Wilder Girls(76)

“Get away from him!” she yells. Lifts the pistol and fires between the foxes, no aim to speak of, stance in shambles. “Go!”

One darts through a hole in the house wall, disappearing into the reeds, but the other two just lift their heads and look at us. Reese doesn’t care, though. She stumbles toward the body, batting my hand away from her as I try to hold her back. Drops to her hands and knees at her father’s feet, one of his boots unlaced, the other with a striped sock peeking above it.

The foxes regard her calmly, almost like she’s one of them. But when I approach they skitter away with a high-pitched cry and squirm through the wall.

   “Reese?” I say. She sits back on her heels, and I catch the trail of a tear on her cheek before she wipes it away.

“Do you mind,” she says, “if we get out of here?”



* * *



—

We head farther west along the coast of the island, and it would be easier going on the beach, but Reese keeps us in the trees, far enough back that we’re still under the cover of the branches.

Raxter’s edge is shifting here, almost porous. Later it’ll turn to jagged clusters of rock before easing out into marsh at the other end. When we left I asked Reese where we were going, but she just shook her head and pulled me along. A week ago I would’ve called it stubborn, but this is Reese embarrassed, because I asked where we’re going, and Reese isn’t all the way sure.

It’s the rocks, now. Reese is frowning, peering down the shore, taking us out of the trees a few steps at a time.

“Almost there,” she says, and I nod. Don’t press. She’ll find what she’s looking for.

We keep on, our bodies tense, the backpack heavier on my shoulders with every step. It’s quiet, as if everything on the island is hiding from what happened at the house. Once the bear has finished with what’s left of us, it’ll go after the other animals. We have to get out before this place turns to war.

Reese stops suddenly, points ahead of us.

“There,” she says.

   Tucked in between two tall spears of stone, there’s a path cleared out, and I can just make out a stretch of shore, the waves stranding nests of seaweed on the sand. And laid out on the beach, barnacles and moss growing over the hull, a dingy white boat.

We head down, careful of the rocks oiled over with sea. Reese holds out her arm, and I grab it, let her keep me steady as we pick our way to the shore.

The trail breaks off above the sand, and we have to jump down. My boots sink in, leave disappearing footprints behind me. On the horizon I can see the mainland, empty and black against the sky.

“Here,” Reese says, gesturing to one of the rocks. “I should redo your bandages.”

I sit down there, hand her the backpack so she can fish out the first aid kit. The bandages Julia gave me are barely enough to cover half the tears in my hand, and when Reese flips open the kit, I let out a relieved sigh at the sight of a pristine ace bandage.

She takes my hand in both of hers, rolling her shoulder to keep it relaxed. The snow, still light but sticking where it lands, sneaks under my collar, hits the back of my neck, and I pull my hood up as she undoes my makeshift binding.

“God, you really messed this thing up,” she says, probing my palm softly. “Can you feel that?”

“Only in spots.”

She smooths the bandage out and rewraps my hand, careful to avoid the places where blood is already seeping through the first layer of cloth. “What about moving it?”

   I manage a twitch in my thumb, and Reese smiles, lets go of me.

“That’s good,” she says. “We’ll keep trying.”

She stands up, packs the first aid kit into the backpack, and I look past her to where the mainland is faint on the horizon. “It looks so far,” I say.

“Maybe thirty miles to the shore.” Reese squints at the horizon. “And then what, once we get there?”

“I want to go to Camp Nash,” I say firmly. “That must be where Byatt is, and I’m not leaving her behind. Not even if she really is dead.”

“Hetty—”

“I’m not doing it. I can’t leave her like that. You don’t understand.”

Reese looks away. “I do, though.”

Of course. Her dad. I fight back a wave of nausea. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to…” I tilt my head back, watch the snow come down. “I don’t want you to think I’ve forgotten. Or that I think it’s all okay. I know you’re angry, and I know you will be for a long time, and I can accept that.”

“I am angry,” Reese says slowly. “But I can barely feel it. And I know it’ll come back, but I have things to be sorry for too.” She glances at me, at my throat, and I remember the feeling of her arm pressing hard across it. A week ago, but it seems like years. “There are more important things, right now.”

   I let out a laugh of relief that totters on the edge of tears, and Reese leans in so our shoulders brush.

“One of those important things,” she continues, “is a cure. Nobody’s looking for a real one. We know that now.”

“Maybe we’ll find something at Camp Nash,” I say. And then I think of Welch on the pier, of what she told me about my parents. Of what I said about my dad. “Or maybe there’s somebody else who can help.”