Dedication

For Cory, mentor, friend, and honorary hijo.

This book exists because of your belief in me.

I am grateful for you in my life.

Contents

Cover

Title Page

Dedication

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

Chapter Twelve

Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty-One

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Books by Ann Dávila Cardinal

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Copyright

About the Publisher

Chapter

One

How did this summer become pure and total suckage?

I’ll tell you how. There are two people on the planet who possess the ability to talk me into doing shit I don’t want to do: my mother and my best friend, Ruth. It’s like a superpower they share, and they double-teamed me this time.

I didn’t stand a chance.

I should have put up more resistance. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t be standing on the train platform in the hot July sun . . . in a black hoodie.

Heading to the Hamptons.

For the whole. Damn. Summer.

Didn’t have that on my catastrophic bingo card for this year.

Even though the LIRR station is elevated and technically outside, it’s so hot I swear I see steam rising from the concrete platform. Or maybe that’s just piss. Sure smells like it.

I rock back and forth to Tuff Darts playing in my earbuds. Old-school punk calms me down, and these days, if I’m not in my room surrounded by my things, I’m in need of calming down.

I shuffle my ankles so they’re even tighter around my duffel bag, which is safely nestled between my feet. Not like it’s filled with diamonds or anything. In fact, if anyone stole it, they’d be massively disappointed since it’s mainly full of books, but it makes me feel better to have them close.

And there’s no bathing suit, regardless of how many times Ruth reminded me to bring one. As if I’m going into the fucking ocean. I mean, since she doesn’t know how to swim, the only reason she even wears one is because they look cute on her. I did try to find one of those early twentieth-century one-piece head-to-toe striped suits on Etsy, just to mess with her. (Though, truthfully, I kind of like the idea of dressing like Pugsley Addams at the beach.)

A train going in the opposite direction rumbles into the station, disgorging people, eating others. The platform is sparsely occupied; guess this is dinnertime for normal people. I put off leaving for the station until the last possible minute, hoping Mom would change her mind and realize I’m pretty much a grown-ass man who doesn’t need babysitting (as long as she left me with some cash, of course).

I’m just considering turning around, jumping on the N train, and breaking back into my own house when my phone buzzes in my pocket. I pull it out and see an über-familiar face on the screen.

Mom.

How does she do that? She’s always had some weird sort of psychic ability to know when I’m even thinking of doing something she doesn’t want me to do.

I tap my earbud and answer. “Yes, Madre?”

“Gabriel! I—” A train across the tracks rattles by, cutting her off, and she waits for it to pass. “Good, you’re in the station. I’m just making sure you didn’t skip town.”

“‘Skip town’? What, you think I’m a hobo riding the rails? That’s a bit old-timey, even for you.”

She makes that Latin-mom tsking sound that’s usually accompanied by a dismissive wave of her manicured fingers. “You know what I meant.”

“I just want to come home and spend the summer in my room with my books and my Funkos and talk with my friends online!”

“In your black cave of a room?”

“I happen to like my black cave!”

“Honey, it’s better you spend time outside with your one real live friend.”

“Ma, we’ve gone over this.” I groan in frustration. “I have tons of friends.”

“Well, friends you only talk with through a glowing screen sure don’t sound as appealing as visiting with your lifelong best friend in a beautiful beach community for the summer.” A sigh, then: “Look, you can’t spend two months holed up in your horror cave. It’s not healthy.”

“Oh, and being forced to spend weeks surrounded by people I don’t relate to, whose cars cost more than our entire house, is?”

She sighs again, the breath long and slow in my earbuds, like a leaky tire. “Look, Gabriel, I’m sorry, but I have to take this trip. And I told you, you don’t have to go to Ruthie’s. You can always go stay with your grandmother in Puerto Rico instead.”

“Mom, I love Abuela, but I’m not all that keen on spending my entire summer on her porch in a rocking chair in one-hundred-and-ten-degree heat, watching the plants grow with Paco the toothless Chihuahua in my lap!”

She snorts. “That’s actually a great description of staying at my mother’s house.” A pause. “Honey, isn’t there the minutest possibility you might have fun at Ruthie’s? Most people would kill to spend a summer in the Hamptons.”

“Have you met me? I’m not most people. Plus, you know how I feel about the beach.”

She snorts. Again. “That image of you sitting under the umbrella dressed in head-to-toe black last year at Luquillo Beach will stay with me till my grave. The man who sold us the coconut ice cream said I must be so proud to have a priest for a son.” Then she bursts into laughter so loud I have to pull the buds from my ears for a second.

“I’m glad you find me so amusing. Can’t I just . . . spend the summer with Jorge in Maine?”

“Your brother’s hiking the Appalachian Trail, remember?”

“And? I like hiking.” Okay, well, that’s a stretch, but I’m desperate.

She’s not buying it. “Hiking in the blazing sun, sleeping in a tent, and shitting in the woods?”

“Well, when you put it that way . . .” I grumble. I don’t miss the irony that neither of us mentions the possibility of my staying with my father in California. If he didn’t understand me when I was eight, he certainly wouldn’t now. Just thinking about him calls forth ghosts of criticisms past that sit on my shoulders and mock me.

Mom continues her preaching. “Me? I would kill to see the inside of Ruth’s house. Of course, they showed a couple of the rooms in last month’s Town & Country, but—”

“That’s exactly my point! Not my scene. I liked her family’s apartment here. In Queens. Two blocks away.”

“But change is good! And Ruthie’s dad got the opportunity of a lifetime. I’m happy for them. You should be too.”

“I am.” And I really am. It’s just way too many changes at once.

“You’ll have a good time. Weren’t you just complaining that you never get to see her anymore?”

“Well . . . yes.”

“Or I could tell Abuela to let Paco know you’re on your way.”

“I’m in the train station, aren’t I?”

“I know. I just want you to actually get on the train. Promise?”

“Yes,” I mumble, but I’m distracted by something touching my arm.

“Great! I’ll—”

A jolt of electricity shoots into my hand, and the phone line crackles and dies. “Mom?”

I look over to see what’s touching me, and there’s an old woman, like, right there. I jump a bit. A born and bred New Yorker, I always sense people around me, so this is really weird. The call’s dropped, so I put the phone away with my free hand and look into her eyes. They’re milky with clouds over each iris but also intense, like she sees more than other people do. Her clothes are little more than rags, and despite the heat, she’s layered in them from chin to mud-edged skirt. Her hair is wild and stiff like the pigeon nest outside our bathroom window ledge. Unhoused. Has to be. I feel a tug on my heart.

“Ma’am,” I say, but she’s staring off in the distance like she can’t hear me. She looks like she should smell bad, but . . . she doesn’t smell like anything. Actually, scratch that. She smells like the sulfur scent right after you light a match.

The old woman starts mumbling, words tumbling out of her lips in a torrent, her gaze still off in the distance. I try to make out individual words, pulling at them like a thread I know I should leave alone. “I’m sorry, ma’am, what did you say?”

Her voice comes out in scratches and creaks, like a crow. “Don’t go to the Hamptons.”

A shudder passes over my skin.

Damn, this is starting to creep me out. Why did she choose me to bother? I look in the direction my train should be coming in.

I lean back and she tightens her grip on my arm with her talon-like fingers, and when I look down at her, her eyes are golden and blazing like they’re lit from behind, lightning replacing clouds. Terror washes over my body, and I’m suddenly ice-cold despite the heat as she starts to yell.

“No! You can’t go!” The words fly out accompanied by spit and anxiety. “You’re in danger!”

The old woman seems to realize she’s yelling and looks around with wild eyes. But this is New York City; the few people around us are pretending she doesn’t exist . . . and maybe pitying me.

Then she’s back to peering at me. She leans in and says in a hushed tone like she’s sharing a desperate secret, “Evil awaits you there.”

Oh boy, she’s a serial killer who wants to feed me to her cats. That’s the problem with being a horror fan: you imagine the absolute worst, then go from there. But still, I shudder.

I shake it off and gently pat her papery hand. “Thanks for the heads-up.”

I bend down to pick up my bag, ready to move farther along the platform, when she steps in front of me, blocking my way. Granted, I outweigh her by like a hundred pounds, but it’s not as if I’m going to bodycheck her. “Ma’am, I’m sorry, but I—”

“They woke her! They woke her and she’s angry!” Her eyes are almost all black now, the vortex of her pupils bleeding into the veiny whites, a foamy spittle gathering on her lips.

Then it hits me like a wave, almost knocking me from my feet. A memory, I think. An old one: I’m at the beach, clear turquoise water all around me as I stand alone, terror blasting through me like a brush fire. Something is coming. I try to brace my small body in the sandy bottom, but my legs are shaking, and I know that whatever is in the water with me is going to pull me beneath it, steal my breath. I gulp air, but with each inhale comes a flood of panic. My legs are pulled out from under me, and I choke on salty seawater . . .

An announcement blares overhead about the next train, and I’m yanked back into the present, but the fear is still weighing down my shoulders. I don’t know what that was or where that memory—it has to be a memory, right?—came from. I only know that I was afraid, am still afraid. I glance around, trying to ground myself, but my gaze keeps returning to the old woman.

There’s something about her that pulls me in and leaves a deep, cold feeling in my belly. Her eyes, they remind me of something from the memory of that beach. Sweat breaks beneath my hair, and I look around for someone to help me, but do I really need protection from an old woman? Then I start thinking about what she said, and against my better instincts, I ask her a question. “Woke who?”

Her face pulls into itself, like she’s bracing for a blow. She looks to either side, then begins to whisper—

The train roars in, blasting us with its hot wind, slowing from a silver blur. I feel as though its arrival yanks me from a hypnotic state, and I start to pull away as the doors open right next to us. The old woman’s words are lost in the tinny voice of the conductor identifying the train, announcing its destination, and then asking us to watch the closing doors.

I have an overwhelming need to get away from her.

Now.

I grab my bag and lurch onto the train. I turn around and look back at her just as the doors begin to slide closed. Right before the rubber seals meet each other, I hear the woman in a clear, strong voice, but the voice isn’t coming through the door; it’s coming from my earbuds.

“Gabriel, evil awaits you there!”

I gape, my mouth open like an anime character, and without thinking, I stick my hand between the rubber bumpers on the closing doors, making them open again, holding up the whole train. I step through and back onto the platform, determined to find out how she knew my name, but . . . she’s gone.

The doors close behind me, and I whip my head around, looking behind garbage cans, the empty, spray-painted soda machine. Nothing. As the train pulls out, I’m running in the opposite direction, certain she’s hiding behind the stairs.

The platform is empty.

She’s gone.

She knew my name.

My legs are shaking as I stand on the deserted platform, the hot wind blowing across the concrete.

Before I can think, I start running down the stairs, taking two at a time. Even though I’ve been outside this whole time, I feel like I can’t breathe until I’m out of the train station; the familiar out-of-body feeling that precedes a panic attack begins to spread through me. When I finally exit and my boots hit the sidewalk, I put my hands on my knees and breathe deeply in, then out. My heart begins to slow, so I rise to standing.

And there, right in front of me, is a black stretch limousine, and leaning on it, my best friend, Ruth, with a shit-eating grin on her face as she says, “I knew you’d try to run.”

Chapter

Two

Ruth’s like a mirage in the desert. The comfort of seeing her familiar face, sardonic smile, and complete and total familiarity floods me like a drug. I rush over and pull my friend into a fierce hug.

We embrace in that full-contact, warm, safe kind of way we always have, like when one of us woke from a bad dream or when her grandmother died. It’s the kind of hug that tells you everything is going to be okay, and you believe it.

“What are you doing here?” I ask into her glossy hair.

Her laugh is like clear river water tumbling over rocks. “I wanted to make sure you were coming.” She pulls away and looks at me. “And I know you too well, G.”

“I was on the train! But then . . .” I find I don’t want to tell her about the woman. I don’t want to bring that dark feeling into this moment. Besides, she might think I made it up to get out of going. “Wait a minute . . . What would you have done if I’d stayed on the train?”

She smiles. “Oh, John and I would have headed back, beaten the train, and you never would have known.”

“Sneaky hobbitses!” I do my best Gollum from The Lord of the Rings. Then I really look at her. Blue silk slip dress, the same color as her ocean eyes, high-heeled sandals, hair all styled, and makeup artfully applied. “Why are you so dressed up?”

She claps her hands like she’s five. “Eee! I have a surprise for you!”

“I hate surprises. You know that better than anyone.”

“Yep! Too bad!” Her driver appears and opens the door to the limo. John, I presume. She slips in like she does this all the time.

I nod at the driver. “I’m Gabi.”

“Yes, I know.” He gives me a practiced smile, then indicates the open door.

A limo? This is so weird.

I duck my head and am about to crawl in, then realize my duffel’s still on the sidewalk. I turn abruptly. “Just a sec, I forgot—” But when I bend down, so does he, and when I whip my duffel back around, I end up knocking the cap off his head.

We both look at his crisp black cap sitting in the gutter. I’m always knocking shit over with my elbows or banging my head, the perils of being six foot and linebacker broad. I once knocked over an entire display of souvenir coffee cups in a store in Old San Juan when I was seven. This guy looks at me with the same slit-eyed glare my father did.

I give a half smile. “Sorry, dude.”

Waves of rage are coming from his body like smoke. A bit of an overreaction, I think.

“Are you getting in?” His voice is measured and low.

I duck into the car and slide in next to Ruth. Just before the driver closes the door, I see him retrieve his hat from the ground. He brushes off the cap, and just as he’s about to put it back on, I catch sight of a tattoo on one shaved side of his fade haircut, a circle with black squiggly lines coming out of it and triangles at the top. Weird. Then the hat is back on his head and it’s out of sight.

Ruth grabs my arm and pulls me next to her. “I’m so happy to see you, Gabi!”

I lean my head on hers, close my eyes, and breathe deep, her familiar shampoo smell of lilacs and rain filling my skull and smoothing out all the edges. “You too, Ruthie.” Five minutes around my best friend and I already feel calmer, more grounded.

I look down at her arm on top of mine. The hint of faded color from the friendship bracelet I made for her at summer camp years ago contrasts with the pastel elegance of her dress. I run my finger over the braided thread. “You’re still wearing it.”

“Of course I am! What, did you think the minute I moved I was going to cut it off?”

I smile. “It’s kind of filthy.” Which is especially noticeable, given how nicely she’s dressed.

“Yeah, well, that’s what happens when you wear something for five years.” She runs her own fingers over it. “I’ll never take it off.”

Those five words are like a warm blanket around my shoulders. “Well, it might disintegrate all on its own.”

She waits for a beat before she asks, “So, you gonna tell me?”

I lift my head and look at her. “Tell you what?”

She points up at the elevated tracks as we pull away. “What happened on the train?”

God. Can I have no secrets from the women in my life? “Nothing. It was nothing.”

I stare at the immaculate carpet beneath my feet, and I know she’s not buying it. She stays silent and waits. I sigh and give in. “There was some old woman haranguing me—” Wow, that’s embarrassing when I hear it out loud, so I rush to add, “She was talking about how I was going to be in danger if I went to the Hamptons and something like ‘They’ve awoken her’—”

The chauffer starts coughing. More like hacking, really.

“You okay, buddy?” I ask.

He nods, waves me off, then takes a drink from a water bottle.

“Anyway, she grabbed hold of my arm and wouldn’t let go of me. It was so weird, though.”

Ruth chuckles. “Not that weird! It is Queens, after all.”

“No, I mean . . . she knew my name.”

“What!? Well, that’s more than weird—that’s creepy as hell! She was probably one of our elementary teachers who we finally drove over the edge.”

I snort.

“Did you ask her how she knew your name?”

“No, I jumped off the train to confront her, but she—Well, it doesn’t matter. She was just some poor old woman.”

Ruth shudders. “I’m not going to miss riding the trains, I’ll tell you that.”

Every reminder of her new life lands like a punch. A small, not-damaging-but-hurtful-nonetheless punch. “Yeah, so speaking of that, is this your new mode of transportation?” My tone is snarkier than I intend, but . . .

This time she literally punches me, in the arm, hard. “No, you idiot! Can you imagine my father giving me twenty-four-hour use of a limousine?”

I chuckle. “Remember that time he refused to drive us to that movie theater in Jackson Heights? Made us walk three miles, said it would be good for our constitutions.”

“What does that even mean? Ugh. The man is so ridiculous.”

Ridiculous as in caring and supportive. It used to bug me that she didn’t appreciate having a father like him, but I think deep down she does.

She adjusts her hair like she’s washing him from it. “I don’t drive much yet, so a friend loaned me this.” She gestures around the spacious interior.

“I see. A ‘friend,’ huh?” I smile at her, though it bugs me that she hasn’t told me that she is seeing someone new until now. We used to tell each other everything.

She changes the subject, and we talk about new streaming shows we like and books we’ve read, just the usual bullshitting we do when we hang.

The ride is eternally long, and at some point, Ruth gets lost in her phone while I watch the scenery change along the Long Island Expressway. I’m surprised by the wall of green on either side. I had no idea there were so many trees in the Hamptons. The only time I’ve seen more is when my father dragged us all skiing in Vermont. Spoiler alert: my Caribbean mother hates the cold and only Jorge is athletic. There was much whining by all (and I learned that what passes for a winter coat in New York City does not in Vermont). But despite the distraction of the vista, my mind keeps going back to the woman at the train station. I still can’t figure out how she could have known who I was.

In the movies, she would be a witch or a ghost or something, a portent of dark things to come. But even though I love those kinds of stories, I understand the supernatural does not exist in real life—when I was ages five to eight, my father drilled me about that until it took—but the encounter still left me rattled.

I keep seeing the woman’s black eyes as they basically bored a hole into my brain. That was real, fucking real! Like every horror movie I’ve ever seen come to life, Dad!

Speaking of which . . .

I log on to Slasher; it always comforts me. I want to see if there’s any new interaction on my post about my favorite director. My face flushes as I see the first and most-liked comment is from my nemesis, SonicReducer:

George Romero was not the father of the modern zombie. His shambling, brain-eating version negates the folklore’s Haitian and African roots as a symbol of slavery, essentially whitewashing yet another mythological symbol. Educate yourself, @GabSnows.

“Educate myself? Who the hell do they think they are?” I say out loud. Can’t help it.

“Who?” Ruth asks, looking up from her own phone.

“Oh, this damn troll on Slasher.”

“What the hell is Slasher?”

I roll my eyes at her. “The horror social media app? It’s literally been my life for the last two years.”

She stares at me. “You’ve literally never told me about it.”

“That’s ridiculous.” But then I wonder, have I really never mentioned it to her? How is it possible that my best friend doesn’t know where I spend hundreds of hours a week?

She shakes her head a bit. “Anyway, I don’t know why you let strangers on the internet rile you. Half the time they’re bots anyway.”

I don’t say that most of the time they’re the only ones I want to interact with, who don’t make me feel odd. But I do get slightly defensive. “I usually don’t!” She gives me a look, probably because we both know I damn well do. “But this SonicReducer asshole. It’s like they have a map that shows them right where to poke to piss me off.”

But it’s not just that it’s bothering me, is it? The space between us on this lush, leather-covered bench seat seems to be stretching, until it feels like Ruth and I are riding in two different cars, hers the shiny black limo, mine a beat-up Toyota . . . with a killer sound system, of course. I shove the phone into my pocket, close my eyes, and settle back on the plush headrest, my mind stumbling.

I must have fallen asleep, because I wake up to the salty scent of the Atlantic stirring memories of Puerto Rico. Ruth has her window open, and I notice that the air is cooler here, less oppressive than Astoria. But unlike my mother’s island, the air’s more sterile, scrubbed. No aroma of plantains being fried in all their golden, starchy goodness coming from a restaurant we’re driving by. No musical tones of Caribbean Spanish and the deep thump of reggaeton blasting from the cars on either side of us.

I notice something glowing on the side of the road ahead, and as we come up on it, I see a pair of story-high electronic billboards framing the highway, an official seal of some kind poised on the top of each.

“Well, those are unexpected,” I say to Ruth as the ad switches to one about baby swim diapers.

She doesn’t even look up from her phone. “They’re so freakin’ tacky.”

“I’m surprised the local government approved them.”

“They didn’t. They’re on Shinnecock reservation land, and the tribe put them up. They sell advertising on them to make money.”

“Huh.” I watch them retreat in the side mirror. “Good for them.”

Ruth’s head snaps up and she looks at me.

“What? They need to make money too, you know.”

She rolls her eyes and goes back to scrolling.

I watch out the window as the houses get farther and farther apart, the larger ones walled-in by high, immaculately manicured hedges, their driveways framed by pillars, some with gates across. Sure, it’s beautiful with the expanses of green, perfectly trimmed flowering bushes and dramatic weeping willows, but they all look so unapproachable, like the people in there want to shield themselves from peering riffraff like me. I find myself searching for a kid’s bike abandoned on its side in the middle of a driveway or a slightly ironic lawn ornament. Instead, it’s like I’ve been dropped into another dimension.

“Do people really live this way outside of ‘Lifestyles of the Rich and Shameless’?” I throw another verbal punch, though I regret it the minute it’s out of my mouth.

Ruth knows me too well. “You’re not going to be a sarcastic asshole the entire summer, are you?”

“Of course I am!” I grin at her. “And you love me that way.”

We pull up to a huge iron-gated entrance, and the driver punches in a code into a control box that electronically opens the gates. Beyond is an impossibly long driveway, the mile of hedges on either side so tall and tight it feels like a tunnel. When we finally emerge, everything opens up to an expanse of perfect green lawn and a circular drive framed by low, flawlessly shaped geometric shrubbery. Shrubbery . . . Don’t think I’ve actually ever used that word, except in relation to Monty Python. The hedges are lined up in military precision, as if guarding the large fountain in the center, the bright, faux-Caribbean blue of the waters glittering in the lights like diamonds.

“Okay, wow.”

And then the house comes into view.

If I thought the houses on the way in were opulent, they were Lego structures compared to this. It’s a massive modernist mansion that sits poised over the edge of the crashing surf like a gargoyle of glass and gray. It’s all sharp edges and mid-century badassness. It’s beautiful, but in a “huge animal that’s about to swipe your head off with its ten-inch claws” kind of way.

“Ruthie . . .” My voice is hushed with awe. “You live here?”

“I wish! No, this is part of my surprise.”

“You’re giving me this house?” I flash her a huge grin.

She responds with her patented squinty-eyed look.

There are no cars in front, but there’s a parking valet standing sentry. A parking valet? WTF? We pull to a stop in front of the main entrance, and John, the angry driver, opens my door and stands to the side.

I get out, look up at the house, and suck in a huge breath. John helps Ruth out, and she puts her arm in mine as I ogle the house. It’s only then that I notice the chorus of voices and hip-hop music riding the salty air.

At first, I think it must be coming from the beach below, but it’s coming from the house. I listen closer and realize it’s dozens and dozens of voices. Maybe hundreds.

Shit.

“Wait a minute, Ruth. What’s going on?”

“Don’t look so scared!”

“Big groups of people are actually the only thing that scares me, and you know it!”

“Well, and swimming, flying on planes, sports mascots . . .” She’s counting them off on her fingers.

“So? I have a lot of phobias! I’m medicated! Plus, it is massively uncool to throw them in my face!” I look back down the now-empty driveway. Where’s that nasty driver gone to, anyway?

She grabs both my hands and does this little hop up and down like she has to pee. “Oh, I’m just teasing you, Gabster!” She pulls on my hands again, so I’m forced to turn back and look into her eyes. “This is really, really important to me. I want to introduce my best friend to my new friends.”

New friends. The two words echo in my head. On one level? I’m really glad she’s already found new friends. On the other? The pettier, more selfish, and more truthful level is I’m hurt I wasn’t enough friend for her. For fifteen of our eighteen years of life, I was. But as I look into her big liquid eyes, my shoulders sink and I feel my resolve melting, like an ice cream cone in July. I sigh, big and dramatic-like. “Fine.”

“Eeek!” Ruthie squeals and pulls me into a tight hug, resting her head on my shoulder like she used to whenever we were heading home from somewhere. “I knew you’d understand,” she whispers, and if I close my eyes, it’s almost like the old days when we were inseparable. But I jolt when she pulls back and yanks my arm toward her with a huge smile. “Let’s go inside!” She tugs me through the front door like we’re being presented at prom.

I look up at the starburst chandelier in the foyer. “This place . . . It’s something.”

She stops and looks at me. “Yeah, don’t forget, I speak Gabriel, and I know what that means.”

“No, really. It’s kind of cool, in an oppressively affluent colonizer type way.”

“See? No one out here talks like that and even though it bugs the shit out of me, I miss it.” She takes my arm again, pulling me in and forward like a tugboat. “Look, I know it’s different than how we grew up, but you get used to it. And everyone out here, they’re just people like you and me.”

“Maybe like you,” I mumble.

Luckily, Ruth doesn’t seem to hear or just chooses to ignore it. “This is my surprise: my friend is having a party, and I want to show off my bestie. Come on, I want to introduce you to everyone.”

Everyone. Sweat starts to break out on my forehead. “You could have warned me. I know the party’s not in my honor, since you know how I feel about them.”

“There’s a party out here every Friday during the summer, and I wanted you to have the full experience. And I would have warned you, but you know that would have guaranteed you wouldn’t come.”

Damn straight it would have! I’d be sitting in the parlor listening to my abuela play the piano and sweating from the Guaynabo heat. I start to pull back a bit toward the door and safety. “I don’t know, Ruth, I’m kind of wiped—”

She cuts me off with a look and a gesture. “No. You’re my best friend and I want everyone to meet you.”

That melts me a bit. Just a bit. “Well, I don’t think your Hamptons buddies are going to be impressed by your skater-punk friend from Astoria.”

“Oh, come on, Gabs! Who are you kidding?” She puts her hands on her hips.

I put mine up in a defensive gesture. “Okay, so maybe I—”

“No, no, I’m sure you can’t impress them. I mean, Jaden Smith just left.” The grin threatens to split her rosy cheeks. “I meant, who are you kidding? You fall off skateboards more than you ride them, so I hardly think that qualifies you as a skater punk.”

I smile back against my will. “Touché.”

“C’mon.” She resumes pulling me along.

“Jaden Smith, huh?”

“Yeah, he wore this vintage Gaultier skirt I would literally kill for.”

When we arrive in the “living room” (I think a small village could live in this room), my jaw drops. The ceilings must be fifty feet high, and one wall is entirely glass, framing the sun doing its final descent into the ocean. The room is made up of sections of flooring that are all at different heights, giving it a mountain-range-type feeling, with people posing on them like goats.

The warm glowing light comes from a dozen modernist black iron chandeliers, hung at varying heights to match each section, and the white walls are covered with color-splashed pieces of art. There’s midcentury furniture placed here and there, but almost everyone seems to be standing.

“Holy shit, is that an actual Basquiat?” I whisper, pointing to the wooden door hanging on the far wall with its familiar graffiti riot of color and frenzied cartoonesque people (ironic to see it here, given the painter was totally anti-capitalist).

The smells of a hundred contrasting expensive perfumes, roasting curried meat, weed, and booze reach for me with pushy fingers. There’s a throbbing current of the latest hip-hop hit riding on the cooling evening air, as well as the nonstop fake shutter sound of selfies.

For a moment, I wonder if I’ve stepped onto the set of a CW show. Every level of the room is filled with beautiful people of all colors who are thin, bored-looking, and wearing outfits that probably cost more than Mom’s car. Most are holding glasses filled with drinks, and their eyes are darting around the room at all times, weighing, measuring, finding lacking.

“So, everyone here is of legal drinking age?” Damn. Could I sound more like my great-aunt Alma?

“Yes . . . Well, no. But . . .” She starts pointing around the room. “See that girl over there? Her father is police commissioner. That guy’s family owns half the island. And there’s the governor’s daughter over near the glass doors.”

I nod. “So, basically, money lets you get away with anything.”

Ruth gives me a narrow-eyed look.

“Hey, baby.” A guy comes up behind Ruth and kisses her on the cheek while looking at me with a one-sided smile. He gives off a vibe like he could eat both of us whole. And we’d probably enjoy it.

Wow. Is this the guy Ruthie’s dating? He seems a bit old for her, maybe the younger end of midtwenties, but I have to admit, this one’s good-looking. Carved jawline, gym rat body, close cropped black hair, and eyes that I swear are purple. Contacts. They have to be. And he’s wearing guyliner. Yeah, I can’t pull that shit off. God knows I’ve tried.

“Hey, Lars. I want you to meet my best friend, Gabriel.” She gestures at me and smiles. “Gabi, Lars owns the restaurant that’s catering the party.”

Lars comes around her and shifts all his attention to me, a violet-hued spotlight shining just on yours truly. He envelops my hand in both of his and shakes up and down, while never breaking his stare. “You summering here, Gabriel?”

I snort. It just . . . comes out.

Lars’s hands stop pumping and he tilts his head in a slightly suspicious way. “Something funny?”

“Yeah, where I come from summer is a season, not a verb.”

Lars freezes for a moment, then throws back his head and laughs, letting go of my hand, moving back to Ruth’s side and wrapping his arm around her neck like a scarf as they both appear to admire me. “I like this one, Ruth.”

“He’s the best,” Ruth says enthusiastically. “I’m going to show him around. Catch you later, Lars?” She ducks out from under his arm and walks toward me.

“I sure hope so,” he calls, then turns his purple-eyed attention to someone else.

Ruthie whispers as we make our way through the crowd. “I think he likes you.”

“I think he likes you. Who the hell was that, anyway? The new boyfriend?”

Ruth waves her hand dismissively. “Lars? No way. He’s, like, Narcissus with a cell phone.”

“I like that analogy.”

“He’s cute, don’t get me wrong.” She stops and touches my arm. “Wait a minute, are you interested in him? ’Cause he’s totally pan.”

“Dude, you should know better. Not interested in anyone right now. But he has a Harry Styles vibe I admire.”

We spend the next forty minutes buzzing through the crowd with Ruth introducing me here and there. I nod or shake hands, saying little but working very hard to be pleasant. It’s truthfully like my worst nightmare, plus kind of a waste of time since their names leave my brain the minute we’re introduced.

I’m just not accustomed to this much . . . peopling, but I start to realize that Ruth doesn’t know most of the partygoers either. I mean, she doesn’t really know them. The whole thing feels like it’s sitting on the surface, like a too thin layer of expensive paint. In between introductions, a waiter comes by with a tray of spring rolls. Ruth takes one delicately, and I take four, only just realizing I’m starving.

We stand there eating—or, actually, I eat while Ruth delicately balances her single spring roll on a napkin. I watch her as she talks about the food on the island and I hate to admit it, but she looks and sounds really good. I’m not sure how I feel about that, honestly.

Ruth catches me staring at her. “What?”

“I don’t know. You just look so alive here. Like someone turned up the contrast.”

She stops with her appetizer halfway to her mouth. “Wait, is that good?”

“Yeah, though I hate to admit it. It suits you.”

She smiles. “I’m so excited to have you meet all my new friends.”

All her new friends. I’m not surprised that Ruth has made so many so fast, but that doesn’t mean I like it. God, that’s petty. The truth is, most of the people I’ve met so far seem nice enough, but it would make sense she’d be friends with the warm ones.

I have to consider that maybe I misjudged this whole thing for her. She seems to belong here, and that simultaneously makes me happy and completely freaks me out. Does she even need me anymore?

Mostly it makes me want to book it back to Queens and crawl into my safe dark hole of a room.

Two girls with about four feet of legs each appear at Ruthie’s right, and then she’s pulled away, the three of them crowding in tight and duck-facing at a sparkle-cased iPhone with their perfect-teeth smiles and long bedazzled nails.

It’s the ideal time for me to sneak off and be antisocial. I wander to the drink table, hoping for something unpretentious without booze in it.

“Can I get you something, Sid Vicious?”

I look up to see a girl dressed in a tuxedo, sans jacket. The bright white of the collar sets off the warm brown of her skin. “Um, I’m not—”

“You’re not Sid Vicious? Yeah, I know. Especially since he’s dead.”

I tilt my head and look at her.

“Do. You. Want. Something. To. Drink?” she says as if talking to someone who has a single-digit IQ.

Yeah, I don’t need this. “Nah.” I turn around and walk off.

I push my way through the crowd. I’m so damn thirsty, but there was no way in hell I’m going to deal with that attitudinal bartender. There’s a steady stream of people in black and white rushing in and out of a set of swinging doors not far from the main entrance, so I make a beeline for it.

I shove the doors open and I’m struck by a wave of heat and the smell of fresh shrimp and roasting garlic. There’s a steady hum of sound, the clatter of dishes, the hissing of oil, and the lilt of Spanish.

First time I’ve felt at home since I arrived.

The kitchen is like a hive buzzing with activity. How many staff members do these people need? No one seems to notice me standing there.

“Excuse me?”

All movement stops and everyone turns to face me. Not awkward at all.

“Could I just get a glass of water?”

They look at each other as if I just asked them all to donate a kidney. Or two. A woman about my mother’s age comes forward with the air of someone in charge. Damn, I need the boss to get a drink of water. Maybe I am Sid Vicious.

“Sir, there is chilled Evian at the drink tables. I can help you find it if—”

I wave dismissively. “I don’t do bottled water. It’s not environmentally cool, you know? Plus, New York City water is the best, am I right?” I smile at her.

They’re all still staring at me. I glance over at my reflection in the spotless surface of the stainless steel refrigerator to see if there’s something in my teeth. At least, I think it’s a refrigerator? It’s larger than my bedroom. I turn back and make my smile even brighter. “I’d really just like a glass of tap water. Would that be possible?”

The woman looks at me for a moment, then shakes her head, strides over to the rack of glasses, and chooses a delicate-stemmed one. As she’s filling it from a special tap at the sink, she says in Spanish to the people around her, “Where’s the funeral? This kid is certainly dressed for one!” They all chuckle and the hum of activity resumes.

