Endless (Shadowlands) (11 page)

“The Bait and Tackle?” Bea asked as the five of us huddled under a battered and torn awning at the north end of the docks. We were standing across the boardwalk from the business in question. “You think he’s in there?”

“I can’t imagine anyone would dare go in there,” I said with a shiver.

The Bait & Tackle was a square, gray-shingled building built into the center of a wide plank dock that stretched out over the bay. The roof was concave on one side, and the whole thing listed to the left so far I was surprised it hadn’t already toppled over. The hand-painted
BAIT & TACKLE
sign was cracked in the middle, right over the ampersand, and hung in a V shape over the front door.

“He started hanging out there late at night a while ago,” Cori said with a sniffle, a relentless stream of water pouring off the gutter and onto the shoulder of her black rain jacket. “Tommy told him he couldn’t spin in the house anymore, so he snuck a bunch of equipment out here to keep practicing. Nadia and I are the only people he told.”

“He hid a DJ deck inside a bait-and-tackle shop because his fake dad wouldn’t let him keep it at home?” I asked dubiously.

Fisher sighed. “Tommy runs this place. He’s doesn’t really keep track of anything. I bet he hasn’t even noticed it.”

“Pete keeps his stuff covered with a tarp in the back of the stock room,” Cori said, her teeth chattering. “So are we going to get him or not?”

Joaquin nodded and stepped out from under the awning. “Fish, you, Bea, and Cori get the front door. Rory and I will go around the back. If he’s there, we’ll draw him out. He might bolt around front, so keep your eyes peeled.”

“Sounds like a plan.”

We moved away from the shingled wall, our feet slapping through the shallow puddles that had gathered on the boardwalk’s weathered planks. There was one creaky light hanging from a curved metal post in front of the Bait & Tackle’s front door. It swung like a metronome in the wind, illuminating the words on the sign over the door one by one.
BAIT. TACKLE. BAIT. TACKLE. BAIT. TACKLE.

We reached the front door. Fisher and Cori stood off to one side, Bea on the other. Joaquin gave me a nod, and we crept around the short south-facing wall of the building, ducking beneath one window that had the blind drawn anyway and paused at the back. The dock stretched out so far over the water I could barely make out the end of it in the storm. Rod holders were screwed to every other pylon so that fishermen could rest their fishing rods while they spent the day hanging out and hoping for a catch. In the distance, I saw a rocky jetty in the bay parallel to the dock, the churned-up waters of the usually placid surface smashing against the stones.

Joaquin stepped up and pounded on the back door. “Pete!” he shouted. “We know you’re in there. Come out and we promise you won’t get—”

Suddenly the door burst open, swinging outward and hitting Joaquin square in the face. Pete darted out and ran right past me, vaulting over the guardrail on the dock and dropping onto the sand below. Joaquin fell backward, his head knocking against the wood planks. He was out cold. I hesitated a split second, torn between chasing Pete and making sure Joaquin was all right.

“Sonofabitch!” I shouted in frustration.

Then I sprinted as fast as I could along the side of the building, blowing right by Fisher, Bea, and Cori.

“What the hell happened?” Bea shouted.

“Check on Joaquin!” I blurted back. I tore around the corner and up the boardwalk. The stairs down to the beach were yards away, and Pete had a lead on me as he raced along the sand, but in seconds he would hit the jetty. With any luck, he would try to scramble over it, which would be next to impossible with the rocks slicked down by rain and algae. Hopefully it would help me make up time.

Heart pumping, I ran as fast as I could, trying not to think about Joaquin and whether he was okay. Trying not to think about Tristan or Nadia or Darcy or my dad. I had to run the race of my life. Everyone’s existence depended on it.

Down on the sand, Pete came to the side of the rocky jetty. He looked back at me, his eyes wild, and started to climb. Finally I reached the stairs down to the beach. I took the turn at a sprint, and my feet nearly went out from under me, so I jumped down to the sand, vaulting past the eight or ten steps. I landed in a crouch, but thanks to the soft, wet ground, the impact was hardly jarring. From the corner of my eye, I saw Fisher running toward us.

Pete was climbing the rocky slope. His foot slipped and his knee went down hard. I climbed after him, gritting my teeth as my sneakers squeaked against the jagged rocks. Sweat prickled down my back, mixing with the relentless rain.

