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His eyebrows twitch, and he scowls. “Only if you keep talking,” he gripes. Everyone from New Ocean is always so broody and miserable.

I sigh and lean back but keep my eyes on him. It bugs him—the way I look at him, my eyes piercing into him. I can tell by the way he shifts and tugs at his collar, by the sweat beading on his forehead.

My eyes draw down to his four missing fingers and his thumb. I stare at his nubs in complete fascination, remembering Micah was the one who had caused it.

I never inspected Thomas’s wrist and how it ended up looking. For the few days I was at their camp after Maison died, Thomas kept it well-hidden and spent most of that time in bed. I haven’t seen him since.

Ezra wipes the beads of sweat with his thumb as they drip down the bridge of his nose. He’s frightened of me—or of Micah. Probably of Micah. Either that, or guilt is eating at him for the role he had in his best friend’s death and seeing me now is bringing out those emotions.

“Quit staring at me,” he says without lifting his head.

I pause for a moment before responding, “I’m thirsty.”

He huffs, but to my surprise, he rises and heads to the front of the airplane. When he returns, he hands me a bottle of water, keeping his face void of emotion. “Here you go. Now, shut up.”

I grab the bottle with my good hand and guzzle it all down as if I were a camel in the desert. The liquid rushes down my throat. He watches me for a moment as I toss the bottle to the side before he takes his place in a seat one row up so I can’t stare at him anymore.

I shift uncomfortably, now dealing with a very full bladder. I sigh and try to get in a position where my bladder is not burning.

He must sense my discomfort. “What’s your problem now?”

“I have to pee.”

A pause, and then he says, “Jesus Christ, you’re worse than Naomi.”

I can’t help but laugh at that. I stop to think for a second about what it’s like for those two behind closed doors, what their pillow talk is like. I never cared to observe their relationship outside of Naomi treating him like shit.

I let out a sigh. I am not above begging. “Please, Ezra. Otherwise, I’ll pee in here, and then you will have to smell it and listen to me whine.”

He lets out a loud, dramatic sigh. “Fine, but I have to watch you. If you run off, I’m fucked.”

Why would he be fucked?

I slide over two seats and face him, placing my legs on the floor of the plane. “Fine. Watch.”

I rise to step outside and hear him following a few feet behind me. I ignore him and revel in the sun shining and how much warmer it is now that it’s springtime. The sun is warming the land day by day, melting all the snow and revealing all that lies under it after months of frost. Today is particularly warm, and the sky is clear, the sun shining bright. I try to enjoy the small, pleasant moments I am afforded, so I bask in the warmth of it. I’ve long lost track of the days since Maison died and Micah took me away, but it seems like spring has finally arrived and cemented itself, and the change in the landscape proves it.

I take a few steps and relieve myself. When I peek over at Ezra, I’m happy to see he isn’t looking. His back is to me, giving me the privacy I deserve.

Once I’m done, I pull up my sweats and take a deep breath. No part of me wants to go back on that plane right now. He senses my need to stay out here for a second and sits on the plane’s stairs as I gaze out at the tundra and the wilderness beyond.

For a few minutes, both of us seem to lose ourselves in it, but eventually, he coughs. “Let’s go back inside, London. Time’s up.”

I turn to face him, and for the first time, he isn’t looking at me with complete disdain. In fact, he just looks fucking tired. And hungry…

He jerks his head toward the door, his patience limited.

I need to get inside Ezra’s head. He’s the one person on this island I’ve never really understood, and right now, he could be the key to getting out of this mess. There must be some substance under there; he can’t be as stupid as he looks. Naomi must get a much softer side of him—the same way I get a softer side of Micah… sometimes.

Like I did with Micah, I have to pull it out of him.

I peer into the woods once more, then follow him into the airplane and back to my spot. Once I’m comfortable enough and he’s settled back in his row, I finally dare to ask him the same question I dared to ask Micah once. “Ezra, why do you hate me? What did I ever do to you?”

He doesn’t even pause to think about it. “Because Naomi hates you. It was just easier for me to hate you, too.”

Solid reasoning, I suppose.

So where is Naomi, then?