She walks back. “Here you go, sir.”

“Thank you.” I start to sip as I walk away, then turn around and say in Spanish, “And I’m not going to any funeral that I know of . . . yet.”

Activity stops again, and everyone gawks at me. I smile and sip as I head back to the party.

Chapter

Three

If possible, the party is in fuller swing when I get back to the living room. And it’s a lot for a goth hermit to handle. As I look around, it dawns on me that pretty much everyone here is an “influencer” wearing overpriced clothing and talking loudly over each other.

I’m just considering returning to the kitchen to hang with people I feel more comfortable with when I hear my name. Ruth rushes up to me all breathy and pink-cheeked.

“There you are, Gabi! Come with me! I need you to meet someone.” She takes me by the arm, her other hand holding a paper-thin champagne flute, the golden liquid sloshing out of the glass with her exaggerated gestures.

“That isn’t your first, huh, Ruthie?” I say, indicating the glass. She’s never been much of a drinker (says the total lightweight).

“Hmm?” She looks at me with slightly out-of-focus eyes.

Well, that’s a big ole yes.

“There he is!” Ruthie’s standing on her high-heeled tiptoes, waving across the room like there’s a plane to redirect. She pulls my face down and forces me to look into her glassy eyes, something she’s done since we were little, like when she was trying to convince me to help her capture a squirrel in Corona Park so she could have a pet. It is an effective method as it makes it impossible to ignore her (and yes, we did capture a squirrel, and I got a bite and a rabies shot as a thank-you).

“Gabriel? I want to introduce you to someone. He’s important to me, so will you promise to be nice to him?” Ruthie says.

It’s a bit of a gut punch that she thinks I will be mean to someone who is important to her.

No. Wait. That might be a legitimate concern. But, like a good friend, I say, “Of course, Miss Ruthie.”

She rolls her eyes, then grabs the strings of my hoodie like a leash and proceeds to pull me toward a congregation of people on the highest of the living room continents. Let’s face it, I’ve always let Ruth lead me around. This time it’s just literally versus metaphorically.

As we get closer, I notice that they’re the coolest group in the room—edgier, more bored—and they seem to be in a huddle. But when they spot Ruth, they part like a curtain until there’s just one guy in the center, the planet around which they all orbit.

Ruthie’s new guy, I presume.

He takes off his sunglasses (it’s almost ten, so, about fucking time), and a grin spreads across his face as he looks at my friend. He puts his arms out and calls, “Tiki! Where you been at, girl?”

I look over at Ruth, and she looks back at me, beaming. I whisper, “Tiki?”

She giggles. Actually giggles. “I told him that my great-grandmother on my father’s side was Hawaiian, and he thought that was super sexy.” Then her attention turns. “Frost, I want you to meet Gabi, my best friend since we were kids.”

She’s gesturing to me like she’s Vanna White and I’m the prize you can win. Or rather, the consolation prize you get when you don’t.

Frost? What bullshit kind of name is that?

All entourage eyes turn to me and sweep up and down like they’re synchronized. I feel like a side of beef.

And then Frost is walking toward me—well, more like an awkward strut. This is the guy who stole the heart of the most sought-after girl in Astoria? He’s glow-in-the-dark-vampire white, tall, and thin. Concave-is-the-new-black thin, with curly white-blond hair cut tight to his scalp. He’s wearing a patterned silk bomber jacket and matching oversize pants that make him look like DJ Khaled vomited all over him. He appears to be wearing nothing underneath since the only thing that seems to be holding up his pants are his pelvic bones that stick out like clothes hangers.

Yeah, I could take him . . . blindfolded and with both arms tied behind my back. Except there are two thugs following close behind him who look like they could break me in half like a toothpick.

Is this guy for real?

“Wait, this is your best friend, Gabi?” He’s pointing at me as if he’s asking about an insect in his lobster bisque. “I thought Gabi was a . . . Never mind, it’s cool.”

He reaches out his hand, and I’m planning on crushing it, alpha-male style, but then he holds his fist up for a bump (okaaay). “Any friend of Tiki’s is a friend of mine, bro.”

I’m fighting a guffaw. I can already tell he’s a clown, but I gave up figuring out Ruth’s taste in guys when we were in fourth grade and she was sighing over Jake Genkowski, who spent every class continually flipping his Justin Bieber–esque hair and sticking his finger up his nose.

I look over at Ruthie and she’s giving me those pleading eyes. I bring my fist up to his, pause, then tap. “Good to meet you, Frost.” What a ridiculous name. I feel ridiculous even saying it, but given the skin, hair, and cold blue eyes, it makes a pathetic sort of white-boy sense.

He puts his arm around Ruthie and my chest tightens. Seriously, this is who she chooses? He looks like a junkie hustler who hangs out in Astoria Park. Seems Ruthie’s taste hasn’t evolved since moving on up.

“Tiki’s told me so much about you, the way you two grew up together in, like, poverty and shit.”

I raise an eyebrow and say, “My mother’s vice president of an investment firm.” But he’s not listening.

The two of them are gazing into each other’s eyes like they’re the only ones in here—no, scratch that. She’s looking at him that way; he’s totally focused on drawing every eye in the room.

I throw up in my mouth a bit. “So, how did you two meet?”

They start talking at once, but then Ruth defers to Frost. “You tell him, babe.” Ruth never defers to anyone. It’s something I love—maybe loved?—about her.

He doesn’t take his eyes away from her as he talks, and I consider if maybe he actually does care about her. “It was a party here at the beginning of the summer. Tiki walked in and that was it. She was the most beautiful girl in the room, and I knew I had to have her.”

“Have her?” No one else seems to think that’s disturbingly possessive and reeking of toxic masculinity. So much for the actually caring about her theory.

I’m about to tear him a new one, but Ruthie knows me too well and fires me that look again, so I swallow my irritation. I watch them as they’re cooing at each other, and I can’t help but wonder where my friend went. She’s had a boyfriend continuously since we were twelve, but she never acted differently. She was who she was, and they would have to deal.

No, this Ruth was new.

“What do you do, Frost?” I hear it come out of my mouth and realize it is a TV-dad-asks-his-daughter’s-date kind of question, but hey, he looks to be in his early twenties, so he should be doing something by now. Besides, I have zero fucks to give in regard to this guy.

“I’m a music producer.” And he indicates the people around him who are nodding and smiling, trying to win Frost’s favor, it would seem. But music is something I’m actually interested in.

“Oh yeah? What kind?”

He scoffs, like it’s a stupid question. “Hip-hop. What other kind is there?” And he high-fives a stylish Black guy with an angled fade haircut.

“Well, actually, there’s punk, metal, pop, jazz, reggaeton, trap, salsa, classical—” But no one is listening to me, the attention is on Frost like filings to a magnet. Then someone calls his name out by the backyard pool, and everyone’s gone, walking behind him like a gaggle of geese.

“Ruth, can we—”

Nope. She’s gone too, stumbling a bit on her massively high heels, huddled close to him, and I hear that laugh that’s as familiar as my own.

It’s like she’s forgotten I’m here.

Heat rises behind my face in a swoosh. “Screw this.”

Coming out here was a mistake. Why didn’t I stand my ground? If Ruth can’t come back to visit without a fucking limo, why should I put up with this shit?

I stalk over to the nearest bar and see the belligerent bartender behind the table. Perfect. Could this night suck any harder?

“Can I get you an actual drink, Sid?”

“My name is Gabriel, and yes, give me anything with booze in it.”

She raises her perfectly shaped pierced eyebrows at me. “Anything?”

“Yeah.” I rarely drink, but I need something, anything, to take the sting away. When in Rome, as they say. “Just make it strong.”

I watch her grab what looks like whiskey, pour a measured shot, and hand it over.

I take the short, etched glass.

“Aren’t you going to ask me what it is?”

“Nope.” I throw my head back and gulp the entire contents of the glass. It’s harsh, burning on the way down, tasting of wood and smoke but also warming, like a campfire. I manage to hold back a cough.

I wipe my mouth with my sleeve, place the glass down on the table, and indicate for her to give me another since I can’t actually speak yet, the alcohol is still burning in my throat.

She regards me again. “You sure, Gabriel?”

I realize that she said my name with the proper accent, the R taking a short roll on the tongue. But then I hear Ruthie squeal from the back patio. I look out the plate glass window behind the bar and see Frost holding her over the pool, teasingly threatening to throw her in. Her long legs are scissoring up and down like a woman in a 1950s monster movie.

My face heats up. “Yes, I’m sure.”

I take a gulp as other people come up beside me, ordering drinks. I watch for a while, zoning out. When there’s a break in the line, the bartender turns to me and puts out her hand. “Georgina.”

So, she has a Spanish name. Interesting. We shake, though I have some trouble aiming my hand at hers and her face is slightly blurry, like I’m driving by in a car but standing still at the same time. Thing is, as acerbic as she is, she’s the only one I’m comfortable being with right now, so I stand at the side of the table and watch her work as guests come and go in waves.

I’m hypnotized by her deft handling of all the people, the long, neat pours of alcohol where she doesn’t spill a drop, and clean tinkling of the ice. It’s like a booze ballet.

A wave of douchey frat boys order their drinks and walk away in a flurry of “Dudes!” and “Bros!”

Georgina sighs. “The ironic part is that they’re probably the only ones here who can legally drink.”

“Yeah, sadly the law doesn’t take into account personality. You’re not going to get in trouble for serving alcohol to minors?”

“Why, you’re a little young to be a narc.”

I shrug. “Just curious.”

She shrugs back in response. “Owner doesn’t care, and I take orders from him.”

I realize Georgina is staring at me. “What?”

“You don’t live around here, do you?”

I bark a nasty laugh. “God no, I’m from Queens. Visiting a friend.”

She points outside through the wall of glass and at Ruth. “Is that girl I saw you with your friend?”

The word friend drops and boils at the bottom of my stomach. I don’t think it mixes well with all the alcohol in there. “Yep. Since we were five.”

“Hmm.” She says, staring at me some more.

“What?” I ask again. I feel like a dissected frog under a microscope. Actually, I kind of smell like one too. What’s in this drink, formaldehyde? “You gonna tell me that a girl can’t be friends with a guy? That I must be ‘into’ her? I’ve heard it all before.” I wave my hand dismissively and take another gulp.

“Nope, just that even for a friendship you’re an odd match.” She looks out the window again at Ruth, who is toasting with some blond guy. “She’s just so—”

“Beautiful? Popular? Rich?” And then it slips out before I can stop it: “Normal?” Shit, I even depress myself.

“Actually, I was going to say ‘basic.’”

Okay, not what I expected. “Really?” I feel simultaneously defensive of my friend and pleased by the observation. Smugly pleased, if I’m being honest.

“Yeah. Besides, who the hell wants to be normal, anyway?”

“Hell yes.” I give her a slightly off-centered high five. I like that response.

I take a slow sip as I look around, examining my surroundings. I wave my hand indicating the party guests in the room and say to Georgina, speech slightly slurred, “All these people? Come the zombie apocalypse, they’re fodder.” She smiles at that, so I continue, pointing to a blonde laughing too high and too loud. “That girl there? She’ll be waving her manicured hands and shrieking like a banshee, blocking the exit for those who are actually smart enough to try and get out.”

Georgina nods, then indicates a jock type near the doors, with broad shoulders and an excess of confidence. “He’s the one who thinks he can overcome the threat with his strength and bravado but will end up getting impaled early on in a very dramatic way.”

I’m grinning now; this is my type of party convo. “And that guy? The one with the serious eyes that looks like he quotes The Art of War but has never actually read it? From the get-go, he’ll assign himself as the de facto ‘leader’ and will convince people to do his ‘plan’ that will get everyone who follows him killed, but he’ll survive, eventually throwing another guest in front of himself to escape but getting killed too in the process.”

“Yep. I can totally see that.” We glance around, both seeing everyone through a new lens, one that makes the whole party more fun, truthfully. Georgina turns toward me. “What about your best friend? Is she the final girl?”

I pull back and gape at her. “No way! She’s not . . . that type. Besides, anyone can see you are.” That last piece just slips out of my mouth.

Georgina snorts. “Me? Naw, you don’t know me, hermano. I’m no one’s final girl.”

“You absolutely are! I’ve known you for less than an hour and I can see it. Strong, smart, no-nonsense. You’re not one of these mannequins. You are your own person. You’d totally be the one who finally thwarts the threat and survives at the end.” I don’t think I’ve ever complimented a stranger this much before. Must be the liquid courage, but it’s the absolute truth.

“Whatever, dude. I think you’ve had too much to drink.” She smiles and goes to serve another guest.

I’m about to ask her why she knows so much about horror tropes when the sound of a commotion makes its way into the room from the beach side. It’s a large group, singing some inane hip-hop lyric, with Frost and Ruth at the center. I feel a growl rising from my belly, and I wonder if I’m going to bark or puke.

“Hey, you okay?”

I feel Georgina take my upper arm and I look at her, waves of feelings breaking over my body.

“You don’t look so good. Maybe you should go get some air—”

I pull my arm free and stumble out the large sliding glass doors to the backyard. I stagger across the stone patio and bump into some blond girl, more zombie fodder.

“Hey! Watch where you’re—”

She stops when she looks into my eyes. She looks scared. Am I baring my teeth? Lord, I hope so. I ignore her and keep going.

My feet hit grass, and I see a gray wood staircase ladder that leads down to the beach below the cliff. Yeah, even in my state I know this isn’t a good idea, but when I get to the top and grip the railing, all I want to do is get to the edge of the dark, glistening water. If I can just put my feet in the sea, everything will be all right. When she was trying to get me to swim again, my abuela would tell me that salt water cures everything.

Don’t think it can cure this. I feel like somebody died.

“Why did I let Ruth talk me into this shit?” I say out loud, but the words blend together into one long one.

I manage the stairs okay but stop halfway down to catch my breath. The air is growing cool, and the smell of salt and sand is familiar and soothing. Coming down to the beach was a good idea. I look up and notice the moon. It’s almost full, high above the ocean, its reflection bleeding and rippling across the waves.

I finish the stairs and run to the edge of the water like my life depends on it, kicking off my boots and tearing my mismatched socks off as I go. The second my toes touch the sea, I close my eyes and breathe deeply. The water is fucking cold, and I don’t care. But after a few minutes, I realize my grandmother is wrong because the weight on my chest that’s been growing all night is still there.

In fact, I’m having trouble breathing. I put my hands on my knees and gulp for breath, wishing I hadn’t had so much to drink. Panic attacks and booze are a bad combination.

The water is rushing in and over my feet, then pulling out beneath them, and a memory of another beach day bobs to the surface—this time it’s a happy one. When we were little, Ruth’s mother took us to Rockaway Beach one August day, and when we arrived, we were excited to find the beach near empty. But then we found out why.

The sand was peppered everywhere with small, clear jellyfish. Mrs. McCarthy didn’t want to have come so far for nothing, so she set up her chair in a clear spot, dug out her paperback romance, and declared we were going to stay for a few hours despite the invertebrate invasion; however, we couldn’t go near the water. I didn’t want to anyway, as I was freaked out by the small gelatinous monsters. But Ruth? She made a game out of it.

Soon we were chasing each other in and out among the jellyfish, pretending we were in a maze, being chased by a Minotaur. Then we were marine biologists, tasked with saving as many as we could. Using our brightly colored sand buckets and shovels to carry them to the edge of the water, we tossed them in where they had a chance of survival.

When the sun was at its peak, we came across two boys our age who were poking the creatures with sticks, breaking them apart, and laughing. Tiny Ruth, hands on hips, yelled at them, told them to leave them alone, and threatened to tell their mothers. The boys took off in the other direction.

Fighting for jellyfish. That’s Ruth.

The memory robs my lungs of air again, and I weave a bit.

I’m just standing up to head back and sit on the stairs when I hear a woman’s scream farther up the beach.

An icy feeling shivers across my skin. As a horror aficionado, I know screams, and that was no “teens playing in the surf” kind of screech. I peer in that direction, though the shadow of the cliff above me is making everything so dark. The only light is the moon.

Another scream, and I start running. I feel my bare feet thumping on the wet sand, and it seems my head is clearing more and more with each step. The cliff forms a kind of cove, like a giant scooped out a bunch of the shore with a spoon, and I’m about halfway to the other side when I see a person in the water—a woman, arms desperately flailing.

I rush into the water up to my knees, as far as my fear will allow and see that she’s being dragged out to sea by some invisible force, being pulled backward as she frantically reaches toward shore.

I can’t take my eyes from her; I’m afraid she’ll disappear if I lose sight of her, but I can’t go in any farther. I just can’t. I scream for help, but the rumble of waves crashing on the nearby rocks seems to steal my words as soon as they leave my mouth.

The tug of the tide is strong enough that the sand is pulling out beneath me, and panic floods through my chest. I watch the cold water rush in and out and I feel the disorientation of childhood fear choking me. I quickly step back until only the tops of my feet are covered by the water.

When I look up again, she’s gone. It’s as if she were never there.

Jesus Christ.

Is she dead?

Could I have saved her?

Is it my fault she’s gone?

I give up trying to scream, my throat sore and tears blurring my vision, and the terrifying echo of the memory that the old woman on the train awoke.

I make myself focus on peering over every inch of the dark water, praying to see a bobbing head, piece of clothing, something.

Nothing. Nothing but angry sea.

I’ve just started to turn around and head back when I hear whispering nearby. At first, I think it’s coming from the ocean, maybe the woman? But then the voice grows louder, more feverish. It seems to come from everywhere . . . and nowhere. I feel it across my skin like static.

I spin around, looking. I see movement in the inky darkness against the wall of rocks. But then it’s gone. Did I imagine it?

I look back into the water, and in that moment a huge gray form reaches above the surface and thrashes, right where the woman . . . Did she drown? Get pulled under? Eaten by a giant fucking shark? Jesus Christ. This is a nightmare, has to be.

I stare, wiping my eyes so I can see better. I realize what it is just before it too disappears beneath the ocean’s surface.

I swear to Christ, it’s as tall as the Staten Island ferry.

A tentacle.

Chapter

Four

I take the perilous beach stairs up to the house two steps at a time. I don’t feel drunk anymore—I think seeing a freaking giant octopus justifiably scared it out of my system—but as I miss the last stair and almost fall all the way back down to the sand and my probable death, I realize I might still be slightly incapacitated.

My instinct is to start yelling for help the minute I reach the top, but I also know I smell like a bad country song, and no one would believe me.

Except Ruthie.

I push my way through the crowd around the pool, ignoring the grumbled complaints, looking for my friend. Like so many things in my life, she’s the only one I can talk to about this. I spot her right inside one of the entrances to the house and rush in. She’s talking to a tall, older man, so I interrupt the guy midsentence and grab her by the arms.

“Ruth! I have to talk to you!”

She gives her nervous giggle. “Gabriel, not right now. I’m talking to—”

I don’t let her finish. “No, it has to be now! It’s an emergency!”

I see the man giving me the once over with narrowed eyes. I could not possibly give less fucks about what this rich old bastard thinks of me.

“Oh . . . okay, I—” I can tell the guy is someone she wants to impress because she’s doing her nervous-tic thing of smoothing the hair across her forehead. No time for that.

I grab her and start pulling her outside. I look back at the man and spot Georgina the bartender behind him giving a concerned look my way.

“Gabs, what’s wrong?” Ruth’s looking at me with that probing, worried, but slightly pissed off stare she usually reserves for her little sister, Amy.

I point toward the beach. “I saw something in the water. It was . . . a huge, gigantic . . . or maybe . . .” I’m having trouble getting the thoughts from my mind out of my mouth and once again I’m sorry I had those drinks.

“What are you talking about?” She’s glancing back inside and watches the man move off into the crowd. “That was Frost’s father I was talking to. He’s an important—”

“This is more important, Ruthie! I promise you!” I shake her by the arms. “I saw a woman drown or really . . . disappear . . . ’cause I saw a . . . t-tentacle in the waves! I think there’s a giant octopus out there or . . . something.” Okay, as it comes out of my mouth, even I can hear what a raving drunk I sound like, but I know what I saw.

She puts her hands on her hips. “Are you kidding me right now, Gabi?”

“Look, I know how it sounds, but I swear—”

She steps a bit closer and sniffs my face. “How much have you had to drink?”

“A little.” I fumble because I’ve never been good at lying to her. “Look, Ruth, whether or not you believe me about the tentacle, a woman is in trouble out there!” I wave frantically toward the big black ocean.

She looks in the direction I’m pointing, then at me, her eyes serious and probing.

I make one last plea. “I heard her screaming and I think . . . I think she might have drowned.” I need her to believe me.

Ruth pauses, then puts her hand on my arm and says, “Okay.” Then she’s off, phone to her ear, striding into the house and rallying Frost’s security staff.

My body slumps with relief. I shouldn’t have doubted Ruth would have my back.

Within fifteen minutes there are flashing blue and red lights pulling next to the house and across the vast lawn and rescue personnel in wet suits rushing down the ladder to the sand. You would have thought they were storming the beach at Normandy.

Ruth’s a mobilizer, all right. I just might be wrong about her final-girl potential. I’m watching all this from the perch of the cliff, my pickled mind trying to make sense of it all.

“Christ, you call the cops on my end of the island and you’re lucky if they come at all,” Georgina says from right beside me. Her sleeves are rolled up and her arms are folded across her chest. I notice a death moth tattoo on her forearm. “They’re saying a woman drowned?”

“That’s what they’re saying.” Though we bonded over horror plots, I don’t know this person, so I’m not opening myself up to abuse for the tentacle thing.

I learned my lesson in fourth grade when Frankie Dugan learned I was scared of a zombie apocalypse, and he mocked me for a week with arms-out shambling and overdone moaning. That is, until Ruth brought up his paralyzing fear of spiders in front of the whole school at recess and he ended up crying. Besides, tentacles aren’t supernatural. Tons of sea creatures have them. Well, a couple, anyway.

“Yeah, well, these kind of ‘accidents’ seem to happen too fucking often around here.” Georgina drops her arms and turns around to go back in.

I call after her. “Wait, what do you mean?”

A sigh. She stops and turns. “Look, all I’m saying is that during the summer, a person disappears nearly every week here.”

“What? Why haven’t I seen that on the news?”

“’Cause they’re usually not one of the rich people or you would have and this would have been solved by now. You won’t catch me going in that water. I’ve seen that movie, and it doesn’t end well, particularly for the brown girl.” Then she walks back toward the house, probably ready to end her shift.

It’s not like anyone is still interested in drinking with the increased police presence. In fact, all the guests seemed to vanish before the cops even got here. Big surprise.

I glance around and see two people stalking toward me, a tall, older redheaded woman in uniform and Frost’s father.

“Captain O’Connor, this is the boy who claims to have seen the woman drowning. I’m afraid some of the younger attendees appear to have gotten into the alcohol when we weren’t looking—”

Yeah, the cop can clearly see the fully stocked and staffed bars all over the place. Seems the Frosty apple doesn’t fall far from the tree.

“But kids will be kids, am I right?” he says with an arrogant chuckle, and the cop answers with her own false laugh.

So, this is how it’s going to be.

The cop asks my name, contact info, and writes it all down in a little book. Shouldn’t that shit be digital by now? Gen Xers.

“Now, what exactly did you see, son?” she asks.

If I say nothing, it looks like a prank. If I mention tentacles, they think I’m an idiot prankster looking to become famous on TikTok. No, best keep it simple.

“I heard a woman screaming. I ran to her, but she was too far away. I waded out to try and help her”—I leave out the part about only going up to my knees—“but before I could reach her, she got pulled under the water.” Okay, that was vague enough. “Did you find her?”

“No. There’s no evidence anyone drowned here tonight.”

“Wait, were there any guests missing?” But as I look back toward the empty house, I already know there would be no way to discern that.

Frost’s father throws his head back and laughs like a dad in a sitcom. I really would like to punch him, but hitting the rich white guy in front of a cop would be a stupid move, even for me.

To her credit, the cop doesn’t laugh. “Son, there were over eight hundred guests here on and off tonight, not to mention a hundred staff. There’s no way to track down each and every one.”

“Captain, we’ve already wasted too much of your valuable time. Gabino here—”

“Gabriel.”

“He wasn’t even an invited guest.”

Ouch. Well, it would be an ouch if I gave even a tiny shit what this colonizing douchebag thinks of me.

Then he’s corralling the cop around, steering her toward her vehicle. “He’s a friend of my son’s girlfriend . . .” Then he whispers loudly, “He’s visiting from Queens.” The last word delivered as if discussing a plague.

The cop looks over at him and says with an even voice, “Sir, I’m from Queens. Woodside.”

Cue patronizing pat on the back. “Of course you are, Jane, of course.” Wow. That tone of voice is familiar. Guess he and dear ole dad went to the same school for tyrannical fathers.

And then they walk off, Frost’s father’s arm around the police captain’s shoulders, and they move blissfully out of earshot.

I hear a swishing in the grass behind me and look over to see Ruthie walking toward me, carrying her high heels in her hand. She looks . . . tired. She comes up and rests her head on my chest. “I tried, Gabs. But they didn’t find anything.”

I sigh. “I know, amiga. But hey . . .” I lift her chin and look into her eyes. “Thank you for believing me.”

A smile. “Always. Well, except when you told me my tongue wouldn’t stick to the metal fence that winter when we were eight.”

“Oh, c’mon! I wouldn’t have actually let you do it!”

A snort. “Yeah, right.” She looks up at me. “You ready to go home?”

I nod, though nothing about this town fits my definition of home. But I put my arm around her, and we make our way out front where John the limo driver stands yawning. When he opens the door for us, I swear I see a smug look, like I’d turned out to be exactly who he had expected.

Or maybe it was just the stick up his ass.

Chapter

Five

I wake up when the sun reaches the bed, the gold light bleeding over the guest room floor. I try to get up, but as soon as I lift my head, I flinch, and drop it back to the pillow. It feels like my brain is filled with shards of glass, all stabbing at the inside of my skull with their pointy edges.

I pull the very crisp sheet over my head and wonder if I’m going to puke. Pieces of my dream come back to me. It was the woman in the surf, but she was Ruth, waving her arms as I try to reach for her, try to make myself swim, but my legs are dug deep in the sand. I’m half-buried and helpless as I watch my best friend drown.

I pull the sheet tighter around me, and roll over, as if all I need is a change in position to push the dream from my brain. It actually seems to work, but just as I’m starting to fall asleep again, I hear the door swing open and Ruth rushes in and throws herself on the bed as if she were still seven years old and fifty pounds.

Bitch always was a morning person.

“Ruuuth,” I whine.

She pulls the sheet off my face, and I groan again as the sunlight burns my eyeballs like battery acid. “I figured you’d be hung over, and that’s why I’m here to take you out for breakfast!”

I feel my stomach lurch at just the word. “No! Go away, you evil shrew.”

“Yeah, well, you came out here to visit this evil shrew, and we’re going to have a fun day together, just like the old days.”

Even through my hungover haze, this gets through to me. This is why I agreed to come here. “Shower. Coffee.”

“Shower’s in there.” She points to a small room I was too out of it to notice last night. Quite a difference from her old apartment, where four of them shared one bathroom. “And we’ll get coffee at the breakfast place I’m taking you to.”

Ruth jumps off the bed, and lands on her feet like a sprite. A sprite from hell.

“Come on! The morning is wasting,” she sings. And then she bounds out of the room, closing the door behind her.

For the life of me, I can’t remember why she’s my best friend. But I get up anyway, groaning like my two-hundred-year-old great-grandfather getting up from his rocking chair.

In the shower I remember last night, and I start to worry all over again that I could have done something to help the woman if I weren’t afraid of the ocean. But I remind myself of the Mark Twain quote my therapist likes to say to me: “Worrying is like paying a debt you don’t owe.”

So, instead, I focus on the feeling of the hot water hitting my back in pulses, the clean, spicy scent of the soap, and the shower begins to help, a lot. By the time I get dressed, I feel almost human again. But I’m barely out of the guest room door when something slams into my legs and knocks me to the hallway carpet. I start flailing, still kind of freaked out after last night, until I see the cascade of tangled blond hair and recognize Ruth’s younger sister.

“Amy! You little hellion!” I laugh, giving her a big hug as she throws herself on my chest, both of us lying down on the floor now.

“Gabi! I didn’t know you were already here!” She lifts up her head and starts talking a mile a minute. “I can’t wait to show you my new Legos! I’ve gotten so many new sets since I last saw you! I’ve lost three more teeth, see? And I’m learning to swim. Did Ruth tell you? I can doggy paddle and everything! Can we watch a scary movie tonight?”

The barrage of information is classic Amy. The girl’s only setting is at eleven, and I adore her for that. The child could light a small town with the energy she puts off. “Can we watch a scary movie? Are boogers green?”

She whacks me with her skinny arms. “Eww!”

“We’ll sneak one in this week for sure, but like always, you can’t let your parents know, right?” I put my finger to my lips, and she does the same. “They think you’re too young to watch that kind of movie, but I know you’re a supersecret badass!” (Don’t judge me, I stick to classic or less-gory horror. I’m not going to subject the child to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre.)

She grins from ear to ear, several new teeth missing from the front. She climbs off my chest, and I start to get up.

I brush off my black jeans. “You coming down for breakfast?”

“Nah, I already ate. Mom sent me up to brush my hair.” She rolls her eyes dramatically.

I look at the absolute lion’s mane of matted hair and laugh. Amy’s so different from Ruth, always hanging from trees, hates wearing dresses and “girly clothes,” as she calls them, and, thanks to me, loves scary horror movies and books. Ruth sits and watches them with us, mainly through her fingers since she hates them, but I think she secretly loves the way Amy and I get along.

“Well, Ruth is taking me out to breakfast, so I better get downstairs.”

“Aww! Can I come? Please? Can I?” She has her hands pressed together, leans against me with her whole body, and makes her eyes oh-so-big.

I muss her already-mussed hair. “Um, missy? You just said you already ate, didn’t you? Besides, Ruth and I haven’t seen each other for a while. We have to catch up and talk boring teenage stuff.”

Her whole body slumps, head and hands hanging down. The child needs to do theater when she gets to high school. “Okay, fine. But next time I get to go, promise?”

I smile down at her. “Promise!”

I watch her tear down the hallway, all four limbs flying in that full and total abandon eight-year-olds run with, the thump of her untied sneakers surprisingly loud for such a small creature.

I’m smiling as I walk down the stairs. Waking up with Ruth’s family is so familiar and comforting.

“Gabriel! How good to see you!” Ruth’s dad is walking across the marble floor, dressed in crisp, pale cotton, his shiny shoes clicking across the tiles. Affluence suits him; he looks like a million bucks. He gives me a firm handshake, and when he looks in my eyes, I see he appears genuinely glad to see me. Her parents always appreciated that I watched out for Ruthie.

Then, as he always does, he pulls me in and gives me a bear hug surrounding me in a cloud of his signature cologne. Whenever I see him, for the rest of the day, I can smell the comforting notes of bergamot and basil on my clothes. When I was twelve, I wondered if that’s what real fathers smelled like.

“Good to see you, Mr. McCarthy.” And it is. Though he’s taken Ruth away from me to a place I can’t seem to reach her, I still like him.

“What are you kids doing on this fine Saturday?”

Ruth skips up and puts her arm through mine. “I thought I’d take Gabi to the Crow’s Nest for breakfast.”

He looks at his watch. A Rolex, I notice. “Breakfast? It’s almost ten a.m.! You’ve missed half the day already.”

Ruthie rolls her eyes just like Amy, kisses her father on his smoothly shaven cheek, and we’re on our way out the door.

John the Judgmental Limo Driver is waiting for us outside. I whisper to Ruth, “Is this guy your permanent driver?”

“I wish! Frost only has him drive me around on the weekends.”

“Well, that’s not creepy at all.”

She smacks my arm, and we climb into the car. “Why would you say it like that? It’s sweet.”

And he can keep track of everywhere you go. I don’t say it out loud because I know she’d think I’m being paranoid, but . . . “You did get a driver’s license, you know. Just barely, but you passed. I was there.”

“Yeah, and do you remember being there at the go-kart place? When that kid ended up in the hospital? Not my skill set.”

“Do I remember? I can still hear that bone cracking in my sleep! Fair point.”

Ruthie is all waving arms and fast talking, pointing out landmarks along the way, ranting about where she’s going to take me next. As usual, I get pulled into Ruth’s orbit and find her excitement rubbing off.

The Crow’s Nest is shockingly homey, all bleached driftwood walls, wildflowers on the tables, and the smell of coffee and freshly baked bread greeting us like old friends. Ruth insists we sit by the window so we can see the ocean.

As she orders, I look out over the water, and think about what I saw last night. Or might have seen. In the hungover light of morning, it seems farther and farther away, but I can still hear that woman’s screams echoing in my head.

“Gabi?”

“Huh?” I look over to see Ruthie and the waitress staring at me.

“What do you want to order?” the waitress asks, her tone the verbal equivalent of eye rolling. She looks not much older than me and Ruth, with brown hair pulled back in a messy bun, jewels glued on either side of her eyes, and short, chewed nails.

“Coffee, please.”

“And he wants an egg and cheese sandwich too,” Ruth adds.

I give her a look, but she just pats my hand.

“You need to eat something to get rid of that hangover, bud.” She looks up at the waitress. “Thanks, Tracy.”

Tracy nods, then her eyes light up. “Were you at the party at Frost’s last night? I heard that Jaden Smith was there!”

That’s what she comes up with? Not Isn’t it terrible a woman drowned? Or even Wasn’t that a grotesque and unethical display of greed and wealth?

“Yeah, we were there,” Ruthie says in a bored tone as the cook bellows out for Tracy from the kitchen.

“Be right back with your coffees,” Tracy says, suddenly all energetic.