“Fisher! See if you can get down on the other side!” I shouted. “Cut him off!”

“On it!”

Fisher ran ahead, then disappeared from sight. In seconds I was so close to Pete I could make out the pattern of the treads on the bottom of his shoes. Then he jumped to his feet and started carefully across the expanse of the jetty. Suddenly he froze in his tracks.

“Nowhere to go, dude!” I heard Fisher shout. “Give it
up.”

“Yes,” I said under my breath. We had Pete trapped. I climbed to my feet. He turned around, took one look at me, and started to run—toward the ocean.

“What the—”

I took off after him. The terrain was uneven, wet, and pocked with puddles. Dead jellyfish clung to one angled rock, their bulbous bodies torn and limp. I slipped once and my hands came down atop a pile of broken crab shells, pincers, and legs. I gritted my teeth and pushed myself up again. Somehow, I was still gaining on Pete, but it no longer mattered. He’d reached the end of the jetty. His back was to me, and his shoulders rose and fell as he heaved in breath after breath.

“There’s nowhere to go!” I shouted. “You can’t hide from us forever.”

He turned around, his knees like jelly, and looked me in the eye. “I can hide from you long enough.”

I blinked. “Long enough for what?”

“For me to get what I want,” he said, turning his palms out. His eyes flicked past me, and I turned my head just enough to see Fisher clambering up the rocks nearby. “Listen, Rory. In case something happens, I want you to know, it wasn’t my idea.”

“What?” I asked, my heart pounding anew. “What wasn’t your idea?”

“To take your family,” he said quietly. “Or to pin it on you. I was just the muscle.”

My brain felt about as steady as the roiling waves behind him. “I don’t understand. You’re saying you were involved? With Tristan and Nadia? With the ushering?”

He shook his head. “It wasn’t them. It was never them.”

My head went weightless, everything I had believed, obliterated in one breath. If it wasn’t Tristan and Nadia, then who the hell was it? How had they done it? Where had they gotten the tainted coins, and why had they set up Tristan to take the fall?

“Who?” I demanded as Fisher approached me from behind. “Who are you working with?”

“Don’t do anything stupid, Pete,” he said, his voice rumbling like thunder. “You know better than anyone that we’re not immortal. Not anymore.”

Pete chuckled. “That’s a chance I’m gonna have to take.”

Then he took a step back and turned.

“No!” I screeched.

But it was too late. Pete launched himself off the jetty and disappeared beneath the ink-black waves.

Tristan’s chest rose and fell under the crisp blue sheets folded across his body. After we’d left the night before, the mayor called in Teresa Malone, a Lifer who had been a nurse in the other world, and it seemed as if she’d taken good care of him. His head was now wrapped in white gauze and positioned flat against a slim pillow, his arms straight down against his sides. I stood next to his bed while the wind whipped outside, pelting the windowpanes with a smattering of fat, relentless raindrops.

It was Friday morning. Thirty-six hours since my sister had been taken and almost eight hours since Fisher dove into the water after Pete and came back empty-handed. Pete had disappeared. He’d either drowned or somehow managed to get away. I hoped like hell he was still out there somewhere, because if he was dead, we’d never get our answers. If he was dead, all was lost.

Dorn was supposed to radio everyone if and when Pete was found, and I’d been waiting on pins and needles throughout the night. Until, that is, I’d finally passed out from utter exhaustion in the bed next to Krista’s. When we’d woken this morning, we found two brand-new, shiny gold coins on her nightstand. With Pete on the run, did that mean they were clean? Was it safe to start ushering people again?

The only thing I knew for sure was that we needed to find Pete. He was the only one who would know how to save my family. I checked my walkie-talkie to make sure it was on, and of course it was. Radio silence had become my enemy.

I turned the volume up, just in case, and sat forward, staring at the well-worn leather Lifer bracelet clinging to Tristan’s thick wrist. I looked at his profile, his normally tanned cheeks seeming sunken and waxy. He moaned softly, and I wondered if he was dreaming of when Pete had attacked him. Had he seen who was working with him?

I pulled the desk chair over and sat next to Tristan’s bed. My hand twitched to take his, but I hesitated, suddenly confused. Tristan was innocent, wasn’t he? He was just a victim. Like Darcy, like Dad, like Aaron. And if it could somehow help…tether him to the here and now…I had to try.

