perfectly. It may save me.
Except for Liney.
“What nonsense!” she spits. “Power? Exorcise? Why would you think Bridget’s evil?”
Bridget leans forward, hacking.
“A misunderstanding, Liney. That’s all. But we can work together,” I continue, a new plan forming faster than the next wave can cover our feet. “You can’t go to the mainland.”
“I can’t?” Bridget clutches the sand beneath her and glances at Liney, whose gaze hasn’t wavered from me in the harshest defiance I’ve ever seen from her.
I laugh again, and the movement hurts my ribs. We need to ease the tension, or Liney could run out of my life forever. “What do you think will happen? A young girl, the only one to survive a wreck…” I shrug, looking back out to sea. The surf shimmers in reds. “Suspicious doesn’t cover it, Miss Coleman. Who will the widows blame? Who will the insurers go after? They’ll be merciless. But I know someone. Perhaps he can help.”