I take a sip of the ice-cold glass of water in front of me. “So, what’s the plan for today, Miss Ruthie?”

“Well, I thought we’d go to the beach! I—”

She stops as she looks at my face. I’m guessing the horror of last night is showing in my expression.

“Oh. Sorry. Maybe we’ll just walk around town? Get some ice cream?”

I smile. “Ice cream right after breakfast?”

“Well, why the hell not? You’re on vacation, aren’t you? Besides, remember when you had your tonsils out and you talked your mother into taking us to the Carvel at nine a.m.?”

I laugh. “I swore to her it was open, then we had to wait in the car for forty minutes until they unlocked the doors.”

“She was so pissed at you!”

“Yeah, but it was totally worth it.”

Tracy arrives at the table with two cups of piping hot coffee, and I’m starting to feel pretty damn good. She stands there for a minute, looking expectant. What? Do they tip before you get the food in the Hamptons?

“Did you hear?”

Aha! So Tracy is a gossip. I continue with my half-and-half pouring. I care way more about my caffeine fix than I do about anything that’s going on around here.

Ruth lets out a sigh. Clearly, she has no interest either. Well, clearly to everyone but Tracy.

“They’re tearing down the White Poplar Luxury Apartments!”

I laugh so abruptly I spray my mouthful of coffee all over the table.

Both of them stare at me as I wipe it up with my napkin. Ruth crosses her arms. “Something funny, Gabriel?”

“Yeah, they named a luxury apartment complex after an invasive species!” I’m still laughing. “White poplar . . . it spreads by cloning itself . . . choking out native trees and . . .” They’re still staring. “Well, I thought it was funny,” I say to the table in a sulky voice.

Tracy keeps going. “Anyway, they gave, like, no warning to the people that live there. Like, thirty days.”

“Who is they?” I ask, finding myself slightly more interested.

“Duh! Thurston Corp, of course! My boss says—”

Ruth cuts her off with a voice like ice, “Tracy, can you check on our sandwiches, please?”

The girl stops midsentence. “Oh, of course.” And she’s gone, scurrying back to the kitchen.

“Whoa, Hamptons Ruthie goes all Karen.”

Ruth rolls her eyes. “If you don’t cut her off, that girl will babble on forever. Like Lisa Carter in sophomore year. Remember when we just let her talk at lunch to see how long she would go, and she barely breathed for an hour?”

Tracy arrives and puts the plates down with a sad smile. “Sorry it’s late. New chef.”

“New? Where’s Justin?”

Tracy shrugs. “He just . . . took off. Never came back to work.” She walks away.

Ruth starts in on her sandwich and I take a bite as if I’m starving like she is, but truthfully, I’m just thinking about how much my best friend has seemed to change in only a few months.

We spend the rest of the day walking around town and, yes, eating ice cream before noon. It starts to feel like the old days, wandering around Astoria on a Saturday morning, talking about everything and nothing, looking into store windows but not buying anything. A few people stop and say hello to Ruth but most seem more interested in asking after Mr. McCarthy.

“Seems like a lot of people know your father.”

“Yeah, well, the locals. He’s on the zoning board and the town council. He’s really become part of the community.”

“Yeah, but are you feeling like part of the community?”

She just walks and licks her ice cream for a while.

I smile. “Ah, so it’s going to be that way.”

“What way?”

“You’re buying time. Like in history class when you didn’t do your homework. You always managed to parse out your answer, sound like you studied when you didn’t, while I’d busted my ass studying, but Ms. Chelius never bothered to call on me.”

“What can I say? It’s a gift.” Another pause. Then: “I like it here well enough, but I don’t really feel like I belong yet. But dating Frost has really started to change things, you know? More people know who I am now.”

“Yeah, but as Frost’s girlfriend, not as badass Ruth McCarthy!”

She rolls her eyes. “I’m not much of a badass out here, G.”

“Well, you always will be to me. Remember in ninth grade when Johnny Pearson was hitting those middle schoolers and you took him down with one punch?”

She gives me a sad smile and we walk in silence for a bit.

As we go by the space between two buildings, I hear a whisper on the breeze, the words muffled and anxious. I stop short and stare down the alley.

Nothing. Just a fast-food wrapper, tumbling and rustling along the building at the mercy of the wind.

Weird and a bit creepy.

I’m about to start off again, when I notice a spattering of graffiti on the side of the building on the right, unusual for such a bougie area. There’s something among the rainbow of balloon-shaped names and obscenities . . .

There. That symbol.

The weird one tattooed on the chauffer’s neck. Seeing it larger, the squiggly lines coming out of either side of the circle gives it a fat-spider kind of vibe.

But what’s with the weird triangles jutting out each side at the top? I stop and point at it. “Ruth, do you know what that symbol means? I’ve been seeing it around.”

She leans into the alley and glances at it, then passes her gaze over the rest of the brick wall. She shrugs. “Don’t have a clue. Who knows what any of this means? Which kind of defeats the purpose of graffiti when you think about it.” She slips her arm through mine. “C’mon, we’re not even halfway through town.”

I pause, resisting her pull, my eyes still on the symbol. The memory of the whispering murmurs passes over my skin like a shudder.

“Gabi? You okay?”

I start a bit, like I forgot Ruth was there. “Yeah, I’m fine.” I take one last look around the alley, trying to find the source of the sound, then turn and flash her a distracted smile.

We continue on our way, and I’m shocked by how many high-end stores there are, one after another. Prada, Louis Vuitton, Gucci. “Wow.”

“Amazing, right?”

“Yeah, I mean, where do you people buy real things, like mops and shit?”

She pulls back and glares at me. “We’re not savages, you know. There’s a Target not four miles from here.”

“Ah, you hide that on the outskirts of town and send the help there, I see.” I glance up as we come upon a bright store window, and I stop short. “A bookstore! You have a bookstore?”

Ruth gives one of her easy laughs. “Yes, we have books out in the Hamptons. We don’t only read Instagram.”

I notice her second use of we, but I’m too interested in checking out the store to give her shit. “Let’s go in.”

She holds up her ice cream cone. “Can’t with these.”

I proceed to shove the four inches of cone in my mouth, ice cream pouring down my chin, and shout, “Done!” spitting ice cream at her.

Ruth laughs and ducks as I chase her around, growling and barking like a rabid dog while people lurch out of our way as if we are, indeed, contagious. Eventually, she’s holding her stomach and laughing. She tosses the rest of her cone in the garbage, hands me a pile of napkins, and grabs my hand. “Let’s go, pig man.”

Ah, the smell of a bookstore. Paper and ink and millions of stories all neatly packed onto rows and rows of shelving, with an undernote of overpriced coffee and the soothing whir of a milk frother.

I make my way across the very shiny wood floor to fantasy and horror while Ruth wanders over to magazines. She’s used to how I zone out in bookstores. When I get to horror, I run my fingers over the spines, admire the art on the faced-out books, and think about all the stories contained between the covers. I pick up one with a deer’s skull and flowers and begin to read the dust jacket.

“Why am I not surprised you’re a horror fan?”

I jump back when a voice speaks right next to me.

Lars stands there, smiling a feline grin. “Don’t worry, I don’t bite . . . unless it’s with consent.”

I laugh, partially at his joke, but mainly because I’m embarrassed by my reaction. “Sorry, I’m just a little on edge.” I look at the books in his hands, the top a brightly colored one featuring a cartoon couple each holding a cake on a platter in a meet-cute pose. “And I would never have guessed you’re a romance reader.”

He looks at the pile of books, then shoves them under his arm, but I don’t miss his face flushing a bit. “My mom is. Sometimes I read them to her. Her permanent preferred fare is a beach read. They’re terribly formulaic, yes, but I have to admit they’re also compelling and escapist.” He shrugs. “They make her happy.”

I smile, thinking of my own mom and her murder mystery obsession. “That’s all that matters.”

Then he does that bird head tilt thing. “You said you’re on edge? Aren’t you on vacation?”

“Yeah, but . . .” I consider mentioning the weird shit that’s been happening to me, but I don’t know this guy, and nothing says I’m a serial killer like telling someone you barely know that you hear whispering voices. “I guess because I’m not in my natural urban environment.” There. Nice and innocuous but also true.

Lars nods while he stares at me, and I get the weird feeling he can see beneath my words, see the truth. He’s dressed more casually today, with worn jeans and a fitted gray Henley that hugs his pronounced muscles. “Ruthie said you’re from Queens?”

“Yeah. Born and raised.”

“I’m from Southie, originally. South Boston. Similar vibe.”

Okay, not what I expected. “You’re not from here?”

He lets out a warm laugh. “The Hamptons? Oh hell no! But I’ve been working my way up in the restaurant business since I was fifteen, and this is a great place to make good money. Why did you think I was from here?”

“I don’t know, you were at the party, you’re a friend of Frost’s—”

“My relationship with Frost is more business than personal. I’m actually more of a Ruthie fan, if you want to know the truth.” Then he catches himself. “Not in that way! Just . . . she’s a kind person in an unkind world and I feel better when I’m around people like that. You know what I mean?”

“I do.”

“Besides, Gabriel, I don’t think anyone’s really a friend of Frost’s.”

“Wait, what do you—”

His phone rings, and he glances at the screen. “Sorry, I’ve got to take this.” He looks at me, shakes my hand warmly, and says, “It was great to see you again, Gabi.”

“You too, but I—”

His cell keeps ringing, and he starts to put it to his ear but pauses. “Oh, and, Gabi?”

“Yeah?”

“Be careful, okay?” He touches answer and puts the phone back to his ear. “Hey! Yeah, I’m on my way.” Then he strides toward the registers at the front of the store.

My head’s spinning a bit from that unexpected encounter for several reasons. Lars seems to have a kind of maelstrom spinning around him that just pulls you in. Plus, I’m dying to know what he meant by the warning and the comment about Frost.

Lars leaves me kind of distracted, wondering if I can get his number from Ruth, but that might be weird. Soon enough, though, I’m lured away by the plethora of dark fiction in front of me as the familiar territory lulls my anxiety.

An hour passes by like a minute, and I’m just poking through an anthology of cosmic horror when Ruth leaps at me from around the corner of a bookcase.

I balk at her. “See? Not even a flinch! When will you get it? I’m not scareable.” Luckily, she didn’t see me jump out of my skin with Lars.

“I mean, unless there’s a team mascot around.”

I shudder. “Who the hell chooses to do that? It’s just creepy.”

“C’mon, G. It’s a beautiful day outside, you don’t want to waste it in a bookstore, do you?”

“Okay, Mom. But no time in a bookstore is wasted.” I found a first edition of the latest Joe Hill novel, so I grab it and head to the registers.

From my place in line, I can see Ruth talking to some girls outside, and I watch her mannerisms. They’ve changed since she moved away. They’ve become more studied, less natural. I wonder if I met her now, would I like this new Ruth? And more importantly, would she have any interest in being my friend?

I go back to reading the book cover when I notice something under the classical music playing over the sound system . . . the whispering from the alley. It sounds like dried leaves blowing down a sidewalk, getting louder and louder, masking the notes of the music. I look around to see if anyone else is noticing, but no. The employees behind the register are talking, but I can’t hear anything coming out of their mouths.

I look beside me and see a girl about Amy’s age, holding a stack of Baby-Sitters Club paperbacks, looking at me, her mouth opening, but all I can hear is the whispering as it gets louder, as loud as hurricane winds, slowly, gradually turning to screams, the noise wheedling into my ears like a pathogen . . . I drop my book to put my hands over my ears . . .

“Next in line!” a bespectacled and impatient woman says from behind the counter.

Sounds flood in from all around me. Normal music from the sound system, people talking, the door opening and closing, all come back as if they’ve always been there.

I pick up my book and pay for it with shaking hands. I stand off to the side and try to slow my breathing before I go out. Ruth would know right away something’s wrong, and I don’t want to have to explain whatever that was. I stand and watch an older man pay for his book, his dress shirt crisp and ironed. The cashiers ringing people up, handing them receipts. I listen to the Vivaldi playing out of the speakers on the ceiling, no whispering as accompaniment. Clearly it was all in my head, but the fear it brought hasn’t left me.

I’m really losing it.

Jesus Christ, stop whining, Gabi. You’re fine. I hear my dad’s common refrain from my childhood playing in my head like a soundtrack.

I am fine.

Ruth is looking in the front window at me, and I wave as if all is peachy, and start toward the door. As I grab the handle, I notice a free local newspaper, the Weekly Diviner, in a worn wooden stand. The format appears as if it was typeset on someone’s ancient Mac and folded on their kitchen table. Looks right up my alley. I reach to pick it up and notice the headline.

ANOTHER PERSON MISSING: IS CTHULHU BACK?

Hold the phone. Cthulhu? Like, racist classic horror writer H. P. Lovecraft’s monster? Oh, I’m all in for this one. I grab a copy and start to read the lead article as I push through the doors. When I get to the illustration of the monster, a chill passes over my skin.

Tentacles.

What the hell? I walk over to Ruth without looking up.

“You would find that creepy little rag in a massive bookstore.” Ruth is standing there with her arms crossed and judgment smeared all over her face.

“You have got to read this, Ruth. It’s awesome. They say that there’s a secret underground cult that worships Lovecraft’s sea monster and they’re calling him forth.”

“Like I said, rag. Throw that trash away and let’s walk for a bit.”

I want to talk more about what happened last night, but honestly, I can’t trust what I saw or what I think I saw. I might have seen that poor girl drown, but a story-high tentacle? That shit is beyond far-fetched.

Still. I fold up the paper and stick it in my newly purchased book for reading later. The Hamptons are getting more interesting by the moment.

After a short meandering walk, Ruth goes to get us some drinks. The minute she leaves, I pull out the Weekly Diviner and read through the article. It’s not badly written, but the supposition that a mythical sea monster has been terrorizing the wealthy Hamptons for hundreds of years seems certifiable, even to me. But as I go to open the thin paper, I notice the byline on the lead article: by @SonicReducer.

I’m sorry . . . what?

My Slasher nemesis.

Here. In the Hamptons.

My face gets heated, but I see Ruth making her way back balancing sodas and french fries. There’s so much swirling in my head as I go to help her carry the food, but I try to put it aside. Getting all worked up about SonicReducer and sea monsters with Ruth is sure to only push her further away.

But between that and the weird happenings in the alley and the bookstore . . . well, color me intrigued. And slightly freaked out.

Chapter

Six

We walk back to Ruth’s house and spend a lazy afternoon lying on the couch with a spectacular view of the ocean (I love it from afar), reading on our phones, and sharing a bag of my favorite kettle corn (Ruthie had her maid get all my favorites. I’ll have to unpack that sentence later). Finally Ruth says, “Hey, Gabs, thanks for coming with me to the party last night.”

I look over at her. With the setting sun on her clean face, she looks the same as she did when we were twelve, pale freckles sprinkled across her nose like cinnamon sugar.

I suddenly feel bad for being such a jerk all night. “Anything to make you happy, Ruthie.” And in the moment, I mean it. Can’t guarantee I will tomorrow when she tries to drag me to play golf or something, but this afternoon I can’t help but smile at her, big.

She grins back, then sits upright and pats my knee. “Great! Now get dressed. We’re going out.”

And . . . good feeling vanished. “What?! To where?! Noooo—”

She pulls on my arms. Ruth’s shockingly strong for a wiry thing. “C’mon, c’mon. You’ll like this.” When I’m on my feet she grins up at me, a little too wide. “I promise.” She crosses her heart and hopes to die.

My shoulders slump and I drag my feet like a toddler mid-tantrum as she pulls me toward the stairs.

There’s only so much time I can waste getting dressed, especially since I brought multiples of the same black T-shirts, hoodies, and jeans. After I can’t delay any longer, I slowly come down the stairs to find her standing there, ready to go.

“Took you long enough.”

“Says the person who once took over an hour to get ready to ride bikes to the park. To ride bikes!”

We walk toward the front door. “Yeah, but Gary Hofstetter was going to be there, so I had to look supercute.”

I stop. “Gary Hofstetter? The kid who bathed in Axe body spray?”

She opened the door. “What can I say? I liked the smell of black vanilla and BO.”

When we step outside, I breathe deep of the cooling air, trying to bring calm for whatever hellscape of social interaction Ruth has planned. What does she have planned? She’s not wearing sandals appropriate for walking. . . .

“Wait, you’re not driving us anywhere, are you? I’d like to live to see nineteen.”

She rolls her eyes at me as I hear the crunch of tires on the driveway. I look up to see the long black limousine pull up in front of us, then John the belligerent driver jumps out.

“Oh. Great.” I groan.

Ruth looks at me, mouth agape, as John opens the back passenger door. “You are literally the only teenager in the world who would bitch about riding in a limousine.” She ducks in, and I hear her say, “Hi, babe!” in a high, cooing voice.

Fuck me.

Frost.

Could this situation get any worse? I go to duck in, John shoots me a very intolerant look as he holds the door open.

“Hey, man. Good to see you again.” Frost gives me what might be a genuine smile and a fist bump. He’s dressed in black tonight, a welcome change from the hip-hop-wannabe-any-color-but-white vibe.

I bump him back, settle into the seat, and take a deep resigned breath. “So. Where are we going tonight?”

Ruth squeals, bouncing in her seat. “It’s another surprise. This time just for you, Gabs!”

I force a tight smile. “Really? Great.”

She slaps my arm hard. “You can at least fake some enthusiasm.” She knows me too well.

“What? I thought I was!” She starts beating on me with her fists and we fall into the sibling wrestling tangle that always ended with our mothers yelling at us to cut that out, you two! By the time we separate, we’re out of breath and smiling from ear to ear.

Frost is just staring at us like we’re a new species. Finally, he says, “What is wrong with you two, anyway?”

That just starts us laughing all over again.

When Ruth catches her breath, she says, “A lot, actually. There was this one time? We were leaving school and I kinda tripped Gabi on purpose—”

“Kinda? I went down on my face! I had to get stitches!”

Ruth waves my trauma away. “Oh, it was only two! Don’t be such a baby. Anyway, I reached down to try and help him up, but I was still laughing at him sprawled on the sidewalk, and he got pretty pissed.”

“Yeah, I don’t blame him.”

I look at Frost, surprised. “Thank you!” Then at Ruth: “See?”

She ignores us. “So he pulled me down, and we started wrestling, like, for real, and this big-ass football player comes up from somewhere and grabs Gabi by the back of his shirt. He yanks him up, trying to protect me, right? And—”

I jump in, saying to Frost, “And your girl Tiki here throws herself at the dude, beating on him, yelling at him to leave me the fuck alone. He was so confused.”

He looks at her. “You jumped the guy who was trying to protect you?”

She gives him a fierce glare back. “Yeah, I don’t need protecting. He should have minded his own business.”

I have to add, “Yeah, but you broke his nose. A week before prom.”

Frost looks impressed. “Damn, Tiki! Remind me not to piss you off!”

I laugh. “Always wise. The girl’s feral.”

She hits my arm again.

“Ow!” I rub it, but we’re all laughing now, and it feels good. This seems more like the Ruthie I know and love.

The limo comes to a stop, and I glance out the window to see a glowing marquee above us. “We’re going to the movies? Cool!” I turn to Ruth. “Wait a minute . . . we’re not going to see some Taylor Swift concert film or something, are we?”

Frost pulls back with a horrified face and makes the sign of the cross. “God, no!”

I laugh. Okay, maybe he’s not that much of a douche as he first came off.

John opens the car door, and I’m the first one tumbling out. That’s when I see the Coming Soon poster for Blood Beach, the new horror film from one of my favorite directors. “Holy shit!” I turn to Ruth as John helps her out of the car. “Can we come back Thursday? I’ve been waiting to see this for two years!” I sound like a little kid begging his mother for a toy, but I don’t care.

Frost puts his arm around Ruth and gives me a big smile. In fact, they’re both grinning at me. I narrow my eyes. “What are you two up to?”

Ruth takes my hand. “Let’s go in.”

When we enter the lobby, Frost greets a group of people, hugs and introductions (I’m never going to remember any of their names), and then we’re all moving through the lobby.

We pass by lines of people at the refreshment counter and arrive at the ticket taker. He sees Frost and unhooks one of the velvet ropes. “Is this everyone in your party, Frost?”

“Yeah.”

The pimply faced kid smiles. “It’s all set up for you.”

Frost nods at him. “Thanks, Kyle.”

We’re passing through the ropes, and I point back toward the lobby. “Don’t we need to get tickets? Maybe some popcorn? I’m kind of hungry—” But they’re ignoring me, so I just follow behind, confused.

There are streams of people going in and out of the different numbered doors for the different movies, but we pass by all of them, finally turning the corner. The hallways go on forever, all lined in deep-red-and-orange carpet like in The Shining. Frost stops at the door marked Private and holds it open. “You first, Gabriel.” He bows a little and waves me in.

I’m so confused and slightly disturbed. Is this where I find out Ruth has joined a group of cannibals and I’m dinner? “Yeah, okay.” I pass through the door and into a theater much like the others, and I’m comforted by the familiar black walls and red velvet seats.

It’s completely empty and quiet, the only sound the muffled audio from the adjoining theaters. There are tables of popcorn, sodas, and candy set up before the first row of seats. I look back and watch the group make their way to the tables and grab snacks and drinks. I look at Ruth. “What’s going on?”

She puts her arm through mine. “Frost rented the entire theater just for us.”

I look around the rows and rows of empty seats staring at us like expectant faces. I feel like I’m with a celebrity. “Really? That’s awesome!”

“C’mon, let’s get some popcorn. It’s about to start.”

“What is?” But I let her lead me to the table to grab a buttered popcorn and coke and take my seat next to Ruth. The lights lower, and on the screen appears a dark beach at night, a young couple chasing each other into the water as the playful music becomes more and more ominous.

“Awesome! A trailer for Blood Beach!” I settle contentedly into my seat, happy to watch the trailer again after the eighty times I replayed it online. But this one is different. My hand freezes halfway to my mouth, popcorn forgotten, when I realize what I’m seeing. “Wait a minute . . .” My voice seems so loud in the empty theater. “This is . . .” I completely turn in my seat to face Frost who is sitting on Ruth’s other side. “This is the actual movie? Blood Beach?”

He nods, smiling.

“But . . . how? It’s not even out yet!”

“My dad has stock in the production company. Tiki told me you liked horror, so—”

“Holy shit! I could hug you!” I yell this time, and everyone laughs. I’m surprised to find my eyes filling up. I mean, Ruthie—with Frost’s help, of course—just gave me the most perfect Gabi gift ever. Then the girl on the screen shrieks, and I settle back in, happily munching my popcorn, a huge smile on my face.

“That was fucking amazing!” I’m still yelling as we make our way out of the theater, I don’t care that people are staring at me. “I mean, when he took out the bone saw, I almost died!”

Frost’s friend Cameron starts chanting, “Bone saw! Bone saw! Bone saw!”

I join him and we pump our fists up and down as Ruth just shakes her head.

We’re walking to a pub that’s nearby. Nice to know everyone’s Hampton legs actually work. The place is warm and cozy, lots of wood, low lighting, photos covering the walls. They know Frost here too, and the hostess gives us a table tucked in a corner.

We settle in and a waiter comes right over and asks what we’d like. Frost orders pizza and beer for the table, and the waiter hesitates. He seems flustered and rushes over to the bar to check with the bartender. No one else seems to notice, but I watch him nervously make his way back.

“Um, Mr. Frost, sir? I need to see IDs all around.”

Frost glances at him with a “do you know who I am?” kind of look. Doesn’t say anything, though. Just stares.

The poor kid is shifting back and forth. “I’m really sorry, but it’s the law.” He swallows. “She won’t do it.” He gestures to the bar, and when I look over, I recognize Georgina from the party last night, pulling beer taps and filling a line of glass mugs with the urine-colored liquid.

Frost growls. “That bitch. Who does she think she is?”

“Well, she’s kinda my boss.” The waiter croaks.

“It’s okay. I just want a ginger ale anyway,” I offer, but I get the sense that doesn’t help.

Cameron and two of the other friends pull their IDs out, but Frost grabs the guy’s sleeve as he reaches for them.

“Just get Lars.”

“Lars?” The guy looks like he’s going to piss his pants.

“Yeah, Lars. The owner? Your boss’s boss?”

I lean over to Ruth. “This is Lars’s place?”

She’s answers distractedly. “Yeah.”

“I ran into him at the bookstore yesterday. He said some interesting things,” I whisper.

Ruth ignores me, puts her hand on Frost’s arm, and whispers, “Babe, it’s okay. I only want a soda too.”

He doesn’t even look at her, just says, “Shh.”

Shushing Ruthie? Oh, this is gonna be good. Nobody shushes Ruthie. But to my surprise, she just pulls her hand back and stares at the table. What kind of control does this guy have over everyone?

The waiter swallows. “Lars isn’t here today. His mother’s sick.”

The second Frost lets his sleeve go, the guy takes off, mumbling, “I’ll just get your drinks.”

Ruth tries to tell Frost it’s okay, but he just sits there, mouth tight, looking straight ahead.

He’s acting like a petulant toddler who had his juice box taken away. As a result, things are more than a little awkward now. I can feel the anger spewing out of Frost’s pores, and Ruthie’s desperate need to make everything okay, and I start to feel like I’m at the dinner table with my parents before the divorce. Jesus, I’m going to crawl out of my skin. Instead, I jump to my feet so quickly I startle Ruth.

“I’m just gonna . . . go to the bathroom. Be right back.”

She nods and continues nervously glancing at Frost.

I breathe easier the minute I’m clear of the table, but I don’t really need to use the bathroom. As I’m looking around, I catch Georgina’s eye, and decide to say hello. I mean, I’d like her to know that I, for one, didn’t intend to break the law. Not tonight, anyway. There’s an empty stool, so I stand in the space and wait as she serves a woman halfway down the bar.

After she places some beers on a tray for a waitress, she comes over. “What’s up, Gabriel?”

“Nothing much. You work here too, huh?”

“Same job and owner as the catering company, actually. I only do events when I need the money and that’s more often than I’d like to admit.”

I think about Lars and remember him saying he reads to his mom sometimes. “So, Lars’s mom isn’t well?”

Her face falls a bit. “No. Her health has been declining for a while now. They’re really close. I feel so bad for him.”

“Me too.” The conversation is making me sad, and given the look at Georgina’s face, her too, so I change the subject. “Guess what I did tonight. I just saw Blood Beach!”

Her eyes go wide. “What? The new Silverstein slasher? That’s not out till next week!”

“I know! You have to see it when it comes out. It’s great! Gothic horror at its goriest best!”

She indicates Frost with a lift of her chin. “He arrange a special movie showing or something?”

I’m a bit embarrassed by this, actually. “Or something.”

She wipes down the bar in front of me, the evidence of the last customer erased with a swipe. Georgina looks around me at our table again as Cameron laughs loudly at something. Frost is still sitting silent, sulking.

“Your friends over there think they’re above New York State law?”

“They’re not all my friends. I don’t think anyone’s above it, but they don’t seem too hung up on legalities. You saw that firsthand at the party, though, right?”

“Yeah, but tonight I’m in charge, and I take it seriously. Lars should too or he could lose everything if we got caught.” Her eyes get sad as she wipes over counter she’d already cleaned. “They’ve lost enough.”

I rest on the edge of the bar and lean closer. Lars did not seem the kind of person who loses anything. “Like what?”

“Poor woman. His mom just got ousted from her development. Throwing an old disabled woman on the street is a new low.”

I remember the conversation at the diner. “Wait, is this the White Poplar place?”

“Yep. It was an oceanfront luxury senior housing complex. Now it’s gonna be torn down for high-rise condos to block the views and house more rich douche canoes like Frost.”

Honestly, I don’t know what to say to that. “I don’t—”

She cuts me off. “Did you want something?”

“What?”

“From the bar? I have other customers, you know.”

“N-No. No, I’m cool.”

“See you later, then.” She starts to walk away, then stops and turns to say, “And, Gabriel?”

“Yes?”

“You really should find a better caliber of friends.” And then she’s taking an order from an older couple a few seats down.

That’s the second warning I’ve gotten from locals today, and I’m starting to wonder if I should be listening harder.

The pizzas arrive, and though I was starving not long ago, I’m not as interested in the food, but I start munching on a slice of pepperoni anyway. While we eat, I end up talking to Cameron for almost an hour about horror. Lawyer’s kid, grew up privileged like the rest of the guys around the table, but he actually knows his shit. He’s almost an expert on folk horror, and I can’t help but be impressed.

When I get up to actually go to the bathroom, I’m surprised to find that despite my reservations about hanging in this kind of crowd and the convo with Georgina, I’m actually having a good time (if I ignore Frost, which I do). Here, in this neighborhood pub in the bougie Hamptons. Who woulda thunk it?

The bathroom is surprisingly nice, shiny marble floors, huge mirrors over the sink, the stalls shockingly clean. After, I’m washing my hands when I hear bubbling water coming from the stall I just vacated. I bend down and glance under the door. No feet. Did I break the toilet?

Nah, must be one of those automatic ones that is weirding out. But as I grab some paper towels to dry my hands, the bubbling gets louder, and now it’s coming from all the stalls.

“What the fuck?” I walk over and start to investigate when all the doors burst open, water exploding from the toilets and into the air.

No wait, it’s no longer water . . .

It looks like blood!

Torrents of dark red blood burst up and over the doors. I try to run and get help, but my feet are slipping in the slick, wet gore, and I can’t catch my balance. That’s when I hear the sound of screaming, coming as if from far away.

I freeze and listen as blood rains down around me.

It sounds like the woman in the water last night.

Then there’s another voice, a man’s.

And another.

As the blood pools on the floor, my hands and face dripping with it, the screaming gets louder and louder, slashing at my brain like a razor until I have to cover my ears and close my eyes that burn from the blood pouring into them, and it gets so loud I can’t stand the sound, so loud I wonder if my ear drums will burst. I begin to scream—

“Are you all right?”

I shake my head a bit, trying to clear it. I open my eyes and there’s an older man holding my hands away from my ears and staring into my face with a concerned look. “I said are you all right, son?”

I spin around and look in the mirror.

No blood. On me or the floor.

No screaming.

“Can I call someone for you?”

Yeah, a priest, maybe? “No . . . no, thank you.” I swallow, my throat dry as paper. “I’m . . . I’m fine.”

Fine is the last thing I am.

I take one last look at the open stall behind me, see the water calm, placid, and clear in the bowl, and I scurry out of the bathroom.

When I step back into the restaurant, I slow down, not wanting to bring any more attention onto me. How many of these people heard me scream? But no one looks at me, they simply continue to eat their burgers and truffle fries as if a hell mouth hadn’t just opened up in the bathroom on the other side of the wall. The television suspended in the corner is playing the local news, just another voice among the hundreds in the bar, when the newscaster’s words reach me through my haze. “The remains of the body found last week on Wilcox Beach have been identified.”

I spin around to watch the screen.

“It took longer than expected since so little was found, but DNA analysis has confirmed it is Justin Carmichael, the seasonal worker who disappeared one week ago. Carmichael was working on the island as a short order cook at The Crow’s Nest, and was an avid surfer, often going out on the water in less than advisable conditions. His death is not considered suspicious at this time. And on the weather front, another glorious day is on tap for—”

I can’t listen to this anymore.

I stagger a bit as I walk back toward the table, my thoughts spinning like a top.

Later at Ruth’s, I call “Good night” to her over my shoulder as I break into a run on the stairs, anxious to get to the privacy of the guest room and process whatever the hell that was that happened to me in the bathroom.

“Gabs!”

I stop, hand on the railing, and look back at Ruthie.

“Did something happen tonight? You got really quiet at the pub.”

I force my face into what I’m hoping passes as a smile. “No. I’m good. It was just . . . a lot of peopling for one day, you know?” I sigh, my body sinking a little. “That was really great, what you and Frost did for me tonight. Will you let him know again that I had a great time?”

She smiles and her eyes get that faraway look in them. Shifting the focus onto Frost was a good idea. Her mind can’t help but follow. “It was, wasn’t it? I’ll tell him. Night, Gabs!”

“Night, Ruthie.”

I start back up the stairs, wondering how I’ll ever be able to use a bathroom again.

Chapter

Seven

I’m standing at the opening to the alley, the one near the bookstore, and facing the old woman from the train station. She’s yelling to me, her mouth wide and round, eyes creased with worry, but I can’t hear her voice. There’s a roaring that covers all other sounds except the thump of my heartbeat that echoes in my skull. It’s not the loud whispering from the bookstore. It’s not the piercing screams from the bathroom. What is that roar?

Wait, it’s the ocean . . . the surf.

I want to get closer, to hear what the woman is saying, but my feet won’t move. As in the beach dream, I’m sunk into the concrete up to my ankles. I gesture that I can’t hear her, but as I look at the woman, I realize that she’s slowly being blocked out by a huge, black shadow.

It’s rising from somewhere behind me, plunging me in darkness, and spreading across the ground and toward her like blood. Just before she’s completely enveloped by darkness, I see her eyes go wide with terror, a scream distorting her face as she disappears beneath a blanket of black void. I brace myself, begin to turn around, and . . .

“Gabriel? Wake up!”

I jolt up in bed, gasping. I look around wildly, trying to get my bearings.

Ruth. She’s sitting on my legs.

I rub my hands over my face, as if pushing off the residue of the dream. “Are you going to do this to me every morning this summer?”

She shrugs . . . smugly. “Probably.”

“Wait. Isn’t it Sunday? Can’t I even sleep in on Sunday?”

“Not in this house.” She smacks my belly and I flinch. “Get dressed and wear your most presentable hoodie.”

“Wait a goddamn minute. Why?”

“God is kind of the point.” She stands up and I notice the flowered dress that goes past her knees, the sensible shoes. “We’re going to church, and Dad wants you to come with us.”

