Shadowlands (Shadowlands (Hyperion)) (7 page)

I made my way to the other side of the bonfire, snagged a bottle of water from the cooler, and tried to look perfectly content sipping from it while I watched the surf. Surreptitiously, I kept an eye on Darcy and the others. She was getting her flirt on with Joaquin now, but every so often he’d look over in my direction. Olive and Tristan were chatting alone, their heads bent close together, while Fisher, Kevin, and Bea had found a pair of coolers to sit on, facing the fire. Lauren and Krista stood alongside them, whispering and glancing in my direction.

Just breathe. Just breathe and recite.

Hydrogen, helium, lithium, beryllium, boron, carbon, nitrogen, oxygen, fluorine…

A round of girlish laughter caught my attention. A few feet away, closer to the edge of the water, a guy about my age was talking to two younger girls. He had brown hair and brown eyes, a nice face, and was the only other person wearing sneakers. He was listening to what the girls were saying, but every once in a while, when they weren’t looking, he would glance around, like he was bored.

As he surveyed the party, his eye caught mine. A moment later, he excused himself from his conversation and walked over to me.

“Care to save me from the most ridiculous conversation ever?” he asked in a lilting British accent. Clearly, he wasn’t from the island, which meant he was not part of the Juniper Landing Super-Popular Crowd. I glanced at his wrist, testing a theory. No leather bracelet. It seemed like it was some kind of local trend, or maybe a cliquey-club-type thing. Maybe there was some secret society of locals, letting everyone else know how excluded they were by wearing the same piece of jewelry. Very mature.

“What was the conversation?” I asked.

He blew out his lips. “Would you believe they were going on and on about the royal couple, asking me if I knew them? Like all British people know one another.”

“You don’t?” I joked.

He laughed, and the warm sound of it put me at ease.

“I’m Rory.”

“Aaron,” he said with a slight nod. He moved next to me, surveying the party. On the far side of the fire, two guys were mock-wrestling while a group of girls squealed. Over to my right, a “chug” chant started up as a shirtless dude attempted to do a keg stand. Something I wouldn’t have even recognized if not for a recent exposé about frat hazing on the nightly news. Joaquin and Darcy were among the chanters.

Aaron clucked his tongue. “Don’t you hate these things?”

“So, so much,” I replied. Then I tossed him a teasing grin. “Do your friends Lady Kate and Prince Will do keg stands?”

Aaron let out an exaggerated groan. “At my last party, I had to call the royal guard to come take them away,” he said, his brown eyes dancing. “But I did see you talking to the beautiful people. What’s the deal with the tall, dark drink of water?” he asked, looking Joaquin up and down appreciatively.

I shook my head. “No idea. Not my type.”

“But
so
mine,” he said, taking a sip of his drink. “They don’t make ’em like that across the pond. Unfortunately, he seems to play for your team, not mine,” he said, flicking a look at my sister, who gripped Joaquin’s arm as she laughed.

“If it makes you feel any better, he kind of seems like a jerk,” I said.

He smirked. “Thanks for that.”

I smiled. “So what part of England are you from?”

“I’m a Birmingham boy, but I’m going to Oxford in the fall.”

“Oxford, wow. So you’re ridiculously smart,” I said.

He shrugged, shaking his head. “Nah. I’m ninth generation so they had to let me in. I’ve decided to study archaeology, much to the chagrin of my literary-minded parents.”

“Archaeology doesn’t sound too shabby to me,” I said.

“What about you? What do you want to study?” He sipped his drink, turned slightly to face me, and planted his feet, as if deciding this was where he wanted to stay, at least for the time being.

“Me?” I put my water bottle down on the cooler, then pulled my braid over my shoulder and started to fiddle with the end. “Science. Medicine, specifically. I want to be an oncologist.”

I wanted to save people like my mom. People who didn’t deserve to die. People whose families didn’t deserve to be left behind. But I figured that was too morbid for party banter.