Placing my hand over his, I looked at his face. His skin was warm. That had to be a good sign. Especially after how cold he had felt yesterday. He was improving. Tears welled in my eyes.

“Tristan?” I said quietly. “It’s me, Rory. I don’t know if you can hear me, but if you can…we’re here. We’re here for you, and we want you to get better.”

My voice cracked and I took a breath. “I’m so sorry I thought you were guilty. I should have known. I should have believed.…I was just so upset about my dad and now Darcy.…” I paused, hearing myself, and cleared my throat. Was I really sitting here trying to make excuses to a guy in a coma? “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just so sorry.”

“Sorry for what?”

My head popped up. Joaquin stood, perfectly framed by the bedroom doorway, wearing a blue-and-gray baseball T-shirt and jeans. Even with the purple bruise in the center of his forehead from when he’d been knocked out earlier, he looked, in a word, gorgeous. And also concerned.

“Nothing.”

I slid my hand away from Tristan’s, across the sheet, and into my lap. I lifted my eyes to meet Joaquin’s. “Just that I thought he was guilty.”

“Everyone did, at some point or another,” Joaquin said. He stepped into the room and hovered on the other side of the bed. “How is he?”

“The same. Teresa from the bike shop was with him through the night, and he hasn’t woken up.”

I shrugged feebly as more raindrops pelted the window behind me. The wind whistled through the gutters and eaves. As the silence between us went on, I started to sweat. Yesterday I had kissed this guy. I had wanted nothing more than to be with him. To let him help me forget the rest of this stupid universe existed.

“Rory…” Joaquin said.

I looked him in the eye. “What’re we going to do, Joaquin?” I said simply, without thinking.

His shoulders dropped half an inch. It might have been imperceptible if I wasn’t so totally in tune with his every movement.

“I have no idea.”

Suddenly our walkie-talkies crackled to life. “Rory? Come in, Rory. It’s Dorn. Over.”

My breath caught, and I fumbled the radio off my waistband, pressing down firmly on the talk button. “What is it? Did you find him?”

There was a beat of silence. A beat too long. “I…well, we’re not sure yet. Over.”

I looked up at Joaquin, and I could feel our panic rising together. He lifted his walkie-talkie to his lips, his eyes never leaving mine. “What the hell does that mean?”

Dorn sighed. “A body just washed up on the beach.”

“It’s not Pete,” Krista said, tears coursing down her cheeks as she intercepted Joaquin and me on the boardwalk outside the Thirsty Swan. Dozens of visitors had gathered at the railing, while Dorn, Grantz, and the mayor stood around the body near the shoreline, blocking it from view. The Tse twins were right at the center of the crowd, their eerie blue eyes focused on the beach, their thin lips screwed into scowls. Liam and Lalani stood off to the side, holding paper cups of coffee that they seemed to have forgotten in the tragedy. Ray Wagner leaned into the railing, the toes of his boots squeaking against the boards as he craned his neck for a better look. “It’s…it’s Cori, you guys.” Krista sniffed. “She’s dead.”

“What?” I blurted.

“No,” Joaquin said, the color draining from his face. “No. It can’t be.”

Fisher and Kevin jogged past us down the stairs with a stretcher, their feet sinking into the wet bay-beach sand with every step. Dorn stepped aside to let them through, and for the first time I really saw her. Cori was facedown in the sand, her curly hair matted by the rain, her sweatshirt and jeans pillowing around her in wet folds. Someone in the crowd gasped as Fisher and Dorn rolled her over onto her back. Her face was completely destroyed on one side, the skin torn away to expose the bone. One of her eyes was missing. I turned into Joaquin’s shoulder, squeezing my eyes closed, and he held me tightly.

Cori had always been nice to me. Or tried to be, with Nadia breathing down her neck, hating me as fiercely as she could and trying to get her best friend to do the same. She was so sweet, so meek, so innocent. Why had this happened to her? Why was any of this happening? I had just been with her last night. I had just started to respect her, started to get to know her the tiniest bit. And now she was gone.

“I think I’m gonna be sick,” Krista said. “Why would Pete do this to her? They were best friends. Them and Nadia…It makes no sense.”