I feel my eyebrows raise to my hairline. “Church?” The Puerto Rican side of my family are all very devout Catholics, so this being shaken awake at the crack of dawn on a Sunday thing is not unknown to me, but Ruth’s family always seemed free of such annoying rituals. “Since when?”

“Since we moved out here.” She throws her hands up. “Don’t ask me. He claims he’s rediscovering his faith. Part of me wonders if it’s an image thing in the community, but I’m not going to suggest that. That’s a shitstorm I have no interest in bringing upon myself.”

I still feel the nightmare coating me like a film, still feel the blood from last night drip down my skin. They’re making it hard to think. “Fine.”

Ruth tilts her head, seemingly surprised I didn’t put up more of a fight. “Fine?”

I throw the covers off and head to the bathroom. “Yeah.”

Evil awaits you there. The dream has brought the woman’s words back into my head. And the experience in the bathroom at the pub last night. I figure a trip to church isn’t a bad idea, considering. I make myself as presentable as possible, grab a croissant from the plate on the kitchen counter, and join the family in piling into Mr. McCarthy’s shiny new black Lincoln Navigator. Quite a step up from the old Chevy with the rusted wheel wells.

I’m not paying attention as we drive over. Mostly I’m trying not to nod off onto Ruthie’s shoulder. I get out after we park, brush the crumbs from my sweatshirt, then reach my arms up to get the kinks out of my back. When I turn toward the church, I stop midstretch.

It’s a massive building made of clean gray stone, with a freaking tower on one side, and a perfect, manicured green lawn.

“This is your church?”

Ruth looks at the structure with me, as if seeing it fresh. “Yeah. Kinda big now that I think about it.”

“Um, yeah. What’s it called?”

Her mother appears on her other side, holding Amy’s hand. “Basilica of the Sacred Hearts of Jesus and Mary.”

“Basilica?” I don’t even know what that is, but I’m sure it has something to do with money. They start walking and I rush to catch up, pulling up next to Mrs. McCarthy. “What’s the difference between a basilica and a plain ole church?”

Ruthie gives me the side-eye, but I ignore her.

“Well, it has to do with the parish being designated one by a Pope or saint. Pope Benedict XVI decreed that this church be elevated to the status of a basilica in . . . 2011, I think?”

Yep, it’s the money. I keep this thought to myself, especially ’cause I can feel Ruthie’s stare burning a hole into the side of my head.

We join the flood of well-dressed people who are funneling into the chur—oh, I’m so terribly sorry, basilica—and when I step through the big front doors and into the building proper, I look up and gasp.

The ceilings are really high and vaulted, and the walls along either side display a series of intricate stained-glass windows, the colors bright and glowing with the early morning sun. There are huge, dramatic chandeliers giving off warm light over the pews on either side, and the floor is covered in royal red carpet.

We make our way up the center aisle to the front right of the church. I take out my phone, intending to take a photo to send Abuela—won’t she be impressed I’m going to church on a summer Sunday?—but as I’m pulling it from my pocket, I fumble a bit (it’s really fucking early) and it falls to the floor with a clatter. Embarrassed, I bend to pick it up, and as I’m standing, I glance back and notice that everyone who is in the wooden benches on our side is staring at me.

Every. Single. Person.

I freeze, still bent halfway down, and look around.

Kids, adults, old men, even babies, all those eyes on me.

My heart picks up speed, and I feel as if my skin shifts over my bones.

Evil awaits you there.

I stand up and someone grabs my arm. I yank it back instinctively, fear weighing down on my shoulders.

“Gabi, you see someone you know, or . . . ?”

I look over into Ruth’s face, then back at the church.

Everyone’s doing their own thing. Reading the bulletin, blowing their noses, talking to each other.

What the actual fuck?

“No. No one.”

“Well, c’mon, then. We’re over here.”

“O-Okay, coming.” I follow and glance back once more, but no one is staring at me.

I don’t know what is going on since the train station, but it’s gnawing on my nerves and making me question my sanity.

When I make the sign of the cross before following Ruth into the pew, I bring my thumb to my mouth to kiss it, like my abuela does. I clearly need all the help I can get.

Sitting in the middle of Ruth’s family, people so familiar and beloved to me, I feel my breathing and my heart begin to slow. All these things that are happening to me, that only I can see or hear, they have to be in my imagination, right? Honestly the thought that they may not be is even more terrifying.

Everyone stands when the priest steps up and behind the altar. Gradually, I fall into the hazy and familiar lull that comes with mass, half listening, automatically giving the correct responses where needed. I can’t remember people’s names two minutes after meeting them, but I remember each response in English and Spanish. But the repetition and poetic words comfort me. Or maybe it’s being surrounded by faith, I don’t know, but I’m grateful for it.

But I’m also grateful when it ends. Why does church time pass so much slower than regular time? When the priest says, “Go in peace,” I’m overly enthusiastic with my “Thanks be to God.”

We run into Frost as we’re making our way out. As niceties are exchanged, I notice the deferential way he acts around Ruth’s family. Shaking Mr. McCarthy’s hand, calling him sir, kissing Ruth’s mother on her cheek, and chucking Amy under the chin.

Chucking.

Who does that, other than a grandfather?

Okay, so I’m a little jealous. It’s one thing to share Ruth, but I’ve been an honorary part of the McCarthy family for most of my life, not him.

I’m telling myself to calm down as he turns to me.

“Gabriel!” He grabs my hand and pulls me into his body in that heart-to-heart-with-arms-clasped-between-you kind of bro-friend hug.

When I pull back, I remember what he arranged for me with the movie. “Hey, listen . . .” I cough to clear my throat. “Thanks for last night. That was beyond cool.”

He smiles and pulls Ruth into his side. “Sure, man. Anything for Tiki’s bestie.”

Smiling, they stare into each other’s eyes, and my skin starts to feel too tight, like it’s suffocating me. I’ve never felt so . . . extraneous around Ruthie. A third wheel. I mean, I’m used to being an outsider, hell, I pride myself on it, but never with her. Shit. She seems happy. Why can’t I be happy for her? I try to shake off the feeling as I follow them out.

Mr. McCarthy invites Frost to dinner that night, and in the car on the way back I text the photo of the basilica to my abuela. As we’re getting out at Ruth’s house, my grandmother calls instead of texting back. Classic for my Puerto Rican family. What do they have against texting, anyway?

“Abuela! ¿Cómo estás?”

“Hi, Abuela!” Ruth calls into the phone as she goes into the house, leaving me to chat in private.

I sit down on the front step and close my eyes to feel the sun on my face. “I went to that basilica today. Amazing, huh?”

“Yes, very beautiful.” A pause. “Listen, Gabriel, how long are you going to be in that place?”

That place? Why does she sound so weird? “I’m supposed to stay with Ruthie the whole summer. Why?”

I hear her sigh. I can picture her sitting on her patio in Guaynabo. Paco asleep in a donut shape in her lap, the water burbling in her stone St. Francis fountain a few feet away.

“M’ijo, why don’t you come down here instead?”

“What? Why?”

“I just think, with your mother traveling, it would be better for you to be with family.”

“But you like Ruth and her family. Don’t you?”

“Yes, yes, of course! It’s just a long time to . . . be without family.”

No. This is weird. She never cared about anything like this before. “Abuela, what’s going on? Why do you really want me to change my plans?” Plans that—by the way—I didn’t even want to do in the first place.

“Ay, Gabriel.” Her voice sounds tired and thin. “I was at church this morning too, and I had a . . . well, a feeling about you.”

A shiver runs across my skin. I don’t believe in these things as a rule, my father saw to that, but even I’ve accepted that my grandmother’s feelings were not something to take lightly. Like the time she made my cousin stay overnight, and there was a terrible accident on the highway he would have taken. But with her words, the experience with the woman in the subway station bobs to the surface of my mind, and that vision . . .

“Abuela, I had this weird feeling too, or maybe it was a dream?” I say, afraid to name it a memory only to be told it never happened. “Whatever it was, I was little, at the beach . . . and I think I almost drowned.”

“That was not a dream, it was a memory. It was at Luquillo Beach. You were . . .” A pause. Then: “What else do you remember?”

A memory. Thank God, I’m not losing it, at least in terms of that. But why is it only coming up now? I try to picture the scene that I’d glimpsed in the train station. “I just remember . . . tumbling, not knowing which way was up in the water and . . . a feeling that something was coming.” I hadn’t known I was going to say that until I said it.

Silence.

“Is that why I’ve always been afraid of swimming?

Nothing but crackling on the line.

“Abuela?”

“Yes, I’m here.” She ignores my last question. “It would seem we are both having a feeling that something bad is coming for you.”

“I know you’ve always had feelings like this, but why am I, suddenly?”

“Ever since you were a little boy, I sensed that you had the gift.”

“Gift?” Uh-uh, those are cards you can spend at stores on books or—God forbid—socks, but they sure as hell aren’t random eerily vivid manifestations of existential dread.

She sighs. “M’ijo, we can talk for longer about this when you get here, but there are layers to this world that most people can’t see. But some of us . . . well, some of us can. Don’t ignore any feelings you might get. Please. This is why I want you to leave that place.”

I remember the people staring at me in the basilica, the way it made me feel. “I didn’t want to come here, Abuela, but I don’t think mom will let me leave just because of a feeling. I know she won’t.” My mother thinks most of Abuela’s feelings are superstitious nonsense. But she also thinks Nickelback is a good band, so . . .

“Don’t worry about your mother. I’ll handle her. In the meantime, m’ijo . . . ten cuidado. Please be careful.”

Suddenly I don’t want her to hang up, like our connection will keep me safe. I swallow. “I will.”

“Bueno, good. May God bless you, child.”

“You too, Abuela.”

I hear her call disconnect, and I feel naked, exposed, like I did at church. I picture her making the sign of the cross as she puts her phone down. I put my phone in my pocket and do it too . . . just in case.

Chapter

Eight

Tonight, I guess since Frost is joining us, we all sit down to eat dinner in their formal dining room (the tiny room my mom and I eat in at home is, I imagine, more of an informal dining room). But the seared scallops with butternut squash and brown butter hazelnuts are to die for. Seriously. I’m so into the food, I’m barely paying attention to the conversation. That, and I’m actively ignoring Frost, who is working Ruth’s father like a used-car salesman.

Once I’m done eating, I lean back in my chair and pat my belly.

“Guess you hated that, huh, Gabi?” Ruth points to my clean plate with her fork.

“That might have been the best meal I’ve ever had,” I say, and I mean it.

Mrs. McCarthy brightens. “Yes, Chef Yvette trained in the best restaurant in Madrid. We’re lucky to have her.”

Once again, I feel like I’ve been dropped into an alternate universe. Is this the same family that had Thursday pizza nights when we sat at a worn table at one end of their living room and Ruth and Amy fought about the last slice of pepperoni?

Frost puts his fork and knife down on his mostly empty plate in an X. “Yes, that was delicious. Thank you, Mrs. McCarthy.”

“You’re very welcome, Frederick.”

I snort. Can’t help it. Frederick? No wonder he calls himself Frost. They ignore me.

“Mr. McCarthy—”

“Please, I’ve told you to call me Roy.”

Um, he’s never told me to call him Roy.

“Roy.” Frost smiles. “My father tells me there are some important things on the docket for next month’s select board meeting?”

You have got to be shitting me. What is with this guy? Is he a rap producer or a grandpa? I look over at Ruth for support, but she’s gazing at Frost like he’s Timothée Chalamet.

“Why, yes. There are many issues that need to be discussed. I’m pleased to hear you’re continuing to take a serious interest in the workings of the local governance, Fred.”

Fred. Lord, that might be worse than Frederick. Is this entire conversation a joke? Am I being punk’d?

“I have. I’ve been asking my father to teach me about how things are run. I think it’s important for my generation to be actively engaged with our elders.”

I might vomit up my delicious meal right on the table.

“I couldn’t agree more! In fact, Ruthie’s going to come with me to the meeting for the first time next month.” He puts his arm around her shoulders. “Never too early to start learning the ropes so she can take over the family business from her old man one day.” Mr. McCarthy is literally beaming.

Ruth rolls her eyes, but I can see she’s pleased with her father’s attention.

“No, sir, it never is. I started going to board meetings with Dad when I was still hauling around a box of Legos to keep me from being bored.”

I snort again. “What, like, last week?” Okay, it was childish, but after an hour of sitting in the middle of this bizarro dinner, I can’t be blamed for having no control over my mouth.

Ruth fires me a look that is both furious and hurt, and I find I am both painfully sorry and completely not sorry at the same time. Dinners with her family used to be relaxed and fun, a time when I could totally be myself. As I glance at the faces around the table, everyone seems embarrassed for me. But then I notice Amy trying hard not to laugh. At least someone appreciates my humor.

It’s not like Ruth’s father has lived this kind of life for long. The man was an engineer for the MTA, for God’s sake. Had grease under his nails and spent half his day in and among the train tracks. But it sure looks like he’s buying into this shallow Hamptons bullshit life hook, line, and sinker.

As is, it appears, his eldest daughter.

Yep, I’m in a hellscape.

They go on to talk about zoning and infrastructure and I start to feel like screaming, like I’m going to lose my mind and it will explode out my pores in gray streams. That just reminds me of the bathroom experience from the night before, and that familiar tingle of anxiety spreads across my skin and my scalp starts to sweat. I can’t have a panic attack now, that would make me look like a fool in front of Frost.

Their empty exchange goes on for another ten minutes and it starts to feel as if there is no air in the room, and I know a panic attack is imminent. I stand up abruptly, my chair screeching across the marble tiles. Everyone stares at me like they just remembered I’m there.

“I need to get some air.” I look over at Ruth. “Be right back.”

Ruth nods, seeming a bit pissed—and part of me doesn’t blame her—then they’re back at their conversation like I was never there.

I make for the front door, and when I step onto the driveway, I gulp fresh air.

I’m being a total asshole, I know that, but how can Ruthie—my ride-or-die, partner in crime, best friend—be buying into all this? A better question is: Why am I still here and not asking Ma to book me a ticket to Puerto Rico? Sure, there have been moments of normality during this trip when I even had fun. But the rest of the time is like that dinner from hell in there. Or bleeding toilets, whispering alleyways, and zombie churchgoers. It’s bad enough that I feel like I don’t belong here at all, so much so that I’m imagining things or having a psychotic break, but to see my friend so . . . changed. This Ruth I don’t even recognize.

And without her, who am I? She’s been part of my identity for almost my entire life. Ruth and Gabi, Gabi and Ruth.

I’m thinking about going back in, quietly grabbing my bag, and walking to the train station—such a weenie move, even for me—when I hear voices behind the hedges that surround the property. I tiptoe over to the greenery that is cut into perfect eight-foot living walls and flatten my back against them to listen.

Yeah, I look silly stalking around the shrubbery like an eight-year-old playing secret agent, but it’s better than sitting in the house listening to the most boring conversation in the long sordid history of boring conversations.

“How long we gotta be here, man?” Exhale of cigarette smoke.

Guess I’m not the only one who’s bored. Maybe Frost can share his box of Lego. I stifle a snort at the thought.

“I don’t know. Frost needs to kiss the old man’s ass.”

Well, mission accomplished. Consider that ass kissed. You can go now, guys.

“Why? What does he need him for?”

“Man, I don’t know! He needs him to cosign a big business deal or something. You know the boss’s family, they talked the guy into investing all he’s got into some real estate crap.”

Wow, that doesn’t sound like Mr. McCarthy. The man is sharp as a tack. I think I recognize the last voice as one of Frost’s “security detail” that follows him around.

“I hate this. I’m more about the action.”

This one has what sounds to be a fake Southern drawl, guys who hang out in country music bars and wear cowboy hats cause they’re from the west—west Jersey. I inch closer to the edge of the branches and peer around the corner. I can see two shadows standing against a shiny Land Rover with gleaming rims and huge tires.

“Just hold tight, man. Action’s coming. To make sure this deal works, we’re gonna need to get another target. After Frost’s done tonight, we’ll head out to Hampton Bays and start scoping.”

“Thank Christ, dude. This standing around thing is boring as shit.”

Target? Target for what?

The first one who spoke flicks his lit cigarette which lands right next to my foot, and I watch it smolder in the wet grass. That was close.

“Why we even gotta search? That purple-eyed queer is really pissing me off. And isn’t it time for the little missy in there to go?”

My ears prick up at that. They have to be talking about Lars and . . . Ruth! And go? Go where?

I peer around the corner again, and when the clouds part, the blue light of the moon passes over the car, and though I can’t see the men any clearer, I notice a sticker on the vehicle’s bumper. That damn circle with the squiggly lines.

The same symbol I saw in the alley and on the chauffer’s tattoo.

Something’s going on with Frost. Something big. I just don’t know what. And, it seems, Ruth might be a future “target,” so something bad.

A cell phone rings, then footsteps. I’m running before I can even think about it, darting around the side of the house just as the two guys come in sight of where I’d just been standing.

Jesus, that was close. I’m trying to wheeze quietly, but it’s not easy. I make a mental note to hit the school gym when I go home (if I can even remember where it is).

There’s no way I’m going back in through the front, so I start walking toward the back of the house. The blades of the perfect green lawn are waving in sequence, like something is slithering across the grass on its belly as the setting sun paints the surface of the pool blood orange.

I’ve got to talk to Ruthie, tell her about what I heard.

But what did I hear?

Not much, they could have been talking about target practice, or shopping at Target. But in my heart, I know that’s not true and it’s all suspicious as hell. Especially since it sounds like her family’s future is in that a-hole’s hands. But she won’t listen unless I have some real intel.

Well, seems I have some sleuthing to do. I bet Frost has an office of sorts in that huge house. At the very least a high-end MacBook. I know I can easily hack in if I can get my hands on it. His phone would be even better, but that might as well be surgically attached to his hand. No, he’s definitely an Apple guy, and all his tech would be connected.

I open the slider door and brace myself to go back to the table. At least I have dessert to look forward to.

The next morning, Ruth is basically falling asleep into her cornflakes. She and Frost went out last night after dinner, obviously to somewhere that served them this time. I’m glad I begged off and watched classic horror movies with Amy. Not that we watched much; she laughed uncontrollably through most of The Blob and half of Bride of Frankenstein.

But I’m wide awake and ready to start investigating. “So—”

Ruth jolts, almost knocking her bowl of soggy cereal on the floor.

“I was thinking . . .”

“Well, stop it! You’re making my brain hurt.” She folds her arms on the counter and lowers her head onto them.

“Do you think we could hang at Frost’s house today?”

Her head shoots up and she stares at me through narrowed bloodshot eyes. “What?”

“I just thought it would be good to get to know him better.”

She’s not buying it: Ruth knows me too well. “What are you up to, Gabs?”

I rustle up a sigh. “Look, I know I was kind of an asshole last night—”

“Ha! Kind of? More like totally.”

“Fine. A total asshole. But he’s important to you, and you’re important to me, so . . .” I manage to keep the mild resentment out of my voice and not mention that the real reason is: I want to hack into his computer and snoop through his shit. Maybe even his father’s office. His generation prints out everything. Bet there’s a paper trail leading to damnation in there.

I’m surprised to notice her lip quivering a bit. Then she stands up, knocking over the stool, and throws her arms around me.

Okay, now I feel a little bad.

But only a little. Besides, I’m doing this to protect her and her family.

Ruth spends the next twenty minutes picking out a bathing suit in case we decide to go in the pool. Why does she even need one? She can’t swim. Plus, how many suits does she have to pick through, anyway? But finally she’s ready, designer sunglasses on her head, straw bag on her arm.

Me? I decided to go with a moody ensemble, stormy-gray T-shirt, painstakingly faded, and black straight-leg jeans embellished with random yet stylish paint splatters that just happen to be the same color we painted the downstairs bathroom. In other words: same shit, different day.

I don’t even complain when the limo pulls up in front of us. I even greet John with a cheery “Good morning!”

Ruth is texting on her phone and can barely contain herself. “Frost is so excited we’re coming! I think he has something special planned for us. He’s so thoughtful.”

“Yes, yes, he is.” I look out the tinted window, and smile to myself. Maybe he really is as wonderful as Ruthie thinks. And for her sake, I hope so. But if he’s not? I’m sure as shit gonna find out and blow the whistle on him. At the very least, I’ve found meaning in this stupid trip.

The house is even more impressive in the daylight, but I’m surprised (and secretly disappointed) when we don’t go in through the front door.

“He says to meet him out back.” Ruth squeals and takes off, flip-flops flipping loudly, marching with her head held high like a millennial heading to a Prada sample sale.

I follow. Actually, now that I think about it, those two words pretty much sum up our fifteen years of friendship. Sad, Gabi. Sad.

When I turn the corner to the back of the house—last time I saw it there were police everywhere, just the memory embarrasses me—Ruth’s standing there in her floppy straw hat, looking around.

“Down here, Tiki!” The voice carries from beyond the cliff.

We’re going to the beach.

Oh. Joy.

“Wait! Can’t we go into the house first?” I point to the huge sliding glass doors and wonder if they’re locked. I can at least ask to use the bathroom and take a look-see.

She rushes back and grabs me by the arm. “C’mon, Gabs!”

Okay, but after, I’m going in the house one way or another. I have to figure out what these guys are targeting people for and why.

When we get to the top of the stairs leading to the beach, I see a huge motorboat tied to a small private dock, the craft bobbing up and down on the waves, a familiar fuzzy white-headed figure waving.

Jesus Christ on a cracker. A boat? My throat tightens and I wonder if my Eggos are going to push their way up and out, and I haven’t even boarded it yet.

Ruth squeals again and heads down the ladder as fast as one can with flip-flops on.

Again, I follow but with an anxious roiling in my stomach.

I stop when I get to the bottom and call out to Ruth, who is already halfway across the sand, “Can’t we just hang around his comfortable air-conditioned house?” So I can rifle through his drawers, search under his bed, and dig into his closet?

She runs back and takes my hand. “Look, Gabs, I know this is hard for you. I really do. In a dark movie or your home cave is where you’re most comfortable, but for Frost? The sea is his safe place. I love you both.” She sighs and takes my other hand. “Look, just you wanting to come here means so much to me . . . but do you think you can do this, maybe? Just for, like, an hour? For me?”

Even through the dark lenses I can see she’s giving me those big glistening eyes again, like Puss in Boots.

“Argh! Fine!”

She jumps up and down, still gripping my hands. “Eee! Fine?”

“Yes! Fine! You can be the most infuriating person in the world, you know that?”

“I know! But you love me!” She steps on her tiptoes to kiss my cheek, puts her arm in mine, and freaking skips to the waterline.

We walk down the gray dock, and Frost reaches to take Ruthie’s arm and help her onto the boat. The way she looks up at him . . . well, it warms my heart to see her so happy. Damn it. Half of me really wants to be wrong about him, but the other half . . . Well, maybe I can learn something hanging out on his boat.

I step across the space between the boat and the dock, trying not to look down at the churning water, and put one foot securely on the ladder. So far, so good. But as I’m pulling the other one off the dock, the boat rises on a wave, and I stumble and almost fall into the water. As I hang off with one arm, my entire body hums with panic. At least after the conversation with my grandmother I know why I’m so afraid of the ocean.

“You okay, man?”

I look up, and Frost’s friend Cameron reaches down and grabs my forearm. I let him help me up, and once both feet are on the deck, I can feel the panic begin to recede. But that was too close.

“Good to see you again, G,” Frost says, arm draped around Ruth’s shoulders, as usual.

“Thanks for having me,” I say through my tightened throat. It’s half-hearted as shit and kind of a lame thing to say, but he seems satisfied.

“Well, let’s get this show on the road!” He slaps his hands together and starts moving toward the helm.

“W-Wait, we’re going out?” I point toward the vast expanse of sea and . . . nothingness. “There?”

Cameron slaps me on the back. “Of course! What else is a boat for, man?”

I’m glad Cameron’s here, but I still would rather be on solid ground. I look longingly back toward the shore and notice a commotion happening up the beach. There are police cars with flashing lights, the officers swarming up and down the shore like blue insects. And I notice a coastguard boat bouncing on the waves not too far out.

“What’s going on over there?”

Cameron looks to where I’m pointing. “Oh, they’re looking for another body.”

“Another body?”

“Yeah, guess some chick’s been missing since Friday.” His smile fades for a split second and he chews his lip, then he throws back the last of whatever blue concoction he has in his clear plastic glass. “Hey, Frost! I’m gonna need a refill soon. Where you hidin’ the booze?”

After he walks off, I look back toward the hive of activity in the shallow water and notice people in wet suits bobbing by the boat.

Friday.

That was the night of the party. And they’re searching right where I saw the tentacle.

And they thought I was seeing things . . .

Chapter

Nine

It takes a bit of time, but I manage to pull Ruth off to the side as the boat bounces violently atop the waves.

“Did you know a girl’s been missing since Friday?” I hiss at her.

“Yeah, I think I heard my parents talking about that yesterday.” She takes a sip of her fruity drink and absently glances up at Frost, who is standing at the wheel like Ahab.

“Ruth!”

She turns back toward me. “Hmm?”

“That was the night of Frost’s party! When I saw a woman in the water?”

“Oh?” Then she seems to realize what I said, puts her hand to her mouth, and turns to me. “Holy shit, Gabs! Do you think you saw her drown?” She has the decency to look horrified.

“Ruth, I’m thinking she didn’t drown! I’ve only been here a few days and I’ve heard of three people missing. And that cook from the diner? They found his body yesterday!” I’m whisper yelling now.

“Justin? Really?” She sits down on the bench, hard, and looks around, like the answer for why this is all happening is sitting next to us, sipping an iced tea. “This is all so tragic.”

I can see the wheels churning behind her eyes, but then she glances up at Frost as he steers, like he’s a drug she’s jonesing for. Then she looks back at me, stands, and puts her palm on my shoulder.

“Gabs . . . it’s terrible, but people drown here every week, and Justin was a surfer who took tons of risks. Besides, the police have your statement, so I’m sure they’ll reach out if there’s a connection, okay?”

She’s dismissing it just like they did on the news. I want to shake her until the old Ruth surfaces, like a Magic 8 Ball saying, Outlook good. “You’re missing the entire point!”

We both stumble as the boat comes to an abrupt stop. We are just regaining our footing when Frost steps down the small ladder from the helm.

He looks over at his friend. “Cam? You ready for a dip?”

“You kidding me, man?”

He looks horrified. I can relate. Cameron’s voice shakes a bit. “I know what’s down there! You may feel like part of their world”—he sings this bit like The Little Mermaid—“but I sure as hell don’t!”

Frost glances my way. I wave my hands. “Oh hell no! I’m with him.” I jerk my thumb at Cameron.

“Fine,” Frost says as he peels off his flowered shirt until he’s standing in his bathing suit in all his pale, emaciated glory. “You pussies can stay here, all dry and comfy.” And with that, he dives off the side.

I notice he’s left his phone right there on the towel. Perfect.

“You forgot to say safe! We’ll also be safe up here!” Cameron shouts after him as Frost surfaces a few feet from the boat and shakes the water from his hair like a poodle.

I’m about to discreetly grab the phone when it hits me what Cam just said. “What are you talking about?” I’ve just put my hand on his shoulder to get his attention when a rush of air passes behind me, followed by a huge splash in the water.

What?

My head whips around as I frantically search for Ruth.

She’s gone!

“Oh my God!” I scream.

I rush to look over the side and see the concentric circles and bubbles on the surface of the water near Frost.

“RUTH!” I scream, making my way to the top of the ladder. “RUTH!”

“What’s wrong, man?” Cameron says from behind me.

“She can’t swim!” I step out onto the top rung and look down. Frost is just bobbing there, grinning like a fucking idiot! I have to dive in and save her, but as I lean forward a deafening hum fills my head and just like in the childhood memory my entire body goes numb.

I haven’t swum in the ocean since I was little. Probably since that day Abuela told me about. Just the thought terrifies me beyond reason.

But I have to save Ruth!

Don’t look down! Just jump! I tell myself, but despite that, or maybe because of it, I look down into the churning gray water. Just as I’m about to look away, I swear I catch a flash of something moving beneath the surface, something big . . . and two glowing yellow circles . . . Are those . . . eyes?

“Dude!” Cameron shouts beside me.

I look over at him, panic spreading through my limbs.

“You’re not going in there, are you?”

My head snaps back toward the water, and whatever I saw is gone as quickly as it appeared. Was it another figment of my imagination?

No! I have no time for my ridiculousness. Ruth is down there.

I take a deep breath and am about to jump in when I hear her laugh carrying on the ocean breeze.

I look out and see her head bobbing next to Frost’s, and she’s smiling and giggling.

“Ruth! What the fuck?” I scream, my voice cracking as I try not to cry with relief.

She throws her arms out of the water, droplets spraying around her as she does. “Surprise!”

“Surprise? I thought you were drowning!” A small flame of anger stokes in my stomach.

“Frost taught me to swim!” She stares into Frost’s eyes as the two of them float in the dark blue, choppy water.

I put my hand to my chest, wondering if I’m having a heart attack.

“Aren’t you proud of me?” she asks me but keeps her eyes on Frost.

I feel like throttling them both.

I drop down on the bench and hold my head in my hands, trying to get my breathing back to normal.

I realize Cameron is still shifting from one foot to the other. Why is he nervous?

“We’re all proud of you, Ruth. For reals.” He calls out over the side. “But, Frost, shouldn’t you guys come out now?”

I hear the tension in Cam’s voice. I know anxiety, and he’s anxious. “Why?” I demand, staring at him through narrowed eyes.

He laughs, but I notice he doesn’t stop fidgeting. “Nothing, man, just . . . I’d like to get back . . . you know, to the liquor cabinet.”

Cameron doesn’t stop squirming until Frost and Ruth are out of the water and drying themselves off with towels.

As Frost grabs his phone, I realize I’ve missed what is probably my one window to look through it, but I can’t even muster the energy to care; can’t even look at Ruth, I’m so angry at her for scaring me like that.

But I manage to overhear Frost say to Cameron in a low voice, “You need to calm the fuck down, bro. It’s totally safe.”

“Yeah, for you, maybe!” Cameron yells back, sounding like he’s trying not to cry.

Frost angrily tosses his towel off to the side, like someone who’s accustomed to being cleaned up after. “You’re a wuss.” He storms up the short ladder, and the engine roars to life.

I fall into Ruth as he abruptly turns the boat around, and she laughs. Laughs!

I glare at her, and she responds with a questioning look.

“You should have told me first, Ruth.”

“Gabs! I—”

“You should have told me!” I yell in her face, and she pulls back like I struck her.

We’re all silent and solemn as we roar back to shore, smacking against each wave like the ocean’s trying to stop us. Seems like the sea’s pissed off too, and who can blame it?

When the boat pulls up to the dock, Frost lets it idle, his hand staying on the controls. He doesn’t look back as his friend weakly waves, then climbs down the ladder. I watch Cameron walk down the dock, hands dug deep in his pockets, head down. I have no idea what that was all about between him and Frost, but I didn’t like the fear on Cameron’s face. Especially given my friend was in the water. I glance up the beach and the police activity is still in full swing.

I look over at Ruth, and she’s just staring at the floor of the boat. It’s petty, but I really hope she feels bad. One thing’s for sure, I don’t like who she is when she’s with Frost.

I look out at Cameron’s back and get an idea. I clear my throat. “I’m going to go check out what’s going on over there.” I point to the activity down the beach.

She nods but doesn’t look at me. “I’m going to go with Frost to put away the boat.”

“You do that.” It comes out of my mouth before I can stop it, sharp edges and all. I climb down the ladder, my legs still shaking, and basically run down the dock to the shore. I’ve never been happier to feel sand shift beneath my feet. The boat’s engine roars as Frost nautically stalks off.

“Hey, Cameron! Wait up!” I yell over the sound of the crashing surf.

He freezes at the base of the ladder and turns around slowly and stiffly. He seems relieved when he sees it’s just me.

I stop in front of him and pause to catch my breath. “You going into Frost’s house to get a drink?” So I can snoop around?

He waves his hand. “Nah, man. I’m not in the mood anymore. I think I’m just gonna go home.”

I better get right to it, then. “Can I ask you something?”

He sighs, his eyes tired. Like, someone-much-older kind of tired. “Sure.”

“Why were you so scared back there, when Ruth and Frost were in the water?”

He stares off toward the horizon and the endless ocean. “I don’t know, man. It’s a dangerous place these days.”

“The sea?”

Cameron nods. “This sea.” As if the waters just off the Hamptons were their own world. Or hell.

“Dangerous in what way?”

He looks at me, and I can tell he wants to say something, but stops himself. “It’s just . . . not a good time for swimming. You should tell Ruth that.”

I snort. “I didn’t even know she could swim; doubt she’ll listen to me.”

His voice gets a faraway quality. “‘We live on a placid island of ignorance in the midst of black seas of infinity, and it was not meant that we should voyage far.’”

“What’s that from?”

“H. P. Lovecraft. Frost likes to quote him all the time.”

“No surprise there.” Lovecraft: hugely controversial writer, perfect for rich assholes.

“You know, when Frost first asked me to hang out, I was so stoked.” His eyes light up a bit with the memory. “I mean, in high school I was a nobody, quiet, always in the background. I didn’t get into any colleges my dad approved of, and I just . . . stayed here. Became a townie. And then one night Frost and his parents came over to dinner since they’re my father’s clients. When my dad was giving me shit about college, Frost defended me. He paid attention to me, really saw me. It was like . . . I came alive in his presence, like I wasn’t alive until then. You know?”

I did know. In fact, I was fighting tears just thinking about my version of this story with Ruth. She and Frost have main character energy, and Cameron and me? Well, secondary characters at best. Best buds who support the main character and often end up dying in dramatic ways, so the main character will grieve, giving them the drive to become the hero they were always meant to be.

Fuck that noise.

I take him by the shoulders. “Cam, you were alive before you met Frost. I know you can create that same energy all on your own!” I have to believe it; I need to do it too.

