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“Sea salt,” I said, because that was my best guess.

Priya had a divot between her brows.

“Priya, I just want us to stay safe. Go out and buy some salt and humor me. Keep it on hand in case you feel like something’s off.”

“Okay,” she said. “But only because it’s you.”

I pulled the bags of tea out of my pocket. “And you all need to drink this. It’ll cleanse you of anything the cacao left behind. If it makes you feel rough, it’s because you really needed it. You’ll feel nasty for a few hours, then fine. Like a mini juice cleanse.”

They each took a bag. Callie opened hers and sniffed.

“That smells like a zombie burp.”

“I know. But you have to drink it,” I said, realizing then that I might never see them again, once they’d vomited demonic bile and disowned me.

“And remember what we all agreed,” I said. “We don’t share any of this with our hotties.”

“Agreed.”

“Agreed, if I had one,” Jess said.

Callie hesitated. “Agreed.”

Chapter Fifteen

Ilooked at my phone. It was six-fifteen and I had unwashed hair I’d scraped into a bun that I hadn’t touched since this morning. I looked like a kidnapped ballerina.

I showered quickly then spent far too long deciding what to wear. I settled on jeans and a black lace, fitted blouse that hugged me in the right places, then dried my hair. The doorbell rang right as I finished running a mascara wand over my lashes.

I opened the door reminding myself to breathe.

Damian stood on the doorstep in jeans and a black dress shirt, the cuffs more neatly rolled than the day before. His hair looked freshly washed but still a little uncontrolled. I got the sense it would never be fully controlled. He smelled like cedar and clean, warm skin. Seeing him standing there, dressed for the role of my twin flame, untethered and uncomplicated, was harder than I thought. Hard enough to make my brain’s conversation with my limbs a little less coherent, so I fumbled, slightly, to lock the front door.

“You look beautiful,” he said.

“Thanks.”

The jeep was clean, like it had never seen the dirt road to the campsite.

“I fixed the seatbelt,” he said. “It won’t stick anymore.”

“I’m kind of disappointed.”

He smiled. It warmed the entire jeep.

“Where are we going?” I said, clicking the buckle into place.

“A winery. It’s right by Moonstone Beach. The bartender will be watching us. Be careful what you say in front of him. He’ll be texting updates to the Mothers.”

“The Mothers?”

“The board. There’s seven of them. My mother is one of them.”

The Mothers. The idea had the language of love and the taste of rot, like a baby bottle full of sour milk.

I told him every detail I could remember from the morning. Aurora’s flowers, her phone call, the deleted social media posts. What I’d told my friends to do, and the excuses I’d given. He told me about his day, how he’d spent the morning building custom cabinetry for a wealthy couple in Ferndale, then trained a few new SAR volunteers in the afternoon. The bandage was gone from his hand, leaving just a Band-Aid.

“I see what you mean about the gaslighting,” I said. “It’s intense.”