“Do they think it was definitely Pete?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I’ve only overheard a few things,” Krista said, wiping under her nose with the back of her hand. “I didn’t want to go over there.”

“I will,” Joaquin said. His voice cracked, and he cleared his throat. “We should find out what they know.”

“I’ll come with.” I stepped shakily out of his grasp, pushing my hands into my coat pockets. “Are you gonna be okay?” I asked Krista.

She stared blankly past me. “Do you think he killed her? Do you think he did this because she told you guys where he’d be?”

Joaquin and I exchanged a look. “I hope not. But if he did, that means he’s still out there,” Joaquin said. “That means we can bring him in.”

“Right. And that’s a good thing,” Krista said uncertainly.

“It’s a very good thing,” I said, squeezing her arm. It meant we could still get the answers we needed. It meant we could make him pay for what he’d done. To my family, to Aaron, to Jennifer, to Nadia, and now, possibly, to Cori.

“I guess I’ll go back to work,” Krista said quietly. “Let me know if you find out anything.”

“We will,” Joaquin said.

Someone had laid a white sheet over Cori’s body, and she’d been lifted onto the stretcher. Joaquin and I took the steps down to the beach, and Liam broke away from Lalani to follow us. Fisher gave us a stone-faced nod as he and Kevin hefted the stretcher up the stairs. We joined the mayor, Chief Grantz, and Dorn on the sand. The impression left by Cori’s body had already filled up with water and disappeared. It was as if she’d never been there.

“What the hell happened?” Joaquin asked under his breath.

I cast a wary glance at the onlookers. A few of them were starting to disperse now that the body was gone, meandering off toward the Swan or toward town. The twins kept their position, however, each gripping the guardrail with their right hand. Ray Wagner, much to my disgust, was eagerly following Fisher and Kevin as they carried Cori up the hill.

“We don’t know,” Dorn said, putting his hands on his hips. “She wasn’t attacked like Tristan.”

“But her face…” I said.

“Could be from a fall into the water, or the waves might have knocked her against the rocks.” Dorn shook his head. “She never was the strongest swimmer. It could be a simple drowning.”

“Except for the fact that she’s only the second Lifer ever to perish,” the mayor said, seething.

“Can you check her lungs?” Liam asked.

“What?” the mayor snapped.

Unperturbed, Liam lifted one shoulder. “If there’s a lot of water in her lungs, that means she inhaled it and drowned. If there’s not, that means she was dead before she hit the water. Which would mean…you know…”

Murder
,
I finished silently.

Dorn and Grantz exchanged an impressed look. “We’ll see what we can do.”

“This is a nightmare. Why is this still happening?” the mayor ranted. She wasn’t wearing an ounce of makeup, and for the first time since we’d met, her hair wasn’t perfectly styled. A few wet pieces clung to her cheek.

“Hold it together, Mayor. We’ll figure it out,” Dorn said. There was an uncertainty in his tone that chilled me. The mayor was the one solid constant we had in this town. If she lost it, then whatever confidence or hope the rest of us had would be obliterated.

“Will we?” She snapped her eyes wide. “Because we haven’t so far. Nadia and Cori are dead. Tristan’s in a coma, and now we have another fugitive on our hands. And in case you haven’t noticed, the island is about to sink into the damned ocean.” She stomped her foot, which only squished further into the thick muck at our feet.

Joaquin turned to the mayor. “We’ll find Pete. He doesn’t know the island the way Tristan does.”

The mayor’s jaw was taut. She seemed to have stopped breathing. “You’d better,” she said. “Because I’m not sure how much longer we can go on like this.”

“What’re you saying?” Grantz asked, his face slack.

She turned slowly to look at him. “I’m saying that if we don’t find a way to reverse whatever’s going on around here, we could be looking at the end of Juniper Landing as we know it.”

No one spoke. The rain began to fall harder, the sharp droplets ricocheting off our shoulders and stinging my face. My hand automatically found Joaquin’s, and he held it firmly between us.

“Get your search parties out there and find Pete,” the mayor growled.

As she stormed up the beach, Joaquin called after her. “What about the funeral? For Nadia? It’s supposed to be today.”

The mayor sighed and cursed under her breath. “The funeral goes on as planned,” she said. “But you and your friends are going to need to dig another grave.”