“Easy for you to say, you have this whole rebel vibe going on.” Cameron waves his hand up and down in front of me. “Look at me. I’m one-hundred-percent weenie sidekick.” His body sags against the ladder. “I should just take off, start over somewhere else. Too bad I don’t have the balls.”

My heart is aching for this guy. “Yes, you do! Do it, Cameron! Go somewhere where no one knows you! Where would you go?”

His face lights up. “New Zealand, man. Always wanted to go to New Zealand.”

“So? Do it! Become a hobbit or whoever the hell you want to be!”

He looks into my eyes, a sad smile on his face. “Thanks, Gabriel. From one sidekick to another, be careful.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that to me? What’s really going on here, Cameron?”

“I’d tell you, but remember?” He gestures to his crotch. “No balls.” He turns and takes a first step onto the ladder.

Goddamn it! People here are locked tighter than Fort Knox! Circling their own privileged wagons.

Cameron is a few steps up when he stops, looks around to see if there’s anyone nearby, then says, “While you’re visiting the Hamptons, you might want to check out the white poplars.”

What? “The apartments? Or the invasive trees?”

“They’re more invasive than you think.” And then he’s taking the stairs two at a time, disappearing over the top ledge in the blink of an eye.

Crap.

Another person I can’t get a straight answer from. Is it, like, in the water to be evasive? But I have to say, I’m starting to understand that my initial distrust of Frost was well founded. If I’m going to open Ruth’s eyes, I’m going to have to get proof of some wrongdoing. Frost taking advantage of a sad guy like Cameron isn’t bad enough, I’m afraid.

I look over toward the activity down the beach and decide to head that way as I told Ruth I would. Maybe I can find some answers or at least clues there. As I walk, I wonder how this day managed to go so bad so fast. I’m sure all four of us are.

Ruth really pissed me off today. She knows more than anyone on the planet how afraid I am of being in the ocean, yet she went along with all this, not warning me of any of it. Fine, I’m sure she thought being on the ocean was okay, but to me that’s only slightly better. Boats sink, and then where are you? In the water. And how was I to know that after an entire life of not knowing how to swim, Frost, of all people, had taught her. Her father tried to teach her, hell, even her frail little grandfather took a stab at it, but she never learned, she would just start to sink and panic and someone would have to fish her out before she sunk to the bottom.

So, naturally, when I knew she went in the water, I thought she was drowning. Why would I assume those bozos knew more about my best friend than I did? But to have learned to swim that well, she must have been working on it for a while.

I mean, I am proud of her. She conquered a fear that I, myself, have yet to overcome. It’s just . . . it’s another example of how I don’t really know her any longer, and that makes my stomach twist in ways I’ve never felt before.

“You can’t come any closer, son.”

The woman’s voice shakes me out of my grief spiral. I look up and see Captain O’Connor.

She looks into my eyes and says, “You’re that boy from the Thurston party, aren’t you? The one who saw something in the water? Gabriel Nieves, right?”

Thurston? That’s Frost’s last name? Why does that sound familiar . . . “Yes, I am.”

She gestures to the coast guard boat trawling the water. “They started searching again where you indicated. Seems you might have witnessed something after all.”

A warm feeling spreads through my chest. Finally, someone believes me, but . . . “I think I’d rather have been wrong.”

She nods, strands of her red hair flying free from the tight bun at the back of her head.

“Have you found anything yet?”

“No. Not likely to either. The currents are pretty strong around here.”

She regards me again, and it feels as though her gaze has actual weight that presses down on me.

“You staying at the McCarthys’ for a bit longer?”

“Yes, ma’am. Supposed to for the whole summer.”

“Supposed to? Not something you’re looking forward to, or are you thinking of leaving town early?”

Wait . . . does she think I’m a suspect? Shit! No. Why would I have called the police, then? Plots of different movies are running through my head as I try to figure out what’s going through hers. Finally, I let out a long breath. “Honestly, Captain O’Connor, I don’t really fit in out here.”

I’m surprised to see her smile, her pale blue eyes light up a bit when she does, the wrinkles on either side like parentheses. “Neither do I, Gabriel. Neither do I.” She puts her uniform cap back on, turns to me, and says, “We’ll call you if we need any more information. Until then, stay out of the water, son.”

“Oh, no worries about that, ma’am.”

She nods at me and starts walking toward the coast guard boat.

“No chance of that at all,” I say to the wind.

We leave as soon as I get back to the house. Ruth gives Frost a long hug as I stand feeling awkward as hell while John the driver smiles at me. He’s enjoying my suffering, for sure.

We ride in silence, and when we get back to her house, Ruth immediately heads upstairs. “I’m going to take a shower. And maybe a nap.” She doesn’t look back at me at all.

I’m left standing in the huge open living room, wondering whether I’m supposed to apologize. But what the hell did I do wrong?

Nothing! That’s what.

Is it just because I yelled at her? I thought she was dying, for Christ’s sake!

I can’t stand being in that house a minute longer. I storm over to the sliding glass doors that lead to the backyard, yank them open, step out, and slam them closed. Great, Gabriel. Break the sliding glass doors. That’s certain to make this whole ridiculous visit suck less.

I stand in the center of the backyard, a place I’ve only seen through the windows. I walk over to the edge of the lawn and see that just beyond is a stretch of beach, not as private as the one behind Frost’s house but still beautiful.

The McCarthy house is elevated from the shore too, but not by much. Down on the sand there are families packing up for the day and teenagers just arriving for the night, the volume rising as the night becomes theirs. I’m guessing they don’t live locally. The people around here don’t seem to hang outside often. In Queens, everyone’s out in their small yards, sitting on the front steps, greeting neighbors, and sharing gossip. But here? They seem to stay in their own wealthy bubbles and—

What the hell is that sound?

From the other side of a tall hedge, I hear a slicing sound. Or maybe snipping, metal scraping on metal.

What now? Is this another vision?

I peek around the bush and see a man, his eyes shaded by a beat-up straw hat, clipping at invisible imperfections on the other side of the hedge. Guess I got my answer as to how they keep them so perfectly square.

The gardening man sees me and jumps a bit, putting his hand to his chest.

I step forward. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you.”

He gives me an embarrassed smile. “No, no, it’s fine. I do this work at this time of day because it’s cool and there’s usually no one around.”

I shrug. “Yeah, sorry. I couldn’t stay inside anymore. Wasn’t much air in there.”

The man tips the front brim of his hat back to look at me. He’s older than I first thought, his eyes accented with a series of wrinkles. “Are you Miss Ruth’s friend?”

“Yes. How did you know?”

“The staff talks. You know how it is.” He stands holding his pruning shears, his back slightly bowed, probably from years of manual labor.

“My name is Gabriel.” I hold my hand out to shake.

He shifts the sheers to his left hand. “Joaquin.” He gives a nice firm shake that has nothing to prove. “I hear you’re Puerto Rican?”

My eyes widen. “What? Where did you hear that?”

“My cousin is part of the kitchen staff at Mr. Thurston’s house. He’s working there for a couple summers so he can put himself through law school.”

“How did they know I was Puerto Rican?”

“The accent you have when you speak Spanish.”

I smile, thinking about that group in the kitchen. Wait, he must see a lot of the shit that goes down around here. I might not have learned much from the disastrous morning at Frost’s, but that doesn’t mean the day is a wash. I see Joaquin look at his watch, so I know I don’t have much time.

I switch to Spanish. “So, Joaquin, your cousin who works for Frost’s family, does he ever tell you about the guy? Like things he might be into?” Vague, I know, but at this point any information I can get will help.

He suddenly looks uncomfortable. “Oh, I’m sure I can’t say.”

Yeah, he’s going to bolt.

“Look, it’s just Ruth is an old friend of mine. I protect her, kind of like a big brother, you know? And I’m getting the sense that something’s going on with him, and that worries me. I just don’t want to see her hurt, she’s like my sister. I’m sure you get that.”

He looks at me for a minute, then leans out and peers back around the hedge toward the house. He seems confident no one from Ruth’s is listening and whispers to me, “Look, I don’t know much, but the Thurstons . . . they buy up so much land, and they get the permits changed so they can build even more houses. But they’re cutting away at the shore and digging so much, they say it is eroding the very foundation of the island. If they keep ignoring the signs, the land is going to cave in and take half the Hamptons with it!” He seems to realize his voice is rising and shrinks back into himself a bit. “Well, that’s what I hear, anyway,” he whispers again.

“Interesting. What do you know about the White Poplar apartments?”

“I know that they’re displacing elderly people, and they’ve made that section of beach private so the rest of us can’t use it anymore. They’ve thrown everyone out and have already begun demolition. I hear they’re just waiting for one investor to sign on before starting to build very expensive high-rise apartment buildings.”

Wait, could the investor be Mr. McCarthy? Still, I can’t figure out why Cameron would mention White Poplars if it’s just another land deal. And I was hoping for more dirt about Frost, but maybe they’re all connected . . .

Joaquin seems to decide he’s said too much. “I have to go, my shift is over, and my family will be waiting for me to eat.”

“Of course, sorry, hermano. Thank you. It was good to meet you.” I hold up my hand for another shake.

A small smile. “You too, Gabriel.” He shakes my hand again, then he’s gone, walking quickly and silently along the other side of the hedge.

He disappears around the front.

I drop into a lounge chair so I can think.

Then I remember the newspaper I picked up at the bookstore the other day. I run inside and find it tucked into my horror novel on the end table next to an antique brass nautical telescope. I go back outside, spreading the newspaper out on the neighboring patio chair.

I hate the idea of reading anything written by SonicReducer, but at this point I’ll take any information I can get. The cover article is about the numerous disappearances of people on the island. When I continue reading inside, I’m shocked to see the length of the list of names from this summer. And the one before. And the one before.

Three summers of bodies.

Why isn’t this in the mainstream press?

It goes on to recount a theory that they were eaten by a huge sea monster of Lovecraftian proportions.

And that’s why.

Thing is, this is all important information, until the talk of sea monsters. Just the sheer number of disappearances should set off alarms in any one’s head, particularly reporters. I keep reading, despite my reservations that the author is mentally unstable. I mean, talking about zombie movies and literature is one thing, but when you start seeing them in real life? That’s another issue all together. (Of course, who the hell am I to talk? Whispering alleyways, haunted Muzak in bookstores . . . tentacles. Not what most people would consider stable.)

I lie down and hold the newspaper up, digging into another article about real estate deals that have sketchy environmental implications. I keep seeing references to Thurston Properties, which has to be Frost’s family’s business. And the fuckery continues in this godforsaken place.

“Gabs?”

I jump, sitting bolt upright in the lounge chair. Ruth is standing right in front of me, and I can see by the color of the sunlight on her face that the day is ending. I must have been asleep for hours.

“Are you coming back in?”

“Yeah, but I just want to talk to you about something first.”

“I need to talk to you too.” She sits down in the chair across from me. “You’ve seemed so angry ever since you got here, G. And on the boat? You’ve never yelled at me like that. It scared me.”

“Ruth, I never wanted to scare you, but you scared me! I had no idea you learned to swim. That’s . . . really cool. But I thought you were drowning.”

“Oh, Frost would never let me drown.”

I don’t know if it’s the way she says it, or the complete confidence in someone she’s only known for a few months, but I blurt out, “Funny, you could never trust your own family to teach you to swim.”

She has that just-weathered-a-blow look in her eyes again, glassy and surprised. “What is that supposed to mean?”

I have the shovel out, might as well dig myself a little deeper. “I mean, you’ve only known Frost for a few months, but you trust him more than people you’ve known all your life!” In my heart I know I’m out of my lane, but it’s like I can’t stop it now, I’m careening down a hill with no brakes.

“What exactly is your issue with Frost, anyway?” She folds her arms over her chest and cocks one hip out in a classic Queens ready-to-throw-down stance.

“I just . . . don’t trust him yet, and you shouldn’t either! Did you know your father is sinking all his money into a shady project with Frost’s family?”

Her eyes widen, then narrow. I see the anger rise behind them like the tide. “Are you serious? After all the nice things he’s done trying to make you feel welcome?”

“Yes, but what if he’s using you?”

She lets out a loud, barking laugh. “For what, Gabi? He’s from the wealthiest family in the Hamptons! Girls literally throw themselves at him, and you think he’s using me?” She glares at me, but I can see hurt there too. “I finally find a guy who treats me like gold, and you’re telling me it must be because he wants something from me?”

I’m losing her. “Look, his family’s company is Thurston Properties, right? They’re the ones who are buying up all the land, look—” I pick up the Weekly Diviner and fold it over to show her the article. “This says that—”

“Gabriel, let me get this straight. You’re questioning your best friend’s word because of an article in a sensationalist rag that’s printed in someone’s basement?” By the end of the sentence, she’s practically shrieking each word.

She used my full name, not Gabi or G, kind of like my mother does when she’s angry at me. But I blunder ahead. “No. But it has some points. I want to find out more, make sure you’re really safe with him and his family. I heard his bodyguards talking about ‘getting another target,’ and they called you—”

Something in Ruth snaps, and she looks at me like she’s seeing me for the first time and she doesn’t like what she sees. “I know what this is. You’re jealous of me. Of my new life. Damn it! I’m so stupid!” Ruth is pacing back and forth now, smacking herself on the forehead. “It’s just like Frost said! You’re trying to ruin this for me. To try to get me back to Queens or something!”

Frost said? “What? No! Look, I—”

Her voice gets louder and louder. “I thought you of all people would understand that I need to make this work, to build a life here. Besides, if you didn’t spend your entire life with your nose stuck in a horror novel, you wouldn’t be finding conspiracy theories everywhere!”

Now she sounds like my father, and I’m about to tell her so, but when I go to touch her again, she yanks her arm away.

I flinch.

“Why can’t you just be happy for me? I asked you here because I missed you. Because you understand me.” Her voice starts to break. “You’re supposed to be my best friend.”

Tears are rolling down her cheeks now, and I feel my heart crack in two. “Ruthie, I’d never do anything to hurt you.”

She wipes under her eyes with her sweater sleeve. “Too late.” And she’s gone, running back into the house, her arms wrapped around her body.

“Goddamn it, Gabriel!” I say to myself through gritted teeth, and the rage fires through my chest with licking flames.

Why do I have to fuck everything up?

Ruth asks me out here, and even ignoring the Frost of it all, I have been a total asshole the entire time. But it seems Frost is talking shit about me, trying to drive a wedge between me and Ruth. If that was just it, I could get on a train and go home, but like Abuela, I feel in my heart something is wrong here. Ruth could be in danger. Or am I just trying to screw things up like she said? I jump to my feet and take off running, trying to find a place for my anger to discharge, like electricity.

I run across the grass, my boots thumping faster and faster.

My heart is beating as if it’s about to explode, so I slow to a walk, heading down the darkening beach. I pass a group of teenagers building a bonfire, and I hurry by and keep walking. There seem to be less people down this way, so I stay up the beach, near the tree line. I’m not fit to be around humans anyway.

Clearly, I never am.

I keep seeing Ruth’s tears, the look on her face on the boat after I yelled at her, and I feel as if my brain is on fire, the images dry tinder making the flames grow.

I can’t lose Ruth.

She’s all I have, other than my family, and since my own father was so disappointed in me, he moved to the other side of the fucking country, my track record with them isn’t good either. And here I am, running away from her when she needs me. I stop and lean on a pine tree; I feel safer in the complete darkness the shade offers.

I have to go back and talk to her. Tell her I’m sorry, that I’m just trying to get used to seeing her in her new life. Promise that I’ll be less argumentative. That is, until I get some concrete evidence that something is up with that sleazy boyfriend of hers.

Then I hear a voice, real close, coming from behind me.

“For someone who’s only been here for a couple of days, you’re sure asking a lot of questions.”

I recognize the faux-Southern drawl of Frost’s bodyguard.

“There a law against asking questions out here?” My voice sounds way calmer than I feel. I’m surprised he can’t hear my heartbeat.

“Actually, there is.”

I go to step away when I feel something shoved into my back.

Jesus Christ, is that a gun? My mouth isn’t working, words aren’t forming. When I see this shit on TV, I’m always so sure I’d fight back. I’d hit the guy with a piece of driftwood and stand with my foot on him until “the authorities” arrived. In actuality, I’m terrified I’m going to piss my pants. Around these parts, brown boys like me don’t survive encounters like this.

“I think it’s best for your health . . . and the health of your little friend Ruthie that you keep your nose out of Frost’s business.”

God, I hate being right. “Is that a threat?”

“Well . . . yes. I thought that was pretty clear. Didn’t you, Hank?”

“Crystal clear.”

Okay, so Beavis and Butt-Head are here. “Look, guys, I—”

“Listen up, kid, just go home to Queens and mind your own business.”

“But all I—”

And then fireworks, sharp sparks of pain explode through my skull, and the ground rises to meet me as everything fades to black.

I wake up with no idea of how long I’ve been lying here, but the moon is firmly in the sky, so it’s been a while. My head pounds as if the surf is inside my skull. I sit up with a groan, grabbing my head like it’s going to topple off my neck. Once everything stops spinning, I look around in the darkness, trying to figure out where I am.

Sand beneath me, trees above. I see Ruth’s house off in the distance and remember. I turn around, looking for the two bodyguards, but there are only shadows among the trees, and the beach is cold and empty.

I try to stand but end up bending over and vomiting in the sand. Actually, this is the second time in a year I’ve vomited on the beach. The first was Christmas in Puerto Rico when my cousin Javier talked me into drinking a huge Burger King to-go cup filled with rum and Coke.

When the nausea passes and I spit the taste out of my mouth, my head starts to feel a little clearer. Slowly, I get to my feet, stumble onto the beach, and start the long walk back to Ruth’s. I would think they’d have sent someone to find me, but considering how we left things, maybe not.

Well, seems I got my answer about whether Frost is into bad shit or not and I didn’t even have to rifle through anyone’s drawers. But because of how badly my head is throbbing, I’d rather risk the drawers than take the blow to the back of my skull.

Do I call the police again when I didn’t actually see who threatened me? And am I certain that was a gun they held to my back? Could’ve been their fingers for all I know.

More importantly, what am I going to say to Ruth without seeming more paranoid than she already thinks I am? It would be my word against the bodyguards’, and given how Ruthie feels about me right now, I don’t think she’d side with me, something I never thought would be possible.

As I walk, I try to quell my anxiety by focusing on the waves washing up and down the beach in their quiet nighttime dance. It’s hypnotizing, and my breathing begins to calm. Years of therapy have given me a toolbox of tricks to decelerate my panic attacks, which started after the night my father went out for kombucha and never came back. Talk about a cliché. I thought I had my anxiety pretty much under control, but getting assaulted tends to be triggering.

After tonight, one thing is glaringly apparent: Abuela is right, I’m not safe here. But then again, neither is Ruth. And since it seems everyone, including her parents, are snowed by Frost, it’s up to me to get more information and be the whistleblower. Even if it costs me our friendship.

I take out my phone and fire off a quick text to my grandmother.

Abuela, I need to stay here a bit longer. I need to make sure Ruth is safe.

A response comes right away.

Gabriel, that is her parents’ and the police’s job.

Do not endanger yourself, m’ijo.

Things are not right there; I can feel it.

Me too, that’s why I just can’t abandon her.

I’ll stay safe, I promise.

A pause. Then:

May God protect you, amor.

Oh, I’ll take God’s protection, all right. Hell, I’ll take anyone’s protection. I’m just not sure who’ll be offering it to me at this point. But that’s another thing I had to get used to when Dad left, being self-reliant. I have to fight my own battles, though against guns I don’t have much hope.

I put the phone away and continue walking. The cooling evening air smells like salt and seaweed, with a slight hint of decay. Up ahead there’s a tree branch on the beach, the tide trying to pull it out while the sand seems to want to keep it. The ocean as circle of life.

I can’t get the way Ruth looks at Frost out of my mind, the way she talks about him. After our last conversation, it’s going to take a lot more than just my word about her boyfriend or unseen assailants to convince her. I have to dig deeper, despite the threats.

In the meantime, I have to patch things up with Ruth, probably starting with an apology, though clearly, I was right. But if I’m going to keep Ruth as my friend, and the thought of losing her is like being enveloped by a heavy black cloud, I will do what I have to do to keep her safe.

As I near, the surf seems to be winning the tug of war over the log. I’m about to pass by when I look closer at it. Just then, the clouds that were blocking the moon move off, and the light shines right on the object. In the second before the surf claims it, I see it’s not a log at all.

It’s a severed human arm.

Chapter

Ten

It takes me a few tries to google the number for the police tip line because my hands are trembling. I drop the phone into the sand twice, and I’m fighting nausea again. I might have a strong stomach when it comes to body parts in movies, but seeing a goddamn dismembered arm in person? It’s total nightmare material. Seriously, I think it’s burned into my eyelids for life.

I leave a message about the arm in a shaky voice, but do not give my name. After the drama of the last few days, having the police knock on the McCarthys’ door in the middle of the night is something none of us need.

By the time I get back to house, the living and dining rooms are empty, all remnants of dinner are cleaned up and tucked away. I tiptoe up the stairs, too embarrassed to run into any of her family. I stop outside Ruth’s door and listen for a moment, but all I can hear is the whooshing of the waves. I knock quietly, then gently nudge her door open. I’m relieved to see her sleeping form beneath the blanket in the cool moonlight.

“Ruth?” I whisper, though I’m not sure she’d answer even if she were still awake. “Ruthie?” Nothing, just the gentle rise and fall of her sleeping breath.

And then, because I know she’s asleep, I decide to practice. “I’m sorry I’ve been such a dick. Maybe I am jealous. It’s just . . . you seem so happy and settled here, and I’m still in the same ole house, doing the same ole things but without my best friend. It’s like all the color’s been drained out of my life. But I do think Frost is up to something. Hell, his goons threatened me with a gun and hit me over the head!

“Well, I didn’t actually see the gun, but I have the bump to prove they hit me. I just don’t trust him, Ruthie, and if he hurts you, I’ll . . . Aw, who am I kidding? It’s not like I could kick his ass with all those bodyguards around.” And since I’d already veered off on a tangent, I add, “Oh, and I saw a severed arm on the beach tonight.” Nothing. No response. Which is definitely good, but it still made me feel better to say all those things anyway.

I retrace my steps on the fuzzy white carpet, pull her door shut, and head to the guest room. I throw myself onto the bed fully clothed, and lay there staring at the ceiling, the image of the severed arm flashing in and out, the voice of that faux-Southern guy buzzing in my ear. Disappearing people, real estate gluttony, stories of sea monsters, threatening thugs, random body parts . . . What the hell is going on here, anyway? I knew the Hamptons were fucked up, but this? This is next-level.

Part of me wants to do what Frost’s goons suggest and just go home. Seriously, this is so not my problem. I didn’t ask for this; I don’t even want to know what’s going on here.

Except I can’t leave now.

People are getting killed, fucking dismembered! So, it doesn’t matter if Ruth is completely changed and we’re growing apart. She’s in danger and there’s no way I’m abandoning her. I don’t do that. Especially since she can’t seem to see what’s right in front of her eyes.

I lie there for some time, the puzzle pieces of my thoughts weaving and bobbing as I try to put them in order. Eventually I must fall asleep, as the next thing I know, the sun is beaming in and I’m drooling on the still-made bed. I sit up slowly, and once again my head feels like it’s been caved in, but this time it’s not from alcohol. I hold my skull in my hands for a few moments, waiting for the throbbing to slow. There’s still a decent-size bump on the back of my head, a souvenir of my fucked-up night.

When I finally sit up, I notice a note propped up on the night table.

Went to tennis lesson

Back around 11:00

Scones on kitchen counter

WE NEED TO TALK

Shit. The four words no one ever wants to hear (not went to tennis lesson, though I’m sincerely hoping I never have to hear those words again either). Luckily, I know she’s not going to break up with me since we’re not like that, and friends don’t break up with each other . . . do they?

I have to find a way to show her this is not about me being jealous, that there really is something going on with Frost. I want to start with the kind of information that means something to people out here, and that means I need to follow the money. And sadly? Finding out who the hell SonicReducer is and talking to them about what they wrote in that paper is one of the ways to do that. Whoever they are, they seem to know a lot about what’s going on around here, fictional sea monsters aside.

I tiptoe downstairs—still avoiding other family members—and slip out the front door. I googled the public library and it’s only about a two-mile walk, so I start out in that direction.

The morning is slightly cool, the breeze dry and salty and carrying the smell of freshly mown grass. The houses start getting closer together, and I see more people out and about than I’ve seen in total since I arrived on the island. At least there seems to be a thriving morning community round these burbs, so I don’t think they’re all vampires (except John the limo driver, I’d bet big money he is).

On a quiet street lined with hedges, I see something moving in the grass in front of me. I freeze and peer at the small brown creature and realize what it is.

“A bunny? You’re a bunny!” I exclaim in a loud, enthusiastic voice, as if it didn’t know what kind of animal it was and it was my job to enlighten it. I carefully slip my phone from my pocket as it stands on its hind legs, wiggles its nose at me, then takes off beneath the nearest hedge just as I take the photo.

I get a shot of its fuzzy butt, then start to send it with a text to Ruth: I SAW A BUNNY! But I stare at the words for a second, then press backspace and erase it. If I send such a chatty text, she’ll think I’m not taking our issues seriously, and it might just piss her off. I put the phone back in my pocket with a sigh. I hate the rift I feel growing between us, it’s making me second guess everything I say and do.

Besides, by the time I’ve gone a mile, I’ve seen six more bunnies. Guess they’re as common as gray squirrels here.

I pass by a tiny general store and decide to stop in to grab a coffee and something to eat for my walk. When I step through the door, Soca music greets me, and I look around at shelves crowded with rice and beans, passionfruit jams, and Fabuloso cleaner, and it’s like my heart warms and I’m at home.

As I fill a cup with dark, hot coffee and grab a muffin, I listen to the sounds of Spanish to try to identify the accent, then notice a rack displaying Nicaraguan flags for your car’s rearview mirror. I thank the cashier in Spanish, and by the time I leave, I’m smiling bright.

As I near the downtown, even I have to admit, in the clean morning air with the sun brushing everything in bright colors, it holds a certain appeal. (That could also be due to the lack of severed limbs I’ve encountered so far this outing, but it’s still early in the day.)

The library looks like a huge house with different wings, the outside crisscrossed with that medieval-style wood trim and iron lamps on either side of the main door and in the windows. It’s much more inviting than the black iron gates and concrete that surround my local branch in Astoria.

I’m going to start with what I learned from Joaquin as it’s the only solid lead I have. Besides, if I’m going to follow the money as planned, odds are good that it’s in real estate. If I don’t find anything there? Well, I’ll try to track down SonicReducer, but that’s more of a last-resort kind of thing.

I walk up to the elderly woman behind the circulation desk and give her my biggest smile. “Hi. Can you tell me where I can find real estate histories of the area?”

She gives me a small up and down glance, probably wondering why a kid cares about such things. “That kind of information is found at the town clerk’s office, honey. But they’re not going to be open on Tuesdays. The best we can offer is what can be found in the business section of the local paper. You can find a shortcut to the publication on any of the library’s computer stations.”

“Thank you.” I’m disappointed I can’t get the actual records of sales, but I’m game to see what the newspapers can offer.

The public library’s computers are newer models than the one I spent six months’ wages on last year. I take a seat and pull up the paper’s site. I feel a momentary pang of remorse that I don’t get to pore over actual physical papers like they do in the movies, doing research in dusty libraries with green glowing lamps on every lemon-oiled desk, my fingertips black with newsprint, and the hush of learning hanging over the room like pipe smoke.

Instead, I try to block out the incessant giggling of two nearby tweens looking at videos on YouTube and ignore the couple making out between the rows of wooden bookshelves. On the whole, my generation has no respect for libraries anymore. Probably ’cause we can learn most anything with our phones.

It doesn’t take long to find something:

Thurston Corporation Purchases Beachfront Property

The article is from just a year ago, and it talks about the sale of a pristine property running along the shore, one a family owned and had put in a trust. When I look at the ribbon-cutting photo, I see the grinning white face of privilege that is Frost’s father. The caption identifies him as Charles Thurston III, and standing next to him is a taller, younger version of him, Charles Thurston IV, “his oldest son who will be taking over leadership of the corporation in the next few years.”

Tall, broad, with Ken-doll painted-on hair and a three-piece suit, that is most definitely not Frost. Guess I know where his complex comes from—Frederick must be a youngest child. There’s one small sentence at the end of the article that states that the land was formerly “protected,” and the town council had quietly changed the designation earlier that year.

Okay, so rules do not apply to Mr. Thurston and his family. Figured that out the first night when they were serving minors booze. There was some mention of that in the Weekly Diviner as well, but this paper’s angle is at the other end of the political spectrum. The way other end.

I search through the rest of that issue and find a short letter to the editor complaining about the rampant development that is going on unchecked. It’s anonymous and takes up all of three square inches. I kind of wonder if that was written by SonicReducer themselves. I hope not. I hope more people are calling out this colonizing bullshit.

I search farther back and find a dozen similar such articles, all about the purchase of previously unavailable properties by the same company, all in the summer months, and all properties that were not openly on the market.

I spent many an hour at my abuela’s house listening to her talk about what it’s like when your country is the longest-lasting colony in the history of the world. About how bitcoin bros came and bought the surrounding properties and tried to restrict access to the beach. About how the same laws never seem to apply to the colonizers as they do to the colonized.

I used to be bored by all this talk, by being dragged to protests during the summers I spent down there. But now it’s like one of those magic eye pictures, where what originally seemed like a jumble of dots, swirling lines, or colors is suddenly coming into focus. And it’s kind of horrifying.

On the same page is an article about a building being torn down by the corporation to build more luxury housing. I see a small piece about a missing girl, and I focus in. Local girl, seventeen, worked at a surf shop, was with friends drinking at a bonfire on the beach when she went off on her own for a walk and never returned. The article gave a few details about the search, but given the scarcity of information, it’s clear it wasn’t a priority in the paper’s coverage for that particular week, yet the local sailing team placing second in a regatta earned half a page.

I snort. “Guess they don’t want press because it could lower property values.” I didn’t realize I said it out loud until I notice the two girls pack up their stuff and leave, giving me a wide berth. That’s right! Move along, TikTok minions! Don’t want to actually ask any important questions or read anything of value by accident, do you? I keep that thought to myself, though.

Maybe the older brother holds some answers. I google Charles Thurston IV and find a death notice from 2020.

Local Resident Dies in Tragic Surfing Accident

He’s dead? He was like twenty-four years old! I scroll down through the article.

Accident occurred while surfing with his brother. Eighteen-year-old Frederick was rescued, still holding on to his brother’s board, dazed from shock. He is currently being treated at Glen Cove Hospital and is expected to make a full recovery.

Whoa.

I search Frost’s name.

Frederick Thurston to Take Late Brother’s Place on Thurston Corp’s Board,

Youngest Trustee in Company’s History

“I can never hope to fill my brother’s shoes, but I am honored to do this in his memory,” Frederick said in an official press release.

But was it a surfing accident?

I think of Ruth in the water with that asshole and I feel my blood heat to boiling in my veins. I have to dig deeper.

I’m about to stand up to go back to the circulation desk when the floor beneath my chair starts to shake.

No. Not just the floor. The entire library is quaking now, the computer keyboard skittering across the desk toward me like an insect. I grab the arms of the wooden chair as it lifts and bucks, and gape around, my body rigid with panic.

Is it an earthquake?

Books start falling off the shelves, thwacking to the floor all around me, and the huge cast-iron chandelier directly above is swinging, the glass and electric candles rattling like they’re about to break loose. I look over at the man sitting in a leather chair in the corner reading a paper, but he just turns the page as if nothing’s happening, while a fire bursts to life in the fireplace in front of him, the roaring orange flames licking the painting above the mantle until it too is ablaze.

The entire building begins to sway, the wood floors buckling and lifting like waves on an ocean, the very building’s structure squealing and screeching so loud it feels as if the world is tearing apart at the seams. Plaster dust snows on my shoulder and I know that if I stay here and the fire doesn’t get me first, the light fixture is going to fall and kill me, so I jump to my feet, look desperately for the nearest exit, but when I blink, it all stops.

Ceases.

I spin around, but all the books are tucked back on their shelves, the floorboards nestled in place, the chandelier completely still above me.

“What the actual fuck is going on?”

The man in the chair looks over at me, harumphs, and with much paper rustling, turns the page and hides his face with it.

“Keep it together, Gabriel,” I whisper to myself, wiping my brow with a shaking hand. I just sit for a few minutes, breathing slowly. Obviously it was all in my head. Nothing I saw actually happened according to the evidence all around me, but I’m wide awake and clearly not dreaming.

I let out a long breath and finally feel ready to stand, but I swear I can still smell the faint acrid scent of smoke.

On slightly wobbly legs, I head back to the circulation desk to ask the old librarian what other news sources they might have access to, but when I get up to the counter, I see the back of someone much younger behind the desk arranging books on a cart.

“Excuse me, I was wondering—”

They turn around and I see Georgina. “Oh, hey.” This day is just getting more and more surreal.

She looks at me with those intense dark eyes and says in a deadpan voice, “We’ve got to stop meeting like this. Really.”

“You work here too?”

“No, I just like to hang out behind the circulation desk because I enjoy having patrons ask me inane questions.” She pauses to make sure I have enough time to absorb the snark. “How may I help you?”

“Um . . . yeah.” I’m intending to ask my research question, but instead I blurt out, “Did you feel something? Just a minute ago?” I indicate the building around us. “An earthquake . . . or something? Or smell smoke, perhaps?”

She stares at me. “I’m sorry, I meant can I help you with any actual questions.”

Well, that’s a big ole no. “Yeah, okay. So, I’ve been trying to find information on the disappearances you mentioned the other night, but there’s nothing in the local paper.”