“Wow. You’ve got your life mapped out. Impressive,” he said. There was a long moment of silence between us, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. We both sipped our drinks. “So, are you on holiday, or—”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Yeah. We just got here yesterday.”

“We?” he asked.

“Me, my dad, my sister.” My heart skipped a beat. Talking about my family might mean I’d have to start recounting our cover story. I’d memorized the facts of our new life on the car ride down, but being able to pull off the lies was an entirely different story. “What about you?”

“Just arrived this morning,” he said. He finished his drink, took my empy bottle of water, and launched them at a nearby garbage bag, which was already overflowing with cups and cans. “I actually came over here to visit my uncle, who lives up in Boston, but there was a fire while I was there and the whole family was displaced.”

“Oh my gosh,” I gasped. “I hope everyone’s all right.”

“Yeah, we all managed to get out unscathed, miraculously,” he said, fiddling with a silver ring on his right hand.

“Good,” I replied, thinking of my own narrow escape back home. Not that I could tell him about that.

“Anyway, they decided to fly back to the UK until the repairs on the house were done, but I wasn’t ready to go back, so I figured I’d see a bit of the country first,” he explained.

“Oh. Cool.” This time the pause was awkward. I felt like I was supposed to elaborate on our vacation, but my tongue was tied. “We just…go away every year right after school lets out,” I improvised.

Our school year didn’t actually end for another week, but he had no way of knowing that.

“My family always goes to the beach on holiday,” Aaron said with a wistful smile. “Being here is making me miss my sister, I must confess. I don’t have anyone to go windsurfing with.” He looked me over curiously. “I don’t suppose you…?”

“Windsurf? No,” I scoffed.

“Then I’d love to teach you. What do you say?” he asked, his eyes brightening with excitement.

My heart thumped with nerves. I’d never been really big on diving into new things. With strangers. In strange places.

“I promise I’ll be gentle,” he joked, raising one hand. “Please? I really want to go, but I’d rather go with a friend. And you definitely seem like friend material.”

I blushed, flattered, then found myself imagining how Darcy would react if I told her I was going to go windsurfing. She’d probably laugh in my face with a “Yeah, right,” and the very thought made my skin burn. I didn’t want to be predictable anymore. I didn’t want to be the lame, boring, weak girl Steven Nell chose out of the crowd. I wanted to embrace this whole “Life is short” mantra, and if I was going to do that, it was time to start facing my fears and trying new things.

“All right,” I said. “Why not?”

“Fantastic!” he crowed. “Meet me at the bay beach tomorrow afternoon at two. There’s a rental place there. You can’t miss it.”

“I’ll be there,” I promised.

I heard my sister’s flirtatious laugh carry across the party and sighed as she practically fell into Joaquin laughing. A couple of girls nearby shot her annoyed looks. I wished she didn’t have to be so overt.

“Well, someone’s having fun,” Aaron said, following my gaze.

“You said you have a sister?” I asked, hoping to change the subject.

“And a brother,” he said. He stooped to pick up a rock and tossed it toward the water. “I tried to call them today for the first time in a while, but I couldn’t get any service.” He squinted as he looked at me. “I don’t suppose your cell works here, does it?”

I wouldn’t know, not having one in my possession. But the GPS had gone dead when we got here, my iPad still wasn’t working, and my father had said that even the landlines were screwed up. Maybe this is why the FBI had sent us here—there was no possible way for us to contact people from our old life and blow our cover. “Nope. Apparently the island is a dead zone.”

He sighed. “I was afraid of that.”

“Why was it the first time you’d called in a while?” I asked.

Aaron kicked at the sand. “That’s kind of a long story, but basically, I had this huge row with my father before I left, so I’ve been avoiding calling home.”

“Ah,” I said. “That makes sense.”

“Of course, the great irony of ironies, I finally feel ready to apologize and hash it out, and I can’t get through to him.” He shrugged.

Before I could respond, the girls he’d been talking to earlier rushed up to him with a loud squeal.