She cast one last look at the spot where Cori’s body had lain, then made her way purposefully up the beach. The twins watched her go, following her progress with their eerie eyes.

“The end of the world, huh?” Liam said. “That’s something I never thought I’d see.” Then he loped off to rejoin Lalani, taking her hand as they walked slowly up the boardwalk.

Grantz was already on his walkie-talkie, ordering the search parties to the police station. Once the mayor had disappeared around the corner, the twins turned around again, looked me dead in the eye, and smirked. My grip on Joaquin’s hand tightened.

“What is it?” he asked.

“Why does it seem like they’re enjoying this?” I said, lifting my chin toward the twins.

Joaquin turned to look at them. Neither one of them flinched. If anything, their smiles widened.

“Does anyone know whose charges they are?” he asked quietly.

“No one’s mentioned it,” I said. “But it’s gotten hard to keep track lately.”

“See what you can find out.” Together we turned toward the stairs. “There’s something off about those two. The last thing we need around here is another enemy.”

“Okay. I’ll ask around,” I promised.

When we reached the boardwalk, the twins were still watching. They were the only visitors left, standing at the guardrail in the driving rain.

“I’ll see you at the mayor’s at ten,” Joaquin said, releasing my hand.

For a second I thought he was going to lean in and kiss me good-bye. Part of me hoped he would, and another part wasn’t sure how I’d react if he did. But Joaquin simply took a step back and headed down the alleyway toward his apartment.

My hands were shaking. I had to figure out how I was going to handle Tristan being back. If he woke up—when he woke up—I was going to have to make a decision. Did I forgive him for bailing without explanation? Could we move past it? Or should I be with Joaquin, the one person who, so far, had never let me down?

I hadn’t taken two steps when the twins appeared on either side of me. My blood curdled and I hugged my arms tightly. Being surrounded by the Tse twins was so not what I needed right now.

“Lost another one of your own, huh?” Sebastian asked.

“What do you mean by that?” I snapped.

“A local,” Selma replied. “One of your own.”

“Oh.” I blinked, wondering how they knew about Nadia. But I supposed this was a small town. News spread. “Yes. We did. But she wasn’t just a local. She was a…a friend.” Or at least a potential friend. “She deserves a little respect.”

I quickened my steps, but they matched their pace to mine. Selma’s gaze bored into my cheek and I ducked my head, wishing I could turtle into my coat and disappear.

“You should probably get used to it,” Sebastian said, a teasing lilt to his voice.

I stopped in my tracks and turned on him. “What? Why? What do you know?”

He raised his hands in a gesture of surrender. “Nothing. Just with this
storm
coming and being on an island…there are usually a lot of casualties.”

I narrowed my eyes at him as his sister slunk along behind me until she was standing at his side.

“You sure are defensive,” she said. “Anything you want to tell us?”

“Yeah,” I said through my teeth. “Stay the hell away from me.”

I turned to stalk away, but my foot caught on the seam between the boardwalk and the asphalt sidewalk and I tripped. Sebastian’s hand shot out to catch me, and the second his fingers touched my arm, my head filled with visions of his life. His death.

Sebastian in a crib lying head to toe with his sister. Sebastian as a boy in a black-and-white school uniform, tormenting a smaller kid. Sebastian scoring a winning goal in a soccer game, then spitting at the feet of his opponent. Sebastian curled up on the floor in the back of a dark closet while his parents screamed at each other. Sebastian and his sister shouting at a rally, hoisting picket signs over their heads. Sebastian and Selma being mugged on a dark street. Sebastian fighting back. A shot going off. Sebastian watching his sister die before being shot himself.

I ripped my arm out of his grip and turned away from them, my eyes filling with tears. He’d died an awful death, watching his sister take her last breaths. But almost more overwhelming were the images of his life. The pain he’d been through, the pain he’d caused. It had been a short existence, but one full of hurt and confusion, anger and fear.

“Wow. Way to say thank you,” he spat.

I turned to look at him, water streaming down our faces. My jaw clenched. “Thanks.”

Then I turned and started up the hill as fast as I could go. At least now I had half an answer to Joaquin’s question. Sebastian was my charge, and one thing was certain—as soon as we set things right around here, he was the first person I was ushering off this island.