“There wouldn’t be, would there? That rag’s actually owned by Thurston Corp.”

“It is? Isn’t that a conflict of interest?”

“Welcome to the Hamptons, hombre. Where nepotism, conflicts of interest, and questionable ethics are free to roam wild.”

“I’m getting that sense.”

“If you want to get the real story, you have to read this.” She drops a copy of the Weekly Diviner on the counter.

I point at the byline and push it away. “Yeah, not a fan of that person’s writing and philosophies.”

“Oh, really? You feel you can do better?” She folds her tattooed arms across her chest.

“Yes, actually. Besides, I just don’t trust their take on things.”

“Why, because they know more about the history of zombies than you do?”

I stare at her, my mouth hanging open. “Wait . . .” I point at her. “You’re SonicReducer?”

“Sure am, GabSnows.” Her smile rises on one side like a cartoon villain.

I feel the heat build behind my face again. “How did you know who I am?”

“Oh, please! Gab, Gabriel; Snows, Nieves. Doesn’t exactly take a genius. Plus, I found a picture of you on an old forum a year ago. I thought you looked familiar when you walked into that party, then our conversation about zombie fodder confirmed it.” She leans her elbows on the counter and puts her chin in her hands like this is the best show ever.

“You’ve been cyberstalking me?” My jaw tightens as I continue to stare at her, but she just looks like the evil feral cat who ate the clearly naive canary.

She gives one quick laugh like a bark. “I’d hardly call it stalking. Any idiot with a cell phone could find the same info.”

Okay, fair. But I’m not telling her that. I stand there in the center of the library, hands fisted at either side, feeling all kinds of impotent. Dozens of insults and snarky comments begin in my mind, then peter out before I can complete them, choking off in my throat like a cough. I’m not used to being caught completely off guard. This is an example of why I prefer to stay in the safety of my nest, only dealing with people digitally. Actually, this whole goddamn trip is the perfect example.

She stands up and waves her hand at me. “Oh, c’mon. You can’t blame me for wanting to know who it was that argued with every damn post I put up.”

I sputter, “What bullshit! You argue with me!” Then I look at her. “Why are you being nice to me now? You seem to hate me in the chat rooms.”

“Look, you’re the first person I’ve met in this godforsaken town who actually seems to be taking the issues here seriously. I mean, this is real life, not fiction, and some shit is going down that the cops don’t seem to care about.” The older woman appears behind her and smiles at me. Georgina nods at her and comes out from behind the desk.

“Give me your phone.” She gestures gimme with her fingers.

Bizarrely, I just hand it to her. No idea why; I don’t give my phone to anyone.

She types fast and hands it back to me. “Now you have my number in case you ever want to know what’s really going on around here. Don’t call me if this is just a hobby.”

I stare at her. “Uh, okay?”

She swings a backpack over one shoulder and smiles at me. “Well, GabSnows, I’m done with work. Nice to officially meet you. Sort of.” She puts headphones on and steps toward the exit.

Damn it! Why did it have to be her? I groan and yell out, “Wait!”

Georgina turns around.

“Would you like to get a coffee and . . . talk now? About the disappearances, I mean. Cause I can’t seem to find anyone to talk with about them either, and this is not just a hobby. I need to know, I think lives may be in danger.”

A smile, this time on both sides of her mouth. “Okay, let’s talk.”

I fall into step behind her as we make our way out of the library. I hold the door open and say, “One ground rule: no dissing of George Romero.”

“I make no promises.”

Chapter

Eleven

The side street coffee shop Georgina brings me to couldn’t be more different than Ruth’s breakfast spot. The wood, womb-like atmosphere is accented by a jungle of plants that snake from hanging pots to the floor. It’s lit by a series of dusty skylights in the ceiling, mismatched table lamps, and lots of glowing laptop screens. The smell of rich, dark-roasted coffee is an intoxicating intellectual perfume.

As we walk in, almost every patron waves at Georgina. She appears to know everyone in here, surprising as she comes across as so salty. The barista is a young woman with a West Indian accent that carries the heady turquoise vibe of the Caribbean, setting off a longing for the islands that hits me like a wave. Her eyes sparkle when she sees Georgina, and I can tell there’s a crush there in both directions.

As we wait for the lattes, I look over at SonicReducer and try to see her as the others do. Like me, so much about her seems designed to keep people at arm’s length. She dresses in black in plain, military crisp clothes, has tattoos on every exposed limb, and paints the thick lines of kohl around her eyes in a manner probably designed to keep any kind of emotion from showing on her face. But even with all that, her lips are a natural berry color, perfectly shaped, and her smile painfully genuine. Beneath their punk-rock war paint, her eyes are large and full of depth.

As I watch her banter with the beautiful barista, she comes across as warm and approachable . . . when she trusts you, I guess. Kind of like the pit bull that lives next door back home named Olivia Newton-John. She looks scary as hell until you pet her big square head and she gives you a slobbery smile. Apt though it is, I don’t think Georgina would appreciate being compared to a pit bull, so I’ll keep that to myself.

We take our drinks and sit down at a round empty table, the wood covered with layers and layers of epoxy making it almost soft in its shininess.

She points to the latte in front of me with a smile. “Taste that.”

I blow on the thin layer of foam and take a careful sip. The coffee is smooth and nutty, and the milk is perfectly steamed so it is sweet all on its own, no sugar needed. I close my eyes and smile.

“Best coffee in the Hamptons.” She grins back.

“It’s incredible, I have to admit.” My eyes glance up at the woman behind the counter who is still sneaking looks at us. “She seems into you.”

“Yeah, that’s Julissa, my Trinidadian queen.” She grins at me over the milky surface of her coffee. “We have an on-and-off-again thing every summer.” Her eyes get unfocused like she’s staring into the distance. “She helped me a lot when my brother . . .” But she doesn’t finish, like she didn’t intend to say that and immediately regretted it.

After a minute, I prompt in a gentle voice, “When your brother what?”

She rouses from wherever she just went in her mind and looks up at me. “He died.”

Another dead brother. Suddenly I feel like calling Jorge. “Jesus. I’m so sorry.” I want to ask how he died, but instead I just take another sip of my coffee and wait.

Georgina sits up straighter and seems to shake it off. Clearly a subject she doesn’t want to dwell on. “So, didn’t find what you were looking for in the papers, huh?”

I put my mug down. “No! How can they ignore the fact that all those people have disappeared?” Outrage seeps through my words.

“Because if they did, they’d have to admit they don’t have it handled.”

“Which they clearly don’t.”

“Right. That’s why I started the Weekly Diviner. I couldn’t stand their silence anymore. Not that many people read it.” She sighs. I can tell this subject is one she thinks about a lot, one that exhausts her. “Gabriel, what really happened to you that night on the beach? The night of the party?”

I look down at the table, suddenly tongue tied. But like Olivia Newton-John the pit bull, I trust this woman, so I open up. “I saw the woman struggling in the water . . . and . . .”

“And?”

I look back at her. “I saw a giant tentacle lift out of the ocean.” It spills out easily, like it was waiting at the back of my throat, dying to be released.

She just nods and says, “Shit.”

I rush to add, “But I was kind of drunk, as you know, so I’m not certain of anything from that night.” I downplay it, afraid she’ll mock me too. I try to take the focus off me, not ready to bring up the severed arm I found. “Do you know if the police have any theories about the disappearances?”

“Well, they keep chalking them up to ‘wayward youths,’ ‘seasonal staff who have just flitted off to the next location,’ ‘drunken parties gone wrong,’ or ‘weak swimmers who have no business being in these waters at night.’” There’s an undertone of rage in her voice, and I wonder if this has personal significance to her.

I shake my head in disgust and at my own anger. “Lazy Gen Z–blaming theories. Of course it has to be our fault, right?”

She sips her latte. “Yup.”

It’s such a relief to be talking to someone who doesn’t think I’m delusional. I hadn’t realized just how much that was pushing me down this week. Georgina might be prickly as hell, but talking to her makes me feel . . . safe. Well, as safe as anyone can be in this town that seems to eat people. For a second, I contemplate telling her about the voices, zombie churchgoers, bleeding bathroom, and shaking library, but I have to stay focused on protecting Ruth, so I risk a loaded question. “Any unofficial theories?”

“Sure, sea monsters, serial killers, and Antifa. Take your pick.”

“Ugh. I should have started with this: What’s your theory?”

Georgina puts her mug down on the table and looks at me. “I think those people somehow got in the way of someone making money.”

I sit bolt upright in my seat. “Yes!”

“And they’re people who are purposely chosen because no one will miss them.”

I slam my palm on the table. “Yes!”

“And they sacrifice them to the sea monster that lives offshore.”

“Um . . . no.” I stare at her, but she’s not smiling. “Wait, you really believe that?”

“So says the guy who saw a giant tentacle the first night he got here. How can you watch so many movies and learn absolutely nothing from them?”

“Because they’re just movies! Fiction! Look, I don’t know why those people are disappearing, being killed, whatever, but I have no doubt that this is tied to all the shady real estate dealings going on around here, not monsters.” I notice a dismissive tone in my voice that reminds me too much of my father, like when I was eight and told him I was afraid of zombies. He’s the last person I want to become.

“Well then, who do you think the tentacle belonged to?” She smugly folds her arms and waits for my answer.

“Now I regret telling you about that!” Which was what I wanted to say to my father all those years ago but was too afraid. But I am glad I didn’t tell Georgina about my visions or whatever the hell they were. I can only imagine the turn this conversation would be taking if I had. “I think there’s a big-ass octopus out there. Creepy as fuck but a natural cause, not supernatural.”

She unfolds her arms, sits back, and just looks at me for a beat. Then she says, “There’s someone I need to take you to see.”

Okay, not what I expected her to say. “Wait—”

“Like, right now. It’s Tuesday; she should be home. She can talk to both sides of the issue better than I can.”

I see where this is going. “Oh, hell no! You’re not going to drag me out to some remote place to talk to some colorful local character, aged with a pipe and missing teeth, who almost always provides a red herring. I’ve seen that movie a million times and I’m not interested in your monster conspiracy theories.” I stand up, pushing my empty cup away.

She grabs my arm, gently but firmly. “Let me ask you this, Gabriel. Why are you so resistant to the possibility of a supernatural element in what’s going on?”

My face feels hot. “I’ll tell you why: Science! Logic! Common sense!” But those words don’t feel natural on my lips. They feel like they’re not mine.

She’s looking at me with squinty eyes. “What made you so afraid, Gabriel Nieves?”

My fists tighten by my side. Fury spreads through my body, but I don’t even know why. “This is ridiculous. Enjoy the rest of your coffee.” And with that stinging comeback, I stalk out of the café.

I’m damn near panting as I start walking, my arms and legs stiff with rage. For someone I haven’t known long, Georgina really got to me. But she is SonicReducer after all, and so she’s been pissing me off for a long time.

I start to get that out-of-body tingly feeling, so I begin timing my breaths, consciously taking in air instead of gulping it, letting it out slowly. If I’m being honest with myself, this isn’t just about the conversation with Georgina.

Hearing the echoes of my father come from my own mouth honestly freaked me out. It was worse than hearing ominous whispering voices in an alley because this came from inside me. Even the stalking off was a dad move. How long have I been doing things like that?

I am not my father. I am not my father. I repeat this six or seven times, and gradually, my heart begins to slow, my body calms. I’m relieved to notice that the pavement feels secure under my feet, like I’d expected it to shift or melt beneath my boots.

The sun is high overhead, and I stop and take a deep breath, admiring the light, so bright and high there are no shadows for things to hide in.

Okay, feeling better.

Then I remember the library shaking and the fire . . .

I’m also haunted by Georgina’s question of why the idea of the supernatural gets to me so much. Did something frighten me? And if so, what? Then there’s the bomb Abuela dropped on me about my having a “gift,” whatever the fuck that means. And here I thought I knew all there was to know about myself. I mean, I am the expert on Gabriel . . . maybe.

A crew of people brush by on the sidewalk, their happy chatter grating like nails on corrugated tin. I just need to get myself to Ruth’s house, maybe hide out in the guestroom lair for a while. When I turn the corner of her street, the first thing I see are blue and red lights, blinding me with each revolution.

They’re in front of Ruth’s.

I try to convince the police officer posted by the driveway pillars that I’m staying with the family, but it’s only after he radios in to double-check that he reluctantly lets me through.

I run into the house on shaking legs and find a hive of activity in the living room, rescue personnel and police and family members all rushing about, the activity centered around the couch. My heart is banging on the inside of my ribs as I push through, desperate to get a glimpse of who they’re all focused on.

Don’t be Ruthie. Don’t be Ruthie. Don’t be Ruthie.

The words run over and over in my head like a prayer, but then I see Ruth standing at the foot of the couch, her face in her hands.

Oh, thank God.

I thought I was too late, had taken too long trying to find out what’s going on in order to protect her. She lifts her face and spots me; her expression crumbles as she puts her arms out, reaching in my direction. As soon as I get there, I pull her to me, enveloping her birdlike frame in my arms. She sobs into my chest, and I finally look down at the couch.

There, looking impossibly tiny and frail, is Amy, her blond hair wild and spread out around her, her thin arm hanging off the couch at a wrong angle, her face smooth with unconsciousness.

Oh my God.

She’s only eight years old.

My eyes fill as I think of how full of life, of piss and vinegar, she was yesterday when I saw her last. Now she’s pulled into a nightmare worthy of the shitty movies we watch together. To see her lying like this, completely vulnerable, I swear I feel my heart physically breaking.

This is almost worse than if it were Ruth.

“There are these marks all over her body, Doctor.” Her father is saying, gently lifting up the hem of her faded Wonder Woman T-shirt.

My first instinct is to look away—this is Ruth’s little sister, after all—but then I catch sight of the red, circular marks all over her pale belly, noticing additional marks on her legs and arms.

What the hell?

The doctor sits by her side on the couch and runs his fingers over the marks, examining location, size, eventually pulling back before saying, “I wish I knew what these were, Roy. Damned if I can identify what made those marks. It looks like an octopus, but it’s way too large for that. I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Then he reaches toward her face and pulls her eyelids up, looking in her pupils one at a time. “She’s in shock, there’s no doubt about that. Margaret?” he calls to Ruthie’s mother. “We’ll need a blanket.”

And Ruth’s mom is scurrying over, grabbing two of the throws that are draped throughout the living room.

As she spreads the blankets over Amy, she gently touches her daughter’s arm. “Doctor, why is it bent so . . . wrong?”

“We’ll have to rebreak and set her arm back at the hospital, but that’s the least of my concerns right now.” The doctor talks directly to Mr. McCarthy. “I need to run some tests, but I’d really like to know what happened so I can properly treat her.”

“It’s my fault.” Ruth’s voice is small, vibrating on my chest like a violin string. Then she lifts her head and says it louder. “It’s my fault!” she basically yells into the group.

Everyone turns to look at her.

Her mother puts her hand on her shoulder. “Darling, you already gave your statement to the police. There’s no need to put yourself—”

“Let her talk, Margaret. For God’s sake! You can’t protect her from everything, clearly.” I’ve never heard Ruth’s father raise his voice like that, and his wife jerks back a bit like his words were a shove.

Ruth continues, looking from one parent to the other, her voice shaking. “She wanted to tag along to my tennis lesson. I didn’t want her to come, but she begged and begged. When my lesson started, I left her playing on the club’s beach. They have lifeguards and tons of her little friends were around. I thought she’d be safe.” Her voice rises on her last few words, as if asking her parents for forgiveness.

Her mother puts her hand on Ruth’s. “And she should have, dear. It’s not your—”

This time it’s Ruth who cuts her off. She turns to Captain O’Connor, who is standing behind us at a respectable distance, and says, “After my lesson, I looked up and down the beach, but couldn’t see her. I asked her friends, but nobody’d seen her for a while. I started to panic and ran to talk to the lifeguard. He blew his whistle, and we ran up and down the beach searching for her.

“One of the other lifeguards, Joseph, saw something in the water around the rocks that lead to a nearby cove, the one near that apartment complex, and he paddled out, though everyone was telling him it was too dangerous. He pulled her back on his rescue board thing. He pumped the water out of her lungs, and she coughed and breathed again. Joseph tried to stop me, but I picked her up and ran for the car, and that’s when I called Doctor Betancourt. I couldn’t wait for an ambulance, I just needed to get her away from that water.” The tears that had been damming on her lids break free and pour down her cheeks in torrents.

I tighten my arm around her protectively, though it’s a little late for that. I’m clearly failing as her protector.

Voices start to rise, her mother worrying about Amy’s fever, the doctor and Captain O’Connor arguing about what it could be. There’s so much noise, we almost don’t notice the crying coming from the couch.

I put my hands out and shush them. “Amy’s awake!”

We all turn toward her, and she opens her eyes wide but doesn’t seem to see or hear us. Her wild gaze focuses on the ceiling, seeing something in the distance that isn’t there, her mouth distorting in terror, and then it opens wide to scream.

Bedlam breaks out with the girl’s shrieking, like an orchestra of trauma echoing through the house. As Amy’s screams resolve into words, silence falls over the group and we hold our breath and listen.

“Don’t let it pull me down! No! I can’t breathe! Don’t let it take me! Mommy!’

“I’m right here, sweetie, shh! Shhh, you’re safe now,” she murmurs into Amy’s hair. The words don’t even matter; the comforting tone seems to work to calm her.

The doctor stands up. “It’s high time we take her to the hospital. We can ask her more questions once she’s stabilized.”

With a plan in place, people start mobilizing around us. I just keep holding Ruth, afraid that if I let her go, she might fall apart (ironic since most of our lives she’s been the one holding me together).

We stand like that until her mother barks, “Ruth! You’re riding with Dad to the hospital.”

“Can Gabi come—”

“No!” She realizes how that sounded, then looks at me and says in a softer voice, “Sorry, Gabriel. They only allow family in the hospital.”

I nod and lie. “It’s okay.”

I look into Ruth’s face. She’s shaking like a leaf in the wind, so I rub her arms up and down as if hoping to start a campfire with them.

“Amy’ll be okay, Ruthie. I know it. Look at me.” She pulls her aqua eyes to me. “Amy will be fine. You did nothing wrong.”

Ruth nods, but her gaze is tired and empty.

A gurney is produced, the screech of the metal as it is raised to the same height of the couch makes me jump. The ambulance crew gently moves Amy onto it, her one good arm scrabbling and reaching for her mother, her voice raw and desperate.

I remain standing where I am in the living room and let them flood around me, exiting through the front door like sand through an hourglass, until I’m standing alone. I freeze for a bit, staring, trying to process what just happened, what’s still happening.

Finally, I shake my head trying to clear it and reach down to start straightening the misplaced cushions on the couches. I pick up the paper wrappings from the needles and other hospital detritus until the daytime maid comes in and takes the garbage from my hands as if we’re passing something fragile.

“I’ll take care of this. Don’t worry.”

“Okay.” But I still stand there for a minute, not sure what to do, until I feel the telltale tingles of panic spread across my skin. I run toward the front door, suddenly desperate for air. I stand outside, gasping as if I’ve run a marathon.

I look around, and the only signs of the feverous activity that just left are some tire marks on the edge of the lawn where the ambulance pulled out. I shove my hands as deep in my pockets as they’ll go, and pace back and forth in front of Ruth’s house.

I’m no scientist, but the marks on Amy? I don’t care what the doc said about the size of them; they absolutely looked like they were made by tentacle suckers. I know none of this is a coincidence, I just have no idea how or why. My best friend and her family are in terrible danger. I have to do something to help or my head is going to explode.

But I’ve never felt so helpless in my life.

There is only one thing I can think to do. I pull out my phone and text Georgina.

Okay, take me to meet your person. But I swear to God, if she’s one-eyed, toothless, and cackles, I’m out of there.

Meet me at the café in an hour. No promises on the teeth.

Chapter

Twelve

I manage to fold my six-foot frame into the passenger seat of Georgina’s tin can car, my knees kissing the dashboard. A different ride than the limo, but ironically, I feel more comfortable in this vehicle.

After the nodded greetings, we ride in silence for awhile. I know she’s wondering why the change of heart, so after a bit, I just say it. “While we were having coffee earlier, Ruth’s little sister was attacked by something in the water, something that sounded a lot like what I saw the other night.”

“Oh my God! Is she okay?”

I swallow back the tears that are threatening.

“No, not really. I mean, it could have been so much worse. She could have—” My voice starts to break, and I pause to get it together. Georgina waits patiently. “But she had circular marks all over her body, her arm was horribly broken, and she was screaming about something trying to ‘pull her in.’ She’s only eight years old. Practically a baby.”

“I’m so sorry,” Georgina says in a gentle voice. I look over at her, the way she’s pulled in, her body hunched over the steering wheel all of a sudden, and I get the sense that the news about Amy triggered something personal for her, something big.

I don’t pry, just stare out the window, letting my feelings settle in my stomach. It’s not a good place for them, but it’s better than them spewing out and covering us both in a neurotic bloodbath of hysteria. Shit, I don’t think I’ll share that analogy with my therapist.

The houses we pass are getting closer together, the stores less fancy and more about things one needs for life.

“Seeing how the other half lives?” Georgina says, watching me watch the landscape.

“This is my half. Don’t get me wrong, my family does okay, especially considering my mom had to raise two kids as a single parent, but we are in no way rich. I’m not at all comfortable in Ruth’s world.” Sadness presses down on me. “Well, her new world, anyway.”

“So, she wasn’t rich when you two were growing up?”

“No, not at all! Both of her parents worked, and they struggled to pay the bills like most of the people in our neighborhood. For my family, things got easier when my mom made vice president, but Ruth’s father invented something, some system that was much needed in transportation, and he hit it big, real big. So . . . here we are.”

“Can I ask you a question about your friendship? I’m not trying to upset you. I’m just wondering.”

“Okay.”

“What do you guys have in common these days?”

I pull back and look at her, surprised by the question. “Me and Ruth? I mean, everything. Skinned knees, broken arms, laughing till our stomachs hurt, family trauma, pet funerals, failed tests, dropped ice cream cones . . . everything.”

She nods like she expected this. “A shared history, I get that, but—” A pause, then she continues, “But that’s all in the past, right? What about more recently?”

“Well, I . . .” Images of the last year flip through my head in a slideshow. My brother Jorge moving out. My abuelo dying. My first published film review online. A personal message from Paul Tremblay, my favorite horror writer. Was Ruth at my side, physically or emotionally, for any of these important events? When I try to think of her during that time period, I remember a lot of canceled plans, her taking a skiing trip during winter vacation while I sat at home.

Fuck. It hasn’t only been since she moved? So when did this start to happen?

No, this is not a useful line of thinking right now. I don’t say anything for a while, just continue staring out the window.

Georgina points to a row of newly renovated houses, the paint looks barely dry, the lawns are all perfectly trimmed. “These were recently purchased by the Thurston Corp. They wait out small homeowners, then snap up the properties when they’re in financial distress, slap on paint, throw up drywall, and resell them for ten times the amount they paid.”

“See?” I say, pointing at the houses. “That is exactly the kind of thing that I believe is tied up in all the disappearances going on around here. And I think Frost’s family is at the heart of it; I just can’t figure out how to prove it.”

“Look, I agree with you, but these houses are seriously small potatoes for them. This is only a part of their business. A minute part. They’re more interested in commercial real estate, large property buys, essentially owning the entire shoreline.”

“They couldn’t do that . . . could they?”

She shrugs. We both know they can.

“I heard that they’re waiting for one last investor for that White Poplar project,” I say. “I wonder if that could be Ruth’s dad.”

“I don’t know. But I can tell you I get information on the Thurstons whatever way I can. That’s why I take catering gigs whenever they’re at Frost’s house,” she says.

“Really?”

“Yeah, I don’t need money badly enough to put up with that parade of punk-asses.” She waves her hand in dismissal. “You couldn’t pay me enough to deal with that otherwise.”

We pass by the large, electric billboards that mark our leaving behind the richer part of the Hamptons, and I already feel like I can breathe easier. A few miles later, we take an exit and I notice the streets are very different now. There are apartment buildings near the highway and small houses like we have in Astoria. Dwellings that are less about aesthetics and more about day-to-day existence. The sun was starting to set behind a strip of stores, the haze of the day’s heat hanging low near the horizon.

After a series of turns onto side streets, we pull up in front of a row house, the buildings squeezed in tight together, shoulder to shoulder like mine, the small green lawn surrounded by a chain-link fence. Once we get out, Georgina opens up a front gate to a brightly painted house. I see the steps are bookended by large, leering plastic frog sculptures, one holding a daisy over its head like an umbrella, the other’s bugged-out eyes actually reflectors, both surrounded by bright pink flowers in clay pots.

“This isn’t exactly what I expected.”

“What, you wanted a decrepit wooden shack on the beach, bones and herbs drying in the rafters?”

“Exactly. It’s like you can see into my brain. Or maybe a creaky wooden house in the woods—”

“Covered in moss? Smoke coming from the chimney?”

“Yes! The ground littered with doll heads and the bones of small children.”

“Jesus.” Georgina gives me side-eye. “You need to get out more, Gabriel.”

“So they tell me.”

She knocks on the front door, a faded hand-painted sign with the three kings carrying gifts and welcome in Spanish painted across it.

The sound of shuffling slippers comes from inside. “¡Voy! I’m coming, I’m coming.”

I raise an eyebrow at Georgina. “Another Puerto Rican?”

“Dominican, actually. There are more island people in New York than in the actual Caribbean, so . . .”

The door opens and a tiny old lady appears. Her silver hair is carefully coiffed on top, a housecoat with pearlized buttons hangs off her thin shoulders, and her feet nested into slippers with flowers printed on them. She could be anyone’s abuela. She makes me miss mine.

“¡M’ija! So good to see you.” She gives Georgina a kiss on both cheeks. Then looks over at me, grips my upper arms in her tiny, papery hands, squeezing them like fruit she’s pressing to make sure it’s fresh. (Again, very abuelaesque. Next, she’ll pinch my cheek until I can’t feel it any longer.) “And who is this strapping young man?”

Georgina rolls her eyes behind the woman’s back. “Magda, this is my friend Gabriel. He’s visiting from Queens. Gabi, this is Magda.”

Everyone says Queens like it’s a distant land and not just on the other side of town on the same damn island.

“Mucho gusto, Doña.” I smile down at her.

“El gusto es mio, joven. And call me Magda, please.” She waves her hand dismissing the formality but probably expecting it anyway. “Well, it’s nice to have visitors. Come in, come in. I will get us some bizcocho.”

She still has one of my arms, and leads me through the door, finally pointing to the faded, flower printed couch in the center of the room as she releases me. “Wait here, children.”

When we’re seated, she shuffles toward what I assume is the kitchen.

“Okay, she’s like someone’s abuela,” I whisper to Georgina. “Totally not what I expected.”

“Again, you watch too many movies.”

“Why does everyone keep saying that?”

The woman shuffles back into the room, carrying a tray with a plate of admittedly delicious looking guava cookies, and a frosty pitcher of lemonade.

“Help yourselves, jovenes.” She sits down in her chair with a groan, the wicker creaking like the furniture has bones too. “Well, what can an old lady help you with today?”

I have a mouth full of guava cookies—in my defense, I was taught that it’s polite to partake when offered refreshments and they are really good—so Georgina responds, “Magda, Gabriel is also looking into the disappearances that have been going on around here these past few years, and he’s having trouble finding information about them. I’m hoping you’ll tell him some of the things you’ve told me.”

Wait, if Georgina already went through this with the woman, she could have just told me herself . . .

“Georgina, amor, are you sure you want to dig that up again? Haven’t you been put through enough?”

I stop chewing and look from the old woman to the young one. I know there is so much being said here, traveling on the air between them without words, and I have no idea what it is. But I suspect it’s important.

Georgina gives her a tired smile. “It’s okay, Titi. Bringing this all to light is what makes me feel better.”

“Bueno.” The old woman sits back into her worn but bright cushions, or rather, deflates like the air has been let out of her. “Ay, niños, there is no light to be shed here. We are all just standing in the darkness of shadow.”

A shudder passes across my skin that I have to shake off. I choke the rest of the cookie down.

Magda’s voice starts to sound far away, like she’s gone somewhere else, somewhere safer. “As I’ve told you, m’ija, they should have left her alone. We had made peace with her long ago, but they let their greed blind them.”

I lean forward in my seat. “I’m sorry, señora, but they should have left who alone?”

She looks at me then, but not directly at me. “The ancient one, m’ijo. They have awoken her, and she will continue to demand a price until she gets what she wants.”

They woke her. An echo from the train platform.

Demand a price.

Amy’s small, unconscious body flashes in my mind.

“What price?” I whisper, as if my voice alone could awaken this fairy tale evil.

“She must satiate her appetite with the blood of the usurper.”

Okay, I have to admit, until this point, I had been pulled into the woman’s story, but blood of the usurper? I start to get pissed. Magda has clearly been reading too much Game of Thrones.

Georgina seems to sense that she’s losing me and hurries to add, “Gabriel, these legends have been told here for generations and generations. Do you think Lovecraft is the only writer who spoke of a tentacled god beneath the waves?”

I struggle to hold back angry laughter. I have no reason to be cruel to this woman, but come on. “No, but H. P. Lovecraft was a horrible, bigoted, misogynistic antisemite who probably made up Cthulhu because he wished a monster would rise up and eat all the non-white, non-Christian people.”

Magda speaks up then. “And where did you think he got the idea for that legend, joven?”

I shrug at her, but she doesn’t react. I look over and Georgina is glaring at me. She points to Magda, then covers her eyes with her hands, and I realize something I hadn’t yet: Magda is blind.

The old woman sighs, then says, “Gabriel, is it? Well, Gabriel, most of the concepts for the classic horror novels that you’re aware of were taken from local legends, legends that have histories that reach back to the cultures of the old countries of Europe to Africa, the Americas, and the Middle East. And are you so narrow-minded that you wouldn’t even consider that those legends have some basis in experience for our ancestors? That they had been co-opted by the colonizers for their own purposes?”

Georgina adds, “Not unlike the whitewashing of the zombie legends by Hollywood,” and gives me a look.

Magda just nods.

I’m opening and closing my mouth like a fish on a dock, but I can’t find a response to that. Who the hell is Magda, anyway?

As if Georgina had read my mind, she offers, “Magda was a professor of mythology at Long Island University.”

Ahh. “Well, I mean no offense, Profesora, but I don’t really believe in ancient evils.” The voice echoes in my head again, as if part of the conversation. Evil awaits you there . . .

Magda looks at me for a beat, like she heard the voice too. Though I know she isn’t actually seeing me, I start to feel like she can see into me, into my soul.

“For a smart young man, you haven’t yet learned to truly see yet, have you?”

I’m not sure what to say to that, and truthfully the whole conversation has left my brain vibrating. Georgina and Magda discuss the most recent land deals, Justin Carmichael’s body being found, and the young woman who disappeared on Friday night, as if this is all normal, all this death and talk of ancient evil lurking beneath the waves. My attention stumbles back to the conversation.

“It seems to have begun to accelerate,” Georgina’s saying.

“Yes, they don’t know how to stop it now that they’ve begun. I’m afraid it’s only going to get worse, m’ija.”

I butt in. “I’m sorry, who has started what?”

“Nothing, since you don’t believe in any of this.” Georgina folds her arms across her chest.

“Gabriel, I know why this matters to Georgina—”

I’m wishing I did, but I say nothing.

“But why is this so important to you?” Magda continues, her voice gentle and talcum-powder scented.

The unbalanced feeling of the beach memory washes over me like a wave, but I push it off. Stick to real dangers, Gabriel. “I think my friend Ruth is in danger. This morning, her little sister . . . well, she got hurt in the water, and Ruth is dating this guy who I think is up to no good. I’m worried that whatever is going on here is going to hurt her next.”

“How did her sister get hurt?”

“She said something tried to pull her under, and she had circular marks on her body.”

Magda does the sign of the cross. “Pobrecita, poor thing. These are scary times. It’s like Jaws and they refuse to close the beaches.”

I can’t help it. “So, like, we’re Brody and Hooper”—I indicate Georgina, even though she can’t see—“and you’re . . . Quint?”

Magda puts on a Robert Shaw fisherman voice: “‘Young girls just ain’t quite smart like their grandmothers were.’”

So Magda can quote lines of movie dialogue from memory. She might be delusional, but I like this woman.

Georgina stands up, and pronounces, “Well, we better leave you to your evening. Thank you for your time, Profesora.” She walks over to the old woman’s chair to say goodbye.

Magda puts her hands on Georgina’s cheeks. “It is always a pleasure to see you, m’ija.” She stands, then turns to me. “And you, young man. You’re here on the island for a reason. And if anyone can help Georgina figure out how to put an end to this nightmare, it’s you. There is only one thing that can stop this now.”

Evil can only be appeased by one thing. A full body shudder passes through me. Damn. I should give the old woman my abuela’s number, they seem to be cut of the same dark cloth.

Instead, I take Magda’s hands in mine. “Gracias, señora. I hope my disbelief didn’t offend. That was never my intention—”

She grabs a big chunk of my cheek and twists, just as I anticipated. Do they teach all Latin old ladies to do that?

“Ay, m’ijo. You have so much of life to see. Perhaps you have to leave your cave sometimes and live it, no? Perhaps dig deeper into your Boricua heritage? Ask your abuela for her own stories of this type? You’ll find out that these beliefs are built into the very roots of our cultures.”

Wait, did I say that thing about Abuela out loud? And how did she know about my cave? Georgina doesn’t even know about my cave room, my safe space. Is it that obvious I’m basically a shut-in? And that I’m not heeding my abuela’s warnings?

We make our way out the front, down the walk, and into the car. Once I’ve clicked my seat belt, I open the window and wave to Magda who is standing on the front stoop. She immediately begins to wave back, and I get goose bumps up and down my arms. “I swear to God, she can see me.”