“There you are!” the brown-haired girl said, looping her arm through his.

“We thought we lost you!” her blond friend breathed, wobbling slightly in the sand. The red Solo cup in her hand was nearly empty.

“Here I am,” he said weakly, looking at me apologetically. “I’ll see you tomorrow!” he mouthed as they pulled him away.

“Okay!” I gave him a wave and an encouraging smile, which he replied to with a grimace, but I was sure he could take care of himself. At least, I hoped so.

Left alone again, I knocked my fists together, wondering what to do next. I checked on Darcy, hoping she might be getting bored, but she was staring up at Joaquin, rapt, as he gestured his way through a story. I let out a sigh and was about to turn away when I noticed Lauren, Krista, Kevin, Fisher, and Bea sitting facing the fire, drinks in hand. The flames cast dark shadows on their faces, and the tongues of flame made their eyes glow red. Not one of them was talking. Instead, they were all staring at me, unreadable expressions on their faces.

His face. Nell’s face. Spattered with blood. Glaring down at me. The flash of a knife. The twisted branch of a tree overhead. Someone screamed.

I sat down hard on the nearest cooler, gasping for air. Another flash. The scream had just been some random girl, running away from a couple of boys in the surf. I pressed my hand to my forehead and told myself it wasn’t real.

I focused on the hard cooler top beneath my thighs. The surf crashing in my ears. The warmth of the fire against my skin. It brought me back down to earth, but all I wanted was to be back at the house, reading my book in the safety of my third-floor room.

I pushed myself up, walked shakily over to Darcy, and touched her shoulder.

“Can we go now?” I asked quietly. “Please?”

“Rory, we just got here,” she said. Joaquin sipped his drink, studying me.

“Come on, Darcy. I came with you, now I need you to come home with me,” I whispered.

“Everything okay?” Joaquin asked, stepping closer to us.

“Rory,” Darcy said through her teeth, wide-eyed.

“But I—”

“If you want to go home, go. I’ll be fine,” she said a bit more loudly.

I stared at her. Right. Sure. She’d be fine. But what about me? I didn’t exactly relish the idea of walking back alone.

“We’re five steps from the house,” she said quietly, her tone placating. “Don’t worry. I won’t stay too late.”

I turned and looked up the beach at our house. It wasn’t really that far, and all the homes between here and there had lights on their back decks. Besides, if something happened to me, someone at the party would hear me scream. Hopefully.

“All right, fine. I’ll go. But be careful,” I said, leaning in toward her ear.

“God. Chill out,” she replied. Then she turned back to Joaquin. “So how exactly did you get into lifeguarding?”

I glanced back at the fire, and my eye fell on Tristan. Olive was talking to him, but he was looking right at me again, studying me, as if trying to read my thoughts. My heart started to pound in a shallow, fluttery way, and part of me wanted to just go over there and talk to him. Ask him what was with all the staring. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Maybe he wasn’t really staring at me. Maybe he just liked to stare. And all I’d do by confronting him was bring more attention to myself and come off like an egotistical idiot in the process.

So, instead, I turned my back on him and headed up the beach alone, my chin tucked into the high neck of my sweatshirt.

I’d gone about fifty steps when a gray mist started to swirl around my ankles. My heart skipped a startled beat, and then my feet entirely disappeared from view. The air around me seemed to be moving, curling in and out, undulating. Heart in my throat, I whirled to look back at the fire, but it was nothing more than a dull, glowing ball in the grayness. I couldn’t make out a single face, a single figure. The fog had rolled in and distorted everything.

I turned around again, feeling utterly disoriented, and quickened my pace. I couldn’t see more than two feet ahead, so I veered right, looking for a landmark. A set of stairs came into view, leading up to one of the houses, but it wasn’t ours.

The laughter came out of nowhere.

I froze in my tracks, and a chill sliced down my spine. The sound prickled my ears. It was exactly like the laugh from my nightmares. Exactly like Steven Nell’s.

“No,” I said under my breath. “No.”