Reckless Girls(66)

The night seems to be spinning around us, the boat rocking under our feet, sky and water dark, and Eliza is holding Brittany’s arm, and Amma is reaching out for Brittany just as Jake comes forward, always the peacemaker, his arms out.

Amma must think he’s reaching for her because she thrashes wildly, and her elbow catches me hard in the face.

Pain explodes around my nose, and my vision spangles with stars, then goes dark. I feel a rush of blood pouring down my face.

I can’t be sure what happens next.

The yelling continues, and I’m backing away, but Amma is still advancing on me, and I’m slipping in drops of my own blood, Amma is reaching for me, I’m pulling back …

She slams into me. Does she stumble? Was she trying to tackle me? Was she pushed? I’ll never know. But the two of us are suddenly falling through space, and then the water closes over my head, as salty and warm as the blood still gushing from my nose.

It’s dark, and I’m in pain, the salt water stings everything. Amma’s hands are still grasping for me, and then she has ahold of me, and my brain is screaming for air, for freedom.

Suddenly, that day with the shark—the image of my foot connecting with her jaw, saving me, dooming her—flashes through my mind.

It wasn’t just a fantasy.

It was a premonition.

Amma’s hands are still on me, preventing me from breaking the surface, and I kick and shove, and there’s a hollow, clanging sound.

Amma’s hands fall from me.

There are shouts from above, someone calling my name, but in my pain and panic, I just swim.

Back to shore. Get back to shore, find Nico’s boat, find out what happened, go, go, go …

My muscles burn, my lungs are on fire, and the shore seems impossible to reach. Until, suddenly, I’m there, on my hands and knees in the sand, panting, gagging.

I try to crawl farther, but my body gives out, and I collapse, the world spinning into darkness.

When I open my eyes again, the sky is a soft pink, still navy at the edges, the sun not yet over the horizon.

Morning. No one has come for me, and when I lift my head, all I see is empty water.

The Azure Sky is gone.

I’m completely alone.

There’s crusted blood under my nose, around my mouth, on my chin, and I sit up in disgust, swiping at it, wincing at the soreness, panic already beating a frantic tattoo in my blood.

I’m alone, they left me, they left me, I’m alone on this island and there’s no water, there’s no food, I’m alone.

I stand and wade into the shallows, cupping my hands to splash my face, my whole body shaking as I try to breathe, try to think.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see something pale next to me, lying on the shore.

A hand, palm up, fingers curled.

I follow that hand up a long, slender arm to the sleeve of a black T-shirt.

Amma is lying in the water, looking up at the sky, her eyes wide and horribly, horribly blank.

Dead.





BEFORE





“I’m sorry, darling, but it seemed best to tell you the truth.”

Brittany sits on a bench with Chloe in a park. They’re still in Canberra, and even though it would be spring back home, it’s autumn here. The leaves are turning, the sun is still warm, but the breeze has grown cool. She stares at the phone Chloe has handed her, her eyes fixed on the picture.

It’s from two years ago.

It’s Amma smiling wide, on someone’s Facebook page. She’s a little thinner than she is now, and her hair is shorter, barely brushing her shoulders.

Her arms are wrapped around a boy whose face is so familiar to Brittany, a face she saw in a courtroom, a face she still sees in her nightmares.

Sterling Northcutt.

The man—no, the boy, the boy, hadn’t the judge kept calling him a boy? Oh, this fine upstanding boy, never did anything wrong before, never ever until he got super fucking loaded one night, got behind the wheel of a car, and wiped out Brittany’s entire life—who killed her family.

“I don’t understand,” Brittany says, her body still numb, her heart slowing to half its normal speed as she looks at Amma, her best friend—the one person who actually understood how alone Brittany felt—with her arms wrapped around the man who ruined her life.

Amelia-Marie and Sterling, CUUUUTIES IN LUUUUUUV, the caption reads, and Brittany keeps looking at that name, Amelia-Marie, wondering if maybe there’s a mistake, knowing that there’s not.

Amma.

“You said you met her in a grief group, right?” Chloe asks, and Brittany nods, remembering the room with its smell of burnt coffee. How Amma had picked the empty chair next to her; how, when Brittany had told the story of what had happened to her, Amma hadn’t said anything—had simply nodded, reached over, and taken her hand. At the time, Brittany had been grateful that Amma hadn’t pushed her for more details, hadn’t asked any follow-up questions. Now, Brittany realizes, Amma had already known everything there was to tell.

There had been tears streaming down Amma’s face during that first session, and seeing her break down, Brittany had felt a wave of relief. How nice it had been, to have a stranger share her grief. How good it felt, to no longer be so alone.

“She must have been, like, stalking you or something,” Chloe goes on. “She lied about having a dead boyfriend to get close to you? It’s just, incredibly fucked up. And not only that, she’s loaded.”