“Oh, she can see better than most sighted people.” Georgina looks over at me.

“Look, I know my disbelief is disappointing to you, but I can’t change who I am.”

“How do you explain the tentacles, then? You saw them with your own eyes! And the marks on Ruth’s sister.”

“For all we know, they could be experimenting with octopi and—”

“Octopuses.”

“What?”

“The plural of octopus is octopuses.” She puts the car in gear and pulls out onto the street.

I throw up my hands. “Whatever! My point is there is probably a scientific explanation.” I can’t help but remember a time when my father said those exact words to me after a trip to Puerto Rico, right before he took off and left us. Could that have been the same trip as my drowning experience? But my mind immediately fills a shovel with sand and buries that memory right back up.

“All those horror novels and movies you love so much, how can you read those stories and not believe in some of them?”

“Oh, I believe in serial killers and mean girls and that if the zombie apocalypse actual does happen, it will definitely be the humans who fuck it up.” I’m raising my voice, so I make a conscious attempt to stay calm. “Look, I do believe in monsters; I only believe in the human kind.”

Georgina doesn’t say anything back, just stares up ahead as she navigates the streets. “They’re the worst kind, that’s for sure.”

There’s a heavy silence in the car and I stare out the window for a bit, watching the darkening sea in the distance.

Her words come quietly, on padded cat feet. I almost think I’m imagining them. “My brother was one of the ones who disappeared.”

My head whips around at that. “What?”

“My older brother, two summers ago. He was working on a fishing boat, and one night after they docked and cleaned up, he waved goodbye to his fellow crew members, walked off, and no one saw him again. The police kept implying he’d walked into the water, killed himself, but I know that’s not true. He was engaged and in love and was building his own life. I’d never seen him happier.”

My throat tightens. I know there is no good response to that but silence. I watch her, her eyes not glassy but far away, like the pain is still there but is off in the distance. So much about her begins to fall into place.

Here I am thinking about how what’s going on affects me and my friend, never considering her own reasons to search for answers. I feel the need to say something, anything, so I whisper, “I’m so sorry.”

She nods but doesn’t say anything back. But I can’t help but feel those three words are so woefully inadequate I might as well have said nothing at all. I watch the now black, glistening sea, and just as I’m about to look away, I see something move in the moonlight and I watch as a large form roils and rolls beneath the glistening surface of the water.

My heart takes off at a gallop, and I consider saying something to Georgina, but as I see the blurred shapes of what seem like tentacles wave by in a fan, I decide not to. Flipping back and forth between thinking I’m seeing monsters and not believing in them is not fair to her.

As whatever it was disappears beneath the water, I’m relieved I didn’t say anything. By the time she looked, it would have been gone. No, there is only one way to help Ruth, Amy, and Georgina, and that’s for me to do what I can to help figure this out.

But I still can’t silence the old voice inside my head that is questioning my sanity or my maturity and “head full of fantasy,” as my father used to say.

There are no real monsters.

Right, Dad?

Chapter

Thirteen

When I open the front door of the McCarthy house, I clearly interrupt some kind of discussion, or even an argument. They’re all standing in the middle of the living room, Frost has his arm around Ruth’s shoulders, and everything about her expression is pulled downward, like gravity is stealing all the joy from her.

Her parents are standing together also, and Ruth is giving her father the side-eye. I wish I could turn around and run out, but every set of eyes turns in my direction, and silence falls in an extremely awkward way.

I guess yelling Oops! Wrong house! and leaving wouldn’t fly at this point, huh?

“Hi?” I say, hand still on the doorknob.

Mr. McCarthy waves his hand. “Gabriel. Come on in, son. We were just talking about you.”

Now I really want to make a break for it.

I peel my fingers off the knob, close the door, and walk into the room. It feels a bit like a perp walk to the principal’s office. I put my hands deep into my pockets and force a smile, though I imagine it’s more like a grimace. “What’s going on?”

Mrs. McCarthy responds, “Well, Mr. McCarthy and I need to go back to the hospital, and Ruth wants to come with us, but after spending the whole day there, we think it would be healthier if she could have a few hours of reprieve from that stress and just be a teenager.”

“And Fred just told us that one of his musical acts has a concert tonight,” Mr. McCarthy takes over. “I don’t think there are any two boys better suited for the task of helping Ruth take her mind off things.”

“Me?” I’m floored by this. Has he met me?

I’m no one’s first choice for a night out at a club.

Ruth rolls her eyes. “Dad, Amy is in the hospital! I don’t want to go out! I want to—”

Mr. McCarthy pipes in. “There’s nothing you can do for her, Ruth. It’s too late for visitors aside from parents. And we don’t want you home and spiraling with worry over Amy; she’s going to be fine. It would be good for you to steer clear of the hospital, get out of the house, and try to have some fun.”

She snorts. “Fun. Right.”

At this point Frost touches her face with his long pale fingers. “Listen to them, Tiki. It might be good for you to forget about it all for a while.”

She gawks at him. “Forget? How can I forget? She’s my little sister, and it’s my fault she’s hurt.”

I step forward then. “Nah, Ruth, you couldn’t have known that would happen—” I pointedly look at Frost. “Nothing about that is your fault.”

But when I look back at her, I think, I did try to warn you. I would never say that out loud and make my friend feel worse, and I feel bad it even popped into my head. That doesn’t mean it isn’t the truth.

Then I look at Frost again with narrowed eyes. If I’m right, could he have prevented what happened to Amy? Except, I don’t even know what did actually happen to Amy. Plus, I have no idea if or how he and his family are connected to all this. But my gut feeling is so strong (and I have my abuela’s gut as further proof).

Her father slips into his alpha-dad tone of voice. “Well, I’m afraid I have to insist that you take Fred up on his generous offer, Ruth. We’d only worry about you sitting in the hospital lobby, and your mother and I have enough worries to bear. It would be helping us too.” He puts his arm around his wife and turns to me, clearly looking for my help. “Besides, I’m sure Gabriel would love to see some Hamptons nightlife.”

We are all startled by the sound that comes out of Ruth then, a kind of guffaw mixed with a scream, but soon she’s bent over, laughing so hard that tears are pouring from her eyes. From the trauma, has to be. But then I’m right there with her, laughing until I can’t breathe. We’re looking at each other, which only feeds the laughter, kind of like when you’re in church and you’re trying not to, but you just can’t stop.

Everyone else is just staring at us, so we both try to pull ourselves together and stand up straight but are still breathing hard.

“I guess it’s a private joke?” Frost’s voice sounds a little snippy and jealous, and I kind of feel sorry for him that he’s clearly never seen this side of Ruth.

Actually, I take that back. I don’t pity him. At all.

Ruth puts her hand on his arm, and says, “Sorry, it’s just . . .” She’s struggling to not laugh, I can tell. “Gabi is not exactly . . . social.”

We’re both struggling now, forcing our smiles back down.

“Gotcha.” But the expression on Frost’s face is smug, like he thinks this is some kind of flaw of mine and he shines in comparison.

Go on and think that, Frosty. Now I’m probably looking pretty smug.

“Well, it’s decided, then,” her father proclaims, clapping his hands together. “Have a great time, you three!”

Ruth and I are looking around like What? When did this get “decided”? But then Frost is shuffling us out the door and into the waiting limo.

Once we’re settled in the car, Frost leans forward and says something to John the belligerent driver, and music starts blaring. When he sits back, he smiles at us, adjusting a thick gold chain over his riotously colored sweater. He’s like a white frat boy’s interpretation of hip-hop fashion. Captain Cultural Appropriation.

“Thought I’d get us in the mood for the show,” he says, pointing to the oversize ceiling speakers.

I feel like rolling down the windows and screaming, Help me! I’m being taken clubbing against my will! but I imagine Ruth wouldn’t appreciate that. Actually, she might, but I know Frost wouldn’t. So tempting.

Instead, I resign myself to the experience. She settles against Frost and the two of them gaze into each other’s eyes. Lord this night is going to suck. Then I get an idea, one that has many advantages, one of which is I know it’ll piss Frost off. “Hey, is it okay if I invite a friend?”

A smile spreads across Ruth’s face. “You already made a friend here?”

“Damn, Ruthie! It’s not like the first day of kindergarten! I have other friends, you know.” Well, one.

Frost pipes up, “Sure, man! The more the merrier. Should we pick them up?”

I pull out my phone. “Her.” Then I picture Georgina looking at the limo with a curled lip. “She has a car, so if she can come, I’ll just tell her to meet us there.”

G! You have to save me! Come to

“Hey, Frost, what’s this club called and where is it?”

“Bacchanal in Southampton.”

I stop typing and grin. “You’re kidding.”

Frost shakes his head.

An occasion of wild and drunken revelry. “Bit on the nose, don’t you think?” I mumble.

Come to Bacchanal in Southampton with us . . . please? I’m so relieved to see the three dots and that she’s not on do not disturb.

Eww! Why on earth would I want to do that?

I’m being forced to go with Ruth and Frost

Oh, interesting.

Guess he produces the act that’s playing.

Well, maybe in the interest of our research.

Thank f-ing God! See you there?

Yep! Hope I don’t regret this.

No promises. We both might.

I put the phone away, relieved, when I realize Ruth is looking at me.

“So? What’s her name?” Her voice is singsongy in a way that bugs me. Like this is delicious gossip or something.

I almost say SonicReducer. “Georgina. I met her . . . at the library.”

Ruth shakes her head. “Only you would come to a beach town in the summer and spend the day in the library.”

“Well, not only me, obviously.”

She laughs. “Birds of a feather.”

As I look at her and Frost, I realize that Ruth and I seem to have evolved into two completely different species of birds. She’s some kind of showy, colorful thing, like a bluebird or a goldfinch, and I’m a . . . crow? Raven? No . . . In Puerto Rico there’s this shiny black grackle with golden eyes called a chango, common as dirt but kinda punk rock. Yeah, that’s what I am.

Frost? He’s a turkey who has glued peacock feathers to his ass and is spreading his stolen tail out like it was his all along. I give an evil chuckle at the thought, and Ruth side-eyes me.

The parking lot of this place is huge, full of expensive cars with vanity license plates. When we pull up to the front, the guys at the entrance rush to open our door, and greet Frost with deference and fist bumps, and he responds with tips discreetly pushed into hands.

I shake my head. It’s like he thinks he’s Bad Bunny or something. He even remembers to tell the guys at the door that my friend is coming and to let her in when she arrives. He’s good at this peacocking shit.

Then he drapes his arm around Ruth, and they start walking into the club with me close behind. I watch them, trying to see them as the crowd does. Ruth is still in her tennis whites but has Frost’s brightly colored jacket over them, her hair loose and wild, and I have to admit she looks stunning, even with this improvised outfit. Maybe even more so because it’s so casually thrown together. She really does seem to fit in here.

As I step into the main room, the throbbing blue lights hit me like a slap. The DJ is playing some unidentifiable song, the volume so loud I swear I can feel my internal organs pulse with the beat. The ceilings are high, the decor dark, and the tables are clustered along the outside to facilitate dancing in the center with a stage against the back wall. It has the typical bar smell of booze and sweat, but it’s missing the scent of old vomit, which has been replaced with a base note of expensive cologne.

The place is packed, the tables filled with a kaleidoscope of glasses and bottles, people talking, laughing, arguing, their gestures drunkenly exaggerated. A guy who seems to be the owner greets us (well, greets Frost), then seats us in the booth closest to the stage, clearly reserved for VIPs. Once we’re settled in, he asks for our drink order. Frost orders a bourbon and a glass of champagne for Ruth, and then he turns to me.

“Whaddya drinking, Gabriel? Tonight’s on me; order anything you want.”

Ruth looks at him then at me with a face that says, Isn’t he just the most generous douchebag ever?

I say to the owner guy, “I’ll have a ginger ale.”

They all laugh and look at each other like Isn’t the Latin boy from Queens charmingly naive? Frost leans across Ruth and puts his hand on my arm. “Dude, you don’t gotta worry about ID here when you’re with me. Order whatever you want. It’s all cool.” Then he sits back like he’s waiting for applause.

I look up at the owner again. “Just a ginger ale, thanks.”

“Make that two!” Georgina says as she appears from the crowd, slides into the booth next to me, then looks at the group with an amused smile.

I grin big. I’m not sure I’ve ever been so glad to see someone in my entire life. “Georgina, this is Ruth and Frost. Guys, this is Georgina.” I watch Frost so I can enjoy his reaction. “Oh, but you must already know her, Frost, since she works events at your house.” Okay, so I enjoy poking the bear . . . the pale, skinny, narcissistic bear.

He manages to keep his expression neutral and just nods at Georgina. I can almost hear the that bitch thought that’s going through his head.

Ruth clearly doesn’t recognize her and reaches over me to give Georgina a hug. “Yay! It’s so great to meet you!”

My new friend looks rather taken aback by Ruth’s warm and overly enthusiastic greeting, but as uncomfortable as she is, she lives through it. When Ruth sits back, I feel Georgina pinch my arm.

After she recovers, Georgina says to Ruth (while glancing at Frost, I notice . . . bear pokers unite!), “I didn’t get to meet you at the party last week when I was working or at the pub.”

Ruth’s eyes light up. “Oh! I thought you two met at the library?” She looks over at me with questioning eyes.

I shrug. “Well, we bonded at the library.”

Ruth is about to say something when the DJ music cuts out, and a loud voice announces the musical act. When they take the stage, the lead guy comes to the mic.

“Before we get started, we gotta thank our producer who’s here tonight! Frostman! Where you at?” He puts his hand over his eyes so he can look out at the crowd.

The spotlight moves off the stage and swings over to illuminate our table.

I resist the urge to cover my face, but luckily, I’m on the edge of the light’s beam, so I just lean back a bit and avoid it altogether.

Frost waves and points back to the singer, and they do a “you, no, you, bro!” thing back and forth until the light finally moves off our table and back on the stage, where it belongs. I let out a breath and sit normally again.

I look up and see that they’re projecting things on the screens around the stage, and under the band’s name is written FrostyProductions, and next to it, what appears to be the company’s logo. Wait, the triangles bookending the two names of the company are just like that symbol I’ve seen on the chauffer’s tattoo and in the whispering alleyway. I take a photo.

“Trying to record the moment for posterity?” Georgina says into my ear.

“Nah, it’s that logo . . .” I smile at her. “I’ll tell you later.”

One of the bodyguards appears at the table and whispers something to Frost, who then leans over to us. “I gotta take care of something. I’ll be right back.”

He slips out and struts off, the two guards falling in behind him.

“Ruth, where’s the ladies’ room?” Georgina asks, and when Ruth tells her, Georgina gives me a quick wink before she gets up. “BRB!”

I almost choke at that one. It’s like she’s playing a part, and I think it’s funny as hell.

Ruth smacks my arm. “She’s adorable!”

I shrug. “Yeah, I guess.”

“What, you didn’t notice?”

“You know me, Ruth.”

“Well, I’m so glad you met a new friend out here. That way when I’m busy you have someone to hang with. And you guys can come out with me and Frost, like a double date.”

Yay.

Something pulls my attention to the band, and I turn and watch them. The lead rapper keeps repeating something in the chorus of the song.

The old ones.

Seems like the songwriter’s been talking to Magda. Wait . . . I know that expression from somewhere else too . . .

I’m trying to make out the other words. Feeding them death, on their knees . . .

“You diggin’ the music?”

I turn around and Frost is sliding in next to Ruth but looking at me.

I rouse up a smile. “Yeah, I like this song.” Then I look him right in the eyes. “What’s it about?” I wait.

He waves his hands, a vape cartridge in one, the fake plume of smoke appearing, then disappearing around his head. “Man, who the fuck knows with that guy? He was stoned out of his mind when he wrote it!” Then he starts whispering to Ruth.

“I’m back!” Georgina says next to me.

A text beeps in. I pull out my phone.

Just followed Frost and dropped some eaves.

I smile at the screen. What didya hear, Samwise? (No way I’m leaving a Lord of the Rings reference hanging. They’d take away my geek card.)

Him and his goons were talking about something “going down” tomorrow night.

Shit. Any hints about what?

No, but they mentioned “the cove.”

Which cove?

Good question.

“Wait, are you two texting each other while sitting inches away? Jesus, Gabs, could you be more Gen Z?” Ruth elbows me in the side, but she’s looking at us funny. Could Ruth be jealous of my new friendship?

A new song starts, and she grabs my arm with her pincer-like fingers. “C’mon, let’s dance!”

Then she’s pushing me out of the booth and toward the dance floor, and I grab Georgina’s arm and drag her along with us. The floor is packed tight, but people part as Ruth gets closer.

She really is in her glory, Frost or no.

Then Ruth, Georgina and I are dancing, the beat of the music practically moving our bodies with its acoustic power alone. When the second song pounds through, I manage to let go, letting the beat pull me up and down. Ruth has always danced well, the moves come easily to her lithe body, and she makes it look so slick. Georgina dances like the historical videos I’ve seen of punk clubs in the eighties, her body rigid but bouncing up and down. I let my body do whatever it wants, the undulation of everyone’s movements like the crowd has a heartbeat all its own.

Then it hits me: dancing in this club with the stupid name, with my two friends, in this exact moment, I think I’m happier than I’ve ever been.

That’s when the screaming starts.

Chapter

Fourteen

People are pushing out the club’s doors in a tidal wave, yelling, screaming, spilling into the parking lot, but the crowd splits down in the middle as they move, as though there is a large rock in the way.

That’s when we see the guy stumble in, covered in blood, guttural screams coming from his swollen mouth. He stops at the edge of the dance floor, looking around as if he has no idea where he is, until his eyes land on us.

The guy’s hand lifts up, and he points his blood-dripping finger right at Frost.

When the rotating lights from the stage hit him, I see the dark spiky hair and recognize Lars.

Jesus Christ! Why is he covered in blood?

But before he can form any words, his eyes blank out, and Lars drops to the floor face-first. I stand up to go help him, but we’re suddenly surrounded by Frost’s men with guns drawn. I guess I shouldn’t be surprised they’re armed, but seeing all that threatening black steel up close is scary as hell.

The one with the Southern accent shouts at Frost, “Let’s go. We have to get you out of here. Back door now!”

“Wait! What happened to Lars?” I’m pushing against them, trying to see over the wall of muscle that surrounds us.

“Who knows and who cares! We have to get you all out of here!” the faux cowboy spits back at me.

They’re in a frenzy, probably because of the way Lars pointed at their boss. Lars was clearly searching for Frost, and given how unbalanced he looked . . .

And whose blood is that, anyway? His?

We’re ushered out the back, the cooling evening air hitting my face as the door swings open, and we’re rushed through. As we near the limo, I notice Georgina is not with us.

“Wait! My friend is still in there!” I shout, pulling free of the goons around me.

“Leave her. We gotta go!” John the driver barks.

“No fucking way!” I shove him and am about to take off running back toward the club when my phone buzzes with a text from her.

I’m okay. I’ve called 911 for Lars. I’m gonna stay until they come and try to find out what happened.

I stop fighting back and let them shove me into the limo as I type a response.

You sure? You’re safe?

Yes. I’ll text you later.

And then we’re squealing our tires out of the parking lot.

I turn to Ruth. “What the hell was that?”

She’s paler than usual. Shaking. This is not what she needed after all that happened with her sister. I pull her into a hug.

Frost is on the phone with his father, I’m guessing, his voice thin and high like he’s a twelve-year-old again and Daddy has to bail him out.

I’m kind of shaking myself. Everything happened so quickly.

Frost drops us off at the McCarthys’ house, showing little to no concern for Ruth and how she must be feeling, but she doesn’t even seem aware. I guide her upstairs and briefly consider calling her parents, but no way in hell do I want her parents to know what happened tonight—that would be the last thing they need. I get her settled into her bed, and stay with her for awhile to make sure she’s okay, occasionally nodding off in the comfy chair in the corner. Around 1 a.m. I tiptoe downstairs to the kitchen to get something cool to drink for both of us when I almost run into Mrs. McCarthy.

She’s sipping from a frosty glass of water, and when she sees me, she jumps and puts her hand on her chest, water sloshing on the marble kitchen floor. “Oh my God, Gabi, you scared the hell out of me!” But then she’s laughing. Or crying. It’s kind of hard to tell.

“I’m so sorry, Mrs. McCarthy. I didn’t think anyone else was awake.”

She looks into the empty living room, her manner distracted. “I just . . . couldn’t sleep.”

“I understand. How’s Amy?”

“She’s still not completely lucid, but she’s stable, thank God.” She shudders a bit. “I hated leaving her there, Gabriel. Hospitals out here are so . . . soulless.”

Out here. For the first time I wonder if Mrs. McCarthy preferred their life before.

She gazes at the couch where Amy lay only a few hours earlier. “They say she might never regain full use of her arm. Thank God she’s left-handed.” The last bit seemed tacked on, like she’s been taught to automatically find the good in the bad, but still doesn’t completely believe it.

She takes a deep breath and looks over at me, seeming to gather herself, and puts a bright, attentive look on her face. I guess being a mother means swallowing your true feelings a lot. “I was surprised to find you two home already when we got here. How was your night of clubbing?”

I freeze. “Oh. It was . . . fine. Fun.” Wow, that last word sounds totally tacked on.

Mrs. McCarthy doesn’t seem to notice.

“I’m so glad you and Ruth were able to have a good night with all that’s going on around here.” She looks off and out the large glass window that overlooks the dark night ocean, her eyes as distant as the horizon.

I get the sense there’s more she wants to say, but she pastes on a tired smile. “Good night, Gabriel.” She walks up the stairs, her shoulders drooping, gripping the railing with her free hand as if she couldn’t make it up without holding on.

Ruth seems to be asleep when I bring the water in, her thin arms folded over the blanket. I set the glass on the nightstand and reach to turn off the lamp. She puts her hand on my arm.

“I’m so sorry, Gabi.”

I sit down on the edge of the bed, taking her hand in mine. “For what? You couldn’t have controlled what happened tonight.”

She looks off. “It’s not just that. The disappearances, Amy . . . It’s just all so messed up.” I can see tears glistening on the edge of her lashes.

“Ruthie, you don’t have to apologize to me! I’m just sorry you’re having to go through all this.” I think about what I sensed behind her mother’s words, and it just slips out. “I’m sorry you had to move here.”

She looks over as if she’s surprised. “I’m not.”

“You’re not?”

She shakes her head, her hair making rustling noises on the pillowcase. “I mean, other than this week, I’ve been happy. I’ve met a lot of new people, I’ve faced more than a few fears, learned new things . . . I have a place here.”

I nod. “As Frost’s girlfriend.”

Her eyes flash a bit at that. “You think that’s all I’ve accomplished here?”

“Accomplished?” I stammer, “No—no, I mean—”

She pulls her hand back. “I’m tired. Good night, Gabriel.” Her voice is icy in a way she’s never directed at me before.

I fumble a bit, then stand. “Okay. Good night.”

I dig my hands into my pockets and leave to go lie down on the bed in the guest room. There, I go over the conversation. Have I even asked her what her life is like here aside from Frost and her tennis lessons? Did I ask what classes she planned to take in the fall and how she was getting to and from school? Whether she still had her film camera or had signed up to be on her school paper?

No.

Jesus, Gabriel. You can be such a selfish asshole.

Sleep evades me (no surprise there) when I’m back in my room. Every time I start to nod off, my body does this jolting fight-or-flight thing, and then I’m wide awake again. At around 2:00 a.m. a text comes in from Georgina. I wipe my eyes and look at the screen to see what she wrote.

Lars was attacked by some men who tried to throw him off a cliff.

Jesus. Did he say who it was?

He’s still traumatized.

But my friend at the hospital said he saw something in the water.

He’s a competitive swimmer or I don’t think he would have survived.

Holy shit.

In the club Lars seemed to point to Frost though, didn’t he?

Yeah, but he shuts up when the police try to get info out of him.

He says he couldn’t see any faces. But I think he knows.

Any way we could visit him tomorrow?

I’ll see what I can do. No promises.

Town offices are open tomorrow, though.

You up for some more research?

Ruth and her family will be dealing with Amy tomorrow, so yeah.

How is she doing?

Traumatized. Injured. It’s a fucking mess.

How’s Ruth doing?

Not much better.

Plus, she’s pissed at me right now.

Well, let’s solve this shit.

Then she’ll forgive you.

And I can forgive myself.

I don’t know how to respond to that, but I feel it in my gut. We both have skin in this game.

I’m in.

Chapter

Fifteen

Georgina picks me up after the McCarthys load into their car and head out to the hospital to visit Amy.

I fold myself into the passenger seat and look around. Since it’s daytime, I can see better in the dark gray interior. “Shit, this is the cleanest teenager’s car I’ve ever seen.”

Georgina navigates out of the driveway. “Yeah, I don’t like clutter.”

“Me neither. Well, I mean, I have a Funko collection. And action figures from most of the major horror movies. They’re all on my bookshelves. Oh, and I have about a thousand books.”

She shudders. “Consumerist clutter. My least favorite kind.”

I’m embarrassed when she says it that way.

“Are we still going to see Lars? Were you able to get us in? I know hospitals can sometimes be pretty strict with only allowing family to visit.”

“He checked himself out this morning, despite the doctors advising against it. My friend said he was in a yank to get out of there, and even the police couldn’t get him to say who attacked him.”

I sink back in the passenger seat. “Well, judging from his behavior in the club, he clearly blames Frost for something.”

“You mean in addition to throwing his disabled mother out on the street?”

“Yeah.” We were silent after that, the air in the car heavy.

The town clerk’s office is way different from any other institutional-type place I’ve ever been in. Shiny wood floors, modern elegant couches, and big, bright windows. We get information to access the geoportal, which has local real estate records and a file of paper documents, and hole up at two computer stations in a conference room.

We start scanning through records of every purchase of every piece of beachfront property in the last ten years. There’s a shocking amount. These rich people buy and sell real estate on a whim. But the vast majority of transactions are definitely under the Thurston name.

My eyes are starting to cross after an hour and a half.

“Wait a minute,” Georgina says, then pulls out her phone. She scrolls, then cross-checks the info with something on the computer screen. “Look, every summer there’s a large deal after each disappearance.”

She pulls up news articles on her phone about the missing people, and then references a list of real estate deals in a particular summer on the computer. “See how the dates correspond?”

I look from one electronic screen to the next. The pattern is undeniable. “So, you think people get scared about the disappearances and sell?”

“No, people who deal in this level of business are awfully hard to scare. It just seems that the deal goes through despite injunctions filed and look here—” She pulls up an article from the 1980s about protests. “Even with the community voicing their discontent.”

She starts shuffling through a pile of papers from the file folder. “There was a letter here someplace that says—where is it? Oh, here . . .” She pulls out a sheet of letterhead, looks on the newer side. “This is a carefully worded threatening letter from Frost’s father that . . .”

But I don’t hear the rest of what she says. I’m busy looking at the Thurston Properties logo at the top of the page.

“Georgina . . . look at this . . .” I point to the logo on the paper.

“Yeah? So they have a shitty sun-and-wave logo. Boomers have notoriously bad taste in graphic design.”

“No, it’s not just that.” I pull out my phone, pull up last night’s photo of the logo from Frost’s band, and put it down next to the letterhead.

“What am I looking at?” she asks, her forehead wrinkled in concentration.

I move the phone over a bit. “If you put this logo together with Frost’s producing logo, you get that symbol I’ve seen around town.”

“Wait . . . Send me that photo.” She takes a photo of the logo on the paper and then uses an app to pull them together in a new image file on her phone. She turns it around so I can see. “Is this it?”

“Wait, tip the wave a bit . . . That’s it! Yes!” I point at it. “The attitudinal limo driver, John, he has a tattoo of that symbol on his head. And I’ve seen it on car bumpers and in an alley downtown.”

She freezes and looks at me. “Wait, what alley?”

“I don’t know, it was just before the bookstore.”

Her face lights up, and she starts shoving the contents of the folder back in, logs out of the computer station, and grabs her backpack. “C’mon, let’s go.”

“O-Okay . . .” As we stop by the front desk to return the folder, I whisper, “Where are we going?”

She looks back at me as we walk to the exit, a smile spreading on her lips. “You’ll see. You might have just found a big clue.”

She drives us into town and parks right near the bookstore.

“Look, I’m always game for book shopping, but shouldn’t we be researching?” I ask.

“That’s exactly what we’re doing, GabSnows.” She unclips her seatbelt and it slides back loudly and dramatically like punctuation.

She leads us to the opening of the alley, and I stop short. I don’t hear the whispering, but I have to admit I’m not all that interested in chasing it down either. I shore my shoulders and step in between the buildings. Georgina is already looking at the spray-painted logo.

“See what I mean? But why here? On bumper stickers and tattooed on that asshole’s skull? And what does it even mean?” Some clue I found.

“C’mon.” Georgina almost bounces on her Converses as she takes off down the alley.

I rush to catch up. “My mother and horror movies taught me to avoid alleys.”

She smiles at me. “Alleys in the Hamptons are a different animal altogether.”

Yeah, but you didn’t hear the whispering.

I look around and notice there is no trash in the corners, no overpowering smell of garbage and urine. “Well, they’re certainly cleaner.”

As we walk, I notice the asphalt changes to cobblestones halfway through, and the wearing of the stones down the middle makes me think many people have trod here, and this part is very, very old. They remind me of the blue cobblestones in Old San Juan, and those are from the sixteenth century.

When we get to the farthest point, the big building that makes up the right wall ends, and I see a smaller one tucked between two others. “Wow, that’s so weird! The front door faces the alley instead of out on the street.”

“Exactly.”

Unlike the modern buildings next to it, this structure looks old as well, stone instead of brick. It has a turret like a church, but the darkness of the stone gives it a creepy gothic vibe. There are carvings around the door, all sea-related but dark. A huge fish eating a rowboat, a creature with large teeth and something sticking out from its head. “Don’t think this is a church.”

“Oh, it’s a church, all right,” Georgina says.

I step closer and look just left of the door. “Wait . . . Georgina, look at this.” I point to the symbol. It’s lighter, more delicate, and carved into brass worn with age, but unmistakable.

She smiles at me. “See? Clue!”

I run my fingers over it. “But this looks old. I thought this was Frost’s punk-ass gang’s logo or something.”

“Nah, when you showed me the images together, I thought I recognized it. Yes, it’s old. I would guess about two hundred years. The building is about twice that.” She pulls on the brass door handle, the copper worn shiny from use. The wood and metal screeches, but she can’t seem to pull it free. “The wood is warped.”

“When’s the last time you were here?”

She looks at me. “I’ve never tried to go in before. I’m not stupid.”

“But hanging with me you are now, huh?” I smile. “All the salt air wears shit down at my uncle’s condo in PR. That’s probably what’s going on here. I’ll help.” Together we pull, and slowly, the door skitters over the cobblestones. We’re only able to open it about a foot, but it’s enough for us to slip through.

The inside is dark. Very dark. There are windows up near the ceiling, but they are muted with grime, so very little sunshine makes its way in. Something crunches under my feet, but I’m not sure I want to know what (I’m picturing water bugs and shiny brown scarabs). As my eyes adjust, I see it’s empty of pews; there are just wooden crates thrown around, all facing the back. And the floor? Strewn with bottle caps, broken glass, and dirt. At least they’re not the bones of dead rats or human sacrifices, which is where my mind will always go. Several crates are stacked on top of one another to make a kind of podium with an old-looking book perched on top.

There’s an altar at the far back, the only element that is vaguely church-like, and there is something hanging on the wall that’s covered with an old sheet. Somehow I doubt it’s a crucifix. Georgina heads toward the book, and I go to the altar.

As I walk, I end up kicking rocks and debris that skitter across the stone floor, leaving trails in the dust like insects. I grab the lowest corner of the faded yellow sheet and pull. There, hung on the back wall and over the altar, is an oil painting. The paint is laid on thick, maybe with a palette knife, the colors dark, like it’s deepest night, and a slight sheen is on the surface.

I step back and see it’s a huge, winged creature, tentacles reaching out of the side of its head, with muscly, human-like arms. “Wait . . . is that—is that Cthulhu?” Suddenly, the combined logos click. “Georgina! The logo! ‘It seemed to be a sort of monster, or symbol representing a monster.’”

Georgina doesn’t look up; she continues flipping through the pages of the book. “Huh?”

Her disinterest can’t dampen my enthusiasm. “It’s a line from ‘The Call of Cthulhu’! The logos put together symbolize Lovecraft’s monster! I mean, as if rendered by a kindergartner, but still! It was a clue!”

“Holy shit. Fucking idiots.”

I walk over to her. “What? Who?”

“They read the Latin wrong. They misgendered her.”

“Her who?” My voice seems loud in the empty building.

“Everybody! Lovecraft, Frost and his crew—” She looks up at me and announces, “Cthulhu is female. Look.” The book has art plates of the creature with breasts, a smaller infant version of her wrapped around one thick, muscled leg.

“And she’s a mother,” Georgina whispers.

“So, wait, does this book predate Lovecraft?”

She chuckles. “Yeah, by, like, several hundred years.”

“Well, given how he felt about women, I’m not surprised he changed her gender.” I look down at the text that runs along the right-hand page. “You can read Latin?”

“Yup. Can’t you?”

“I can barely speak Spanish, and that’s in my blood.”

She turns the page, and there is an intricate drawing of a cliff over the ocean, with men on their knees facing the water. “It talks about a cove here too, like Frost and his goons last night, but there’s no name.”

“Wait, ‘on their knees’ . . .” My mind rewinds to last night at the club. “Does it say anything about ‘old ones’?”

Georgina runs her fingers along the lines. “Yeah, right here. ‘The Old Ones were, the Old Ones are, and the Old Ones shall be.’” She looks up at me and we both say, “Lovecraft.”

I rush to add, “Not just Lovecraft, but that first song that Frost’s band sang last night. They talked about the old ones and being on their knees like this drawing.” It’s a relief to know that things are finally beginning to connect. Then I remember that first article in the Weekly Diviner. “But you knew that already? About a secret underground group worshipping Cthulhu?”

“Yeah, but it seems the cult is larger than I first thought,” Georgina says as she continues to silently translate.

This is all tumbling through my head. “Cult, huh.” I look around at our surroundings. “So, this church is to worship Cthulhu?”

“It would seem so.”

I look around at a crushed stack of Bud Light cans. Yeah, they’re sure as shit not hundreds of years old. “So, we’re thinking Frost and his cronies are reviving the tradition?”

Georgina looks up from the book, our eyes connect, and even in the darkened room I can feel the click of the puzzle pieces. “That’s what I think. I’ve had a feeling his family is somehow involved for some time now, hence taking every chance I can to work at the Thurston house. I kept thinking I would learn something. But it wasn’t until you brought up the logos that I made the connection. I think you and I were meant to meet, Gabriel, to solve this together.”

I’m surprised by this hint of predestiny and worry it’s a sign of a more fervent belief system. Not Cthulhu but maybe something witchy. All zealots make me nervous, including my great-aunt Alma, who goes to the Catholic church in San Juan every single day. No, sir.

I clear my throat. “Georgina, so . . . does your family believe in this stuff?” I indicate around the room.

She sits down on a crate, as if she is suddenly too tired to stand. “Truth is, I don’t know what I believe. My mom and some of her generation around here believe the deaths and disappearances are a necessary evil to keep the peace. But I don’t think they acknowledge the human role in all this. The true evil in this scenario. As for me? Do I believe in Cthulhu?” She points toward the painting behind us. “Absolutely. But I think there is so much more to her mythos than these assholes are aware of.”

I sit on a crate too. I gotta think. “I don’t understand, though, what do they get out of it? The cult members, I mean.”

She pulls the book from the crate, carefully cradling the tooled leather. “It says here that . . .” She flips through the pages and reads the Latin quietly to herself, translating in her head, “‘Those among the faithful will win power beyond their imaginings, and when the time comes for Cthulhu to rule, they will share in the power to alter reality in whatever way they wish.’”

“Well, that’s not terrifying at all.” I try to imagine Frost with the power to alter reality. I shudder. Nah, I think he’s just a murdering psychopath. But that scares me even more since he’s dating Ruth. But this is not the kind of proof I need. I look over at Georgina. “Do you really believe that?”

She thought for a moment. “I mean, I don’t think she’s looking to take over the world. But I do think that just the fact that they believe she’s giving them such powers is making them more successful, whether that’s coming from her or not. Either way, religion in the wrong hands is a very dangerous thing.”

I can’t help but think of all the Indigenous people killed in the name of the Catholic church.

We’re silent for a few moments, all of this settling in. The only sound is the cooing of pigeons coming from the turrets above our heads.

Georgina stands up and starts to put the book back on the crates. “Either way, I think—”

That’s when the tumble of voices reaches us, moving along the alley outside, and stopping just outside the door.

That’s when I realize I left the door open.

Chapter

Sixteen

Georgina and I look at each other for a split second, and then we’re moving, each running to the opposite back corners of the chapel. There’s an indented alcove that probably once held a statue of some sort, but now has a broken wooden ladder leaning into it and some moldy cardboard boxes.

I slip in beneath the ladder and crouch down, by some miracle not hitting anything in my clumsiness. Luckily Georgina’s smaller size should help, and I imagine her hiding in a mirror version of this spot, near invisible in her black clothes in the dusty shadows. I flatten my back against the wall, the stone cold and rough against my shirt.

I try to quiet my breathing, though after my experience when they knocked me out on the beach, I have no doubt that if it is Frost’s men, they probably would not hesitate to kill us.

“I’m telling you, somebody was in here! Why else would the door be open?” I recognize that voice as Hank, the Southern wannabee. “Look! That creepy painting is even uncovered! God, I hate that thing.”

“Calm down, man. It was probably kids. It’s not like we can lock the front door.” I don’t know that voice, but last night there were five bodyguards. It could be any one of them.

“Yeah, but it’s still Thurston property.” He sounds like he’s whining now. “That would make them trespassers. And we’re allowed to use deadly force with trespassers.”

Yeah, if they find us, we’re dead.

The sound of feet crunching over the dust and debris on the floor. God, I feel like we’re sitting ducks here! I should have looked for a back exit, but there just wasn’t time.

“This fucking place gives me the creeps.” Hank’s voice is close. Too close.

I try to make my body even smaller, curling into myself. I’m grateful Georgina and I wear so much black.

“Would you stop whining? For Christ’s sake, you’re such a pussy.”

“Whatever, dude. Can we just do what we need to and go?”

A crate scrapes across the floor. “We gotta bring the book to the cove for tonight.”

Cove.

“I thought we weren’t supposed to take it out of the building no matter what. Or it loses its power or something.”

“Yeah, well, Frost changed his mind. Says it’s a special occasion. And since he’s the boss, he calls the shots.” Footsteps moving away from my corner. “What are you looking at?”

“Do you see these footsteps in the dust? I’m telling you, there’s someone here.”

It’s like a block of ice drops into my stomach.

They’re going to find Georgina.

What do I do? Should I throw something to distract them so she can run? No, that’s stupid, the goons are standing between her and the front door. My mind is racing, but I can’t seem to land on anything resembling a plan. Jesus, Gabriel! Think!

“Dude, you’re just fucking paranoid. Who would hide out in this creepy-ass place?”

Silence for a moment. I can picture him stepping into the corner. God, please let her be well hidden. I hold my breath for what seems to be an hour.

“Enough of this. Let’s go.” The sound of the other man’s footsteps going toward the door.

I look at the ceiling and say a silent prayer.

An impatient sigh from the doorway. “You comin’ or what?”

Pause.

Then: “Yeah. Yeah, I’m coming.” I hear Hank walk toward the front. “I still think something’s off, though.”

“Yeah, you are!” Guffaws as the door scrapes closed.

Darkness. Silence.

My entire body sinks into my dusty corner, the breath leaving in a long whoosh. I begin the challenging job of extricating myself from my hiding place, still trying to keep quiet in case they come back. I peek around the corner before I walk into the main part of the chapel.

“Gabi?” A whisper.

I let out a breath and walk toward the sound. Georgina is peeking around the matching corner to mine. “Yeah.”

In the near darkness I can just make out her shape. “You okay?” Her voice is tight.

“Yeah. You?”

She comes out in front of the altar. “Yeah, but that was close. I could smell that jerk’s beer breath; he got so near.”

“They’re idiots, but they’re dangerous. They threatened me with a gun my second night on the island.”

The teeth of her smile damn near glow in the dark. “Welcome to the Hamptons!”

I look around, and I didn’t think it could be any creepier in here, but I was wrong. With the door closed the shadows spread over everything like oil, and it feels downright . . . evil. “Can we get out of here?”

I feel her take my hand. “Be careful. It’s so dark.”

I let her lead me since she seems to see much better in here. We must be close; I can feel a slight breeze from the door. My shoulders sink a little. “Jesus, that was—”

I feel Georgina reach out with her other hand for the door handle when a low rumbling comes from beneath the floor, moving from the back of the church toward where we are standing, the crates rattling and jumping as a growl rises as if from the earth below the building’s foundation, the rolling sound so loud I can feel it across my skin, the tile floor buckling beneath me. I freeze as it rushes toward us, like the dark shadow in my vision—

“Go!” I scream and feel Georgina pull, the first scraping sound joins the rumbling, and a sliver of sun sneaks around the door. I grab for the edge now that I can see, and we pull with our entire bodies, with every ounce of energy we have, pulling the door open enough so we both slip out and burst into the alley, immediately leaning our bodies back on the door, pushing until it clatters shut, more fully shut than we had before. I collapse with my back on the door, breathing heavily, listening.

Nothing.

I can hear mourning doves cooing overhead, cars going by in the distance, a kid screaming for his brother to “give that back.”

No growling from inside or whispering from out.

My body sinks to the ground with relief.

Georgina is still standing and looks in both directions like we’re in a movie.

“They’re gone.”

“Who?”

She looks down at me with a “duh” look. “Frost’s goons? The ones that damn near caught us? Is this ringing any bells?”

“Them? They’re like kids playing gangster compared to whatever the hell—or from hell—is in that church!” I yell. “Or beneath it.” She’s still looking at me. “The growling?”

“What growling?”

I gape at her. She didn’t hear that? Damn it! “Nothing, I just . . . I’m glad to be out of there.” I start to stand, holding on to the building as I get to my feet. As I’m brushing myself off, I say, “I would have preferred to leave that place off my tourist itinerary.” Deflecting anxiety with humor. My strongest defense.

Georgina smiles. “What, you’re not going to leave a review on TripAdvisor?”

“One star: Do not recommend. It was, like, totally filthy. There was no gift shop.” We both laugh way louder than the joke warrants.

It feels good to laugh. Makes it feel almost normal. I mean, normal for standing outside a decrepit chapel dedicated to the worship of an evil cosmic deity.

“Well, I wish there were a gift shop. Then maybe you could have added a Cthulhu Funko to your collection.”

“Already have one,” I mumble, embarrassed.

Georgina sighs. “Of course you do.”

We start walking back toward the main road and the car. My body is exhausted, like it’s been drained of any and all energy, but all I have to do is think of Amy or Georgina’s brother, and I get a surge. “Well, what’s next?”

She’s right back to business, no exhaustion weighing down her features, but then again, she didn’t have to hear the growl from the bowels of hell. “They talked about a cove again. We really have to figure out which one, and by tonight, it sounds like.”

“Are there a lot of coves out here?”

She does the so-so shake of her hand. “Not a lot, really. But the island is so long, we don’t have time to make a mistake.”

“Shouldn’t we go to the police?”

“And say what? We have nothing to prove our theory, and we still don’t know what they’re planning or where, only when.”

“It’s the who they’re planning to do it to that worries me.”

“Me too. But we need more proof before we go to O’Connor. Let’s head back to the library and see if we can at least figure out which cove they’re talking about.”

“Okay, I just want to check in with Ruth.”

Hey Ruthie. Still at the hospital?

She answers right away. Not much to do in a hospital.

Yeah, but we’re going to go and grab some food. You want us to come and get you?

No, it’s okay. I’m hanging with Georgina and I think you guys need some time.

I’m so tired, G. I don’t think I’ve ever been so tired.

I pause, a band tightening around my chest. I can relate, believe me, but I’ve never known Ruth to not be bursting with energy.

Hang in there, amiga. Things will be okay. I promise.

I’m going to make sure of that.

My eyes are crossing again from all the staring at the computer station screen. I sit back and let out a long breath. I watch the older woman shelfing books from a gray metal cart, the wheels squealing as she moves it along. I say, “When I was little, I thought the librarians must know everything in the world with all these books around. I wish that were really true.”

Georgina answers without taking her eyes off the book in front of her. “My brother said libraries hold the answers to every question.”

I look over at her. She’s still staring at the book, but her eyes seem unfocused, lost in memory.

“Did you guys used to come here?” I soften the edges of my words, treading carefully.

“He would take me every Friday afternoon, even after I was old enough to take myself. It was our thing.” She pauses, then: “It was always our safe place.”

I don’t know what to say. I’ve never had anyone die on me before, and suddenly I feel very lucky.

Still not looking up, she says, “He’s why I’m doing this in the first place, so let’s get back to work.”

I nod, though I doubt she sees me.

Twenty minutes later my gaze hits something on the screen and I say out loud, “Oh my God.”

“What?” Georgina says, though I can see she’s still being pulled by the old books in front of her.

“Frost has a modeling agency. Is that what he calls it? Jesus, the guy is so full of shit.” I imagine he started it just to attract pretty girls. “Look, it has the same logo as his production company in it. There, in the center of the tree trunk.”

She looks at the screen where I’ve zoomed into the graffitied, flowering tree that Frost calls a logo. “What does the tree have to do with modeling?”

“Damned if I know. The girls are willowy, maybe?”

Georgina snorts. “Ugh.”

The ad’s call for hot girls makes my stomach lurch. Not that I thought he was, but now I doubt he’s loyal to Ruth and just the thought makes me want to strangle his scrawny neck in my bare hands.

Georgina stretches, arching her back with a groan.

I look at my watch. Seven p.m.? Shit! How did it get so late? I check my phone to see if there are messages from Ruth, but it’s dead.

I stand up so quickly the chair falls backward with my jacket on it. “I need to charge my phone, and I should go hang with Ruth. If something’s going to happen tonight, I want to make sure she’s okay.”

Georgina barely glances up from her research. “Okay, I’m going to keep going until the library closes. I feel like I’m close. I’ll text you when I find something.”

When.

Her optimism gives me hope. She needs answers even more than I do, not for the living but for the dead. “Okay, but let’s set a time to regroup.” I need to feel connected to this process; to visualize the map to next steps.

“Good idea. Okay, guys like these aren’t going to be doing anything while the sun shines. It ups their chances of getting caught, so we should have time. Give me a call at eight thirty and we’ll go from there?”

“Yeah, sounds good.” Georgina nods and goes back to her work. I turn around at the last minute. “And, Georgina?”

“Yeah?”

“Thank you.”

She looks up then, smiles at me, and says, “It’s what we do for each other.” And she puts her head back down and loses herself in her reading.

I jog out of the building, once again surprised that the sun is so low in the sky already. As I’m thinking about Ruth, I pick up speed, the rhythmic thump of my boots on the sidewalk providing an accompaniment to my jumbled thoughts. Ruth and her family are probably home, settling down in front of the TV for the night. I can already the smell the microwave popcorn greeting me as I walk in.

The thugs talked about something happening tonight, but like Georgina said we’ve got time. Still, I’ll feel better when I see Ruth and know she’s okay. Then I can get back to figuring this all out with SonicReducer with a clear head, so I pick up the pace and break into a jog.

People look at me as I pass. It’s not like I didn’t already stand out, but my running only calls more attention to myself. Not to mention the combat boots are not exactly runner’s footwear.

It takes about twenty minutes to get to her house, dodging evening traffic at each corner, snaking between people in the heart of town. When I turn onto her road, I’m relieved, and not a little out of breath.

I punch in the security code and enter through the front door. Everything is still, like the house is holding its breath.

“Hello?” I call into the cavernous living room. Silence. “Anybody home?” Nothing.

I bolt up the stairs two at a time and knock gently on Ruth’s door. It swings open on its own. Her bed is made, there’s no sign of her. I sit on her bed and put my phone on the wireless charger on her nightstand and stare at it, anxiously awaiting the appearance of partially eaten apple, willing it to charge enough for me to use. When it appears, I unlock it as soon as I can without taking it off the charger.

A missed text from Ruth.

A half hour ago.

Gabs, got an urgent message from Frost. Says he wants to talk with me. We’re back at the hospital, so he’s picking me up here. I’ll meet you at my house later.

An urgent text from Frost?

It’s 7:20 now.

Shit!

Ruth, where are you? Are you okay?

Nothing. No dots indicating typing, no received indication.

“Damn it, Gabriel! You idiot! A half hour? You miss her by a half hour?” I’m pulling at my hair, pacing back and forth on Ruth’s lush carpet.

I grab the phone, run downstairs, and tear out the front door. I have no idea which direction to go.

Frost’s. I’ll go to Frost’s house.

I start running down the driveway, then whip around the corner. A car is coming toward me, and I barely jump out of the way in time, half falling into the tall bushes in front of the house.

For a split second I worry it’s someone associated with Frost and they’re going to intentionally run me over, make it look like an accident. But as I right myself I look into the car as it passes by and see an old couple, shaking their heads at the reckless kid on the road.

My legs are vibrating.

I take a step and hear a crunch. I look down and see a familiar twist of colored leather, the large glass bead shattered on the asphalt.

Ruth’s friendship bracelet.

She would never voluntarily take that off.

My whole body is shaking now. I take out my phone and call Ruth with my remaining 1 percent of charge. The minute I tap her name, I hear the Ramones ringtone she uses for me. I whip around.

Is she here?

I look across the street, back at the house. Nothing. Then I realize the sound is coming from the bushes. I drop to my knees and push aside the greenery. I’m desperately searching in the dark beneath the branches until my fingers hit it.

As I pull my hand back from under the shrubs, extricate it, and stand up, the fading light hits the shattered glass of Ruth’s phone, a picture of me on the screen from my incoming call.

I try to catch my breath and examine my options. It’s either that or curl into the fucking fetal position in the middle of the road. Okay, first and most obvious option (a) take an Uber to the hospital and freak out the already-traumatized family only to find out Ruth is fine and prove I’m a jealous friend and even more paranoid than we all realized.

Yeah, no.

Option (b) talk to Georgina. I text her and she has do not disturb on. She’s probably still in the library. Plus, I only have 1 percent power left on my phone and I want to be able to hear from Ruth if she texts or calls.

Fuck!

Okay, third, final, and my least favorite option (c) go to the police department and talk to O’Connor, the police captain from Queens. She said to reach out to her if I remembered anything else.

I start jogging toward town. Luckily, I noticed the police station near the town hall when Ruth and I were walking around . . . was that only a week ago? It feels like months have gone by.

It seems to take forever, my legs complaining from how fast I’m pushing them, but finally I see the brightly lit exterior of the station up ahead, a row of clean, late-model cruisers lined up out front. Quite a different vibe from the one in Astoria. I rush through the glass doors and up to the officer behind the front desk.

“Hi,” I pant, trying to catch my breath as I talk, but there’s no time. “I’d like to speak with Captain O’Connor, please.”

The guy doesn’t look up from his desk; instead, I get to stare at the shiny pate of his pointy-ass head.

I glance at his nameplate, Gennaro. “Excuse me, Officer Gennaro?”

I can hear his slow hunt-and-peck Gen X keyboard clicking through the bulletproof glass. But still no sign of life.

Oh, he is SO pissing me off. “Anyone? Bueller?”

He heaves a huge sigh and looks up. “Yes?”

“Can I speak to Captain O’Connor, please? It’s urgent.”

He folds his hands in front of him on the desk like a cliché of patience. “Well, you can start with me. What’s so important?”

I look at him for a moment, really look into his face and gray eyes. Yeah, I’m just not feeling it from this guy. He reminds me of the guidance counselor at my high school who looks at his phone while dispensing advice to teenagers about their futures.

“I really need to speak to her specifically.” I can already see the no on his lips, so I soften my voice, lean forward, and ask, “We’ve spoken before. Can you at least tell her I’m here?”

An eye roll. An actual eye roll from a public servant. Actually, now that I look at him, he’s not much older than I am. “What’s your name, kid?”

Kid. Asshole. “Gabriel Nieves.”

He picks up the landline and dials. “Yeah, Captain, a Gabriel Nieves is here to see you—”

I put my face up to the bulletproof window and add, “Tell her we met at the Thurston’s house, the kid from Queens.”

He narrows his eyes at me, like if he’d known I’m the one who took him away from his dinner that night, he wouldn’t be helping me. But he repeats what I said, pauses, and says, “Copy that.” And he hangs up the phone, already picking up his pen.

Shit.

But then the door on my right buzzes.

“Down the hall, second door on the left,” he says, returning his limited attention to his paperwork as if I had never been there.

I rush over and open the door, shocked he let me in. I brush my jacket off and run my hands through my hair in a feeble attempt to look more reliable. When I get to the second door, a gunmetal-gray industrial one with a small rectangle of glass with metal mesh inside, I knock.

“Come in!” a voice calls from inside.

I open the door and peek around to see the captain sitting behind a large, scratched wooden desk. She’s talking on her cell phone but gestures for me to take one of the chairs that face her.

As I sit down, I look around. There are frames on the shelf behind her, the forced-smile faces of three different children with smatterings of freckles and matching red hair looking out into the room. A couple trophies, paperweights, and manuals fill out the rest. On the wall a faded diploma from John Jay College of Criminal Justice and a framed photograph of her and Rudy Giuliani, on whom someone has drawn devil horns over the glass.

She ends the call, puts the phone on the desk, and leans back. “So, Gabriel. What can I help you with?”

“I think something’s happened to Ruth, and I don’t know what to do about it.” It spills out faster than I planned, but just as well.

She leans forward. “Ruth McCarthy?”

I nod frantically. “She was going to meet Frost, but she hasn’t come back, and I found this in the bushes—” I place the broken phone on the desk. “And her bracelet.” I add that on top of the phone.

It looks sad in its filthy broken bead state. Hard to believe how much emotion something like that can hold.

“I think she’s in trouble.”

Her gaze switches to the phone and empty bracelet on the desk, then back to me. Then she glances at her watch. She leans back again, her old wooden chair creaking. “How long has she been gone?”

“A few hours?” My voice is smaller now; I worry my fears are about to be dismissed. Not to mention that I added an hour to that estimate, but I’ve been down this road before. No one takes teenagers seriously and it really pisses me off. “I know it’s not long, but I really think something is wrong.”

“Look, Gabriel. You seem like a good kid. But it’s not even eight o’clock. I’m sure your friend is just blowing off steam with her boyfriend. That family had a helluva week.”

I shrink a little with that. “I know. It’s just . . . I’ve known Ruth my whole life. I feel it in my gut that she’s in trouble,” I say.

She regards me for a minute, chewing on her bottom lip as she does. Then she rubs her face with both hands, like she’s trying to wipe the day off her skin. Finally she asks, “Did you talk to her parents?”

I shake my head. “They’re busy at the hospital with her little sister.”

O’Connor pins me with her dark, tired gaze. There are deep lines etched on either side of her eyes, and I get the sense she is someone who laughs easily . . . when she’s not dealing with disappeared people.

“Normally I would be telling you it’s too early to worry about her yet, but given what’s going on around here lately . . . well, I’m in no position to ignore any lead.” She stands up, the chair scooting backward like it’s been dismissed. She walks around the large desk, and I stand. “I’m going to get one of my officers looking for her, but I’m going to have to reach out to her parents first.”

“Okay.” I swallow, hard, relieved to hand this over to an adult. A professional, even.

“So how about you let us look for her, and you go back to the McCarthys’ in case she shows up, maybe even grab yourself some sleep?” The captain puts her arm around my shoulders and starts walking me out of her office and down the hall.

I can’t just let go of this. I’m in too deep. “But—”

“Look, I have a feeling she’s going to show up in a few hours, drop into bed, and sleep until noon.” We’re near the front desk now.

“Okay . . . I—”

The front door opens with a shove. A man in hip high rubber boots and a scraggly beard that almost reaches his eyes stands there holding a bag in his hand like a goldfish won at a carnival. The cop at the desk starts to address him, but the fisherman sees O’Connor.

“Cap, you won’t believe what I caught in my nets.” And with a huge gap-toothed smile, he holds up a small fishing net with a handle.

Pressing against the nylon strings of the net is a human head.

All hell breaks loose then, the cops jump up from their desks, rush across the room, and push toward the man, everyone talking at once. I’m left standing there as the captain takes the dripping net, and I feel my stomach lurch as I gape at the horror a few feet from me, the smell of the sea, fish, and death so strong I can taste it. But it’s when she pushes past me that I notice the head’s wide-open and terrified violet eyes.

It’s Lars.

I lean over and vomit into Gennaro’s garbage can.

Chapter

Seventeen

Several more cops arrive. They bag poor Lars’s head and take it away while I sit in a rolling desk chair and try to stop retching, holding my head in my heads.

“Gabriel, here’s some ginger ale.” O’Connor puts a chilled can next to me, and I take a careful sip, the sugar coating my tongue in a not-unpleasant way.

“Thanks,” I mumble.

“I’m really sorry you had to see that. You have to understand, that is not the way we handle evidence here. Henry . . . well, Henry’s a local character. He doesn’t—”

I don’t let her finish. “That was Lars. He . . . owns that pub. His mother . . .” But I can’t keep talking. My stomach lurches again.

“Yes. A good guy. I’ve known him since he first arrived in town, full of ambition and energy.” She puts her hands firmly on my shoulders. “Gabriel, it’s really important you don’t mention what you just saw. Not only would it cause a panic, but we have to notify his poor mother, and I’d prefer to get some answers first, for her. You understand?”

I just nod.

“He was a good kid. Didn’t deserve that.”

“Captain, my friend Georgina and I have been looking into it, and we think Frost’s family is connected to all this! He’s abducting—”

O’Connor pulls me to my feet and into a small office probably meant for interrogations. After she closes the door behind us, she puts her finger to her lips. “Kid, you can’t talk like that in the middle of the squad room.”

“But they’ve been buying up all the land, and—”

“And they’re the most powerful and important family in the city, Gabriel.”

“What does that matter? If they’re responsible—”

“Gabriel, in order to help, I need evidence. If you have anything concrete, I’d love to hear it.”

“Well, there’s this logo . . . and a cove . . .” As I start to talk, I remember again that I don’t have anything solid, and my face heats up. I feel tears building and I bite the side of my cheek to stop them. I look up into the woman’s face. “What about Ruth? What if that happens to her?”

Captain rubs her face again. “We’ll be looking for Ruth. But, Gabriel, it’s not safe to go around making accusations of the Thurstons. They have ears everywhere.” Her eyes dart to the door that leads to the squad room. “If you’re smart, and I think you are, you’ll keep those theories to yourself and let us dig into this. For your and Ruth’s safety.”

I turn to her, and we just look into each other’s eyes for a moment, and I know.

I know she doesn’t trust them either.

That she believes me.

That her hands are tied until we get real proof.

So much said with just a look. I nod then, feeling a few tears break loose and run down my cheeks. “Okay.”

She pats me on the back, opens the door, and pulls me into the squad room. “Good. Now go get some sleep—”

“But I’m supposed to meet my friend at eight thir—”

“Just let us do our jobs, son. Okay?”

I nod again, then allow her to shuffle me off. I’m buzzed out the squad room door, and then I’m on the sidewalk, the sky growing inky in that early night darkness. I look back in through the double glass doors and see Gennaro watching me.

Fuck him.

I take a deep, ragged breath and start walking. My stomach is still roiling and my bad feelings about Ruth have only grown as I walk back to her house in a daze.

It’s as if my feet are moving all on their own, my mind spinning. I enter the door code and make my way through the silent house. I open Ruth’s door without knocking first since I know she’s not there. Still, the crisply made and empty bed greets me like a slap.

I pull the door closed and lean my head against it. On one hand, I know it’s not late, that if her family and the police aren’t worried, I shouldn’t be either. But my roiling gut is still telling me something different. I think about her parents, probably sleeping in uncomfortable hospital chairs, waiting for good news about Amy. I think about the police dealing with yet another dead body, or part of one.

No.

I can’t just sit here and wait. I look at my watch. Seven twenty-five. I can’t wait nearly another hour. I text Georgina again, needing to tell her about Ruthie and Lars, but get no response before my phone dies again.

I go back inside Ruth’s room to use the charger. When my phone finally turns on again, I see that Georgina still hasn’t texted back. She’s likely at the library. I have to get there, but I need to get there faster. I remember Ruth telling me they had bikes in the garage.

I pull my phone from the charger (4 percent will have to do for now) and run downstairs and into the connected garage. I turn on the light to find a room bigger than our entire house, with two high-end vehicles glistening and sleeping in their bays. But beyond, at the far end, I see a series of bicycles hanging from the wall.

I grab what I imagine is Mr. McCarthy’s and bring it back through the house so I won’t have to open the garage and call attention to myself. I roll it through the front door, turn on the front and back lights on the fenders, and jump on as soon as I’m in the driveway. It’s a fat-wheeled bike, probably for riding on sand, and I’m used to street bikes, but I get the hang of it pretty quickly.

As I pick up speed, feeling the wind in my hair, I remember bike rides with Ruthie around the neighborhood, her insisting on “shortcuts” that only made the trip longer and how much I didn’t mind. We used to take them out to a special candy store in Woodside, the only one that had the tropical-flavored Swedish Fish she loves so much. We would ride home exhausted but fueled by pure sugar and artificial coloring.

I get to the library so much faster than I did running and drop Mr. McCarthy’s bike into the flowers just outside the library’s front door. But when I pull on the handle, the doors are locked.

Shit!

Wait, she works there. She must have a key!

I bang on the door three times, then wait and listen. Nothing. I do it again but am only rewarded with silence.

I text Georgina one last time, but she must still have her phone on do not disturb. I use my near-dead one to google her, find her last name on the library’s staff page. Maybe she stopped at home after the library. I find a Josefina Ramirez with an address between here and the old woman Magda we visited. That has to be her mother. Well, not has to be, but could be.

It takes about thirty minutes to get to Georgina’s neighborhood, but I breathe better the minute the neighborhoods change. A brown guy dressed completely in black on a very expensive bike at night? I didn’t feel that was the safest scenario in Ruth’s neck of the woods. I pull up the GPS really quickly, knowing that’s going to eat what little charge I have, but I get enough of a sense of location that I can put it away before it completely dies.

I turn onto a street of row houses and pedal my way to the address of what I hope is Georgina’s house. I dismount in front of a run-down home with overturned plant pots and a broken plastic chair upended in the yard, grass growing in erratic spikes in between the debris on the lawn. There’s a car in the fenced-in driveway, but it’s not Georgina’s. I decide to knock anyway.

I walk up the front path, carefully avoiding the cracked concrete. I stand at the door for a moment, thinking about how crazy it is to just show up at someone’s house unannounced, but there are lights on inside, so I swallow and knock. I don’t hear anything and am about to rap my knuckles a little harder when the door suddenly swings inward.

I jump a bit but quickly arrange a smile on my face for the disheveled woman standing in the doorway. “Mrs. Ramirez?”

“Yeah? What do you want?” she barks. She’s dressed in a stained robe, her hair a nest atop her head, but in her appearance, I can see an older version of Georgina, a map of lines on her face showing a history of hardships and loss.

“I’m sorry for bothering you, but I’m a friend of Georgina’s and she hasn’t been answering my calls. She was at the library earlier, but I must have missed her. It’s really important that I talk to her. Is she here?”

“No, she’s not home.”

“Do you have any idea where she might be?”

She waves her hand in dismissal. “I gave up keeping track of that kid when she turned fifteen. I hope she’s bartending somewhere; we could use the money.”

Standing there, on the falling down stoop to her house, talking to her mother, I feel as though I’m getting a glimpse into Georgina’s life. My throat tightens a bit as I imagine how her brother’s death threw the household into a downward spiral. “You must be worried about her . . . out so late with all that’s going on.”

She gives me a blank look.

I continue. “All the missing people?”

She gives a shrug. “Long as I’ve been around, that’s just part of living here.”

She opens the screen door, and it takes me a minute to realize she’s inviting me in. I follow behind her as she lights a cigarette, then swipes a pile of open magazines off a cushion on the worn couch. I perch there as she settles into a green corduroy recliner. She picks up her phone and starts poking at it with her long, pointed nails, heart-shaped rhinestones encrusted on the end of each. The similarity to her daughter is gone now. In fact, it’s hard to imagine this woman raising my friend.

I cough, then just . . . start talking. What else can I do? Ask for the remote and see what telenovela is on? “See, I want to talk to Georgina because I can’t find my friend Ruth.” I avoid mentioning Lars to Señora Ramirez, given O’Connor’s plea. “And I’m worried about her. She and I—your daughter, I mean—we think the disappearances might all be connected.”

She looks up at me, her hazel eyes suddenly fiery. “Of course they’re connected.” She looks back at her phone.

What? I remember then what Georgina told me about her mother and her generation’s beliefs. I decide to dig deeper. “So you think so too?”

Without looking up from her phone, she says, “I know so.”

I don’t say anything, forcing myself to stay silent, see if she’ll say more. After three very long minutes, I start to wonder if she even remembers I’m here.

She lets out a loud sigh and puts the phone on the worn armrest of the recliner. “Our family has lived here for generations. These disappearances have been happening ever since this area was founded.”

“But why doesn’t anybody talk about this in the rest of the city? I mean, what is going on?”

She looks off in the distance for a moment, then when her gaze returns to me, I see that weird fire in her eyes, like she’s been plugged in or something. “There’s a price for living here.”

“Yes, I know! And I’m wondering if the real estate deals that are driving the costs up are somehow tied to—”

But she’s shaking her head. “No, not that kind of price.” She sits forward, her elbows leaning on her thin knees. “There are powers here that you can’t understand. Old powers. Those of us who’ve grown up here have always believed and respected them.”

I fight off a shudder. I don’t want our conversation to go in this direction, but if it is the only way to keep her talking . . . “What kind of powers?”

One side of her mouth lifts and a slow, frightening grin snakes across her face. “The god kind.”

Fear spreads like ice water through my veins. Though even if Georgina’s mother is as wacko as I’m beginning to think she is, she’s certainly no threat to me. The fear is more about how she’s saying all this rather than what she’s saying. There’s no emotion, no concern, just blind acceptance. I swallow. “What kind of god?”

Her face rearranges itself, almost like different people are seeing out of her eyes from one moment to the next. “The oldest kind. The kind you don’t fuck with. The kind that takes your oldest child.”

The last sentence drops between us like bricks, the weight threatening to fall through the floor and into the earth. She believes some kind of god-monster took her son. Empathy floods through me like heat.

“I’m sorry,” I say so softly I’m not sure she can hear. Why am I here haranguing a poor disturbed woman who lost her only son?

She sits back again, breathing heavy like she’s just finished running a marathon. Her eyes are looking off into the distance again and I wonder what she sees there. Her son? The god? Hell?

After a minute of just the sound of her breath, two, I begin to think it’s time for me to get out of this poor woman’s hair, when she speaks again.

Her voice is thin, worn, like the fabric on the couch, barely containing the stuffing within. “We just have to accept that sacrifices must be made. She’s always hungry.”

The words of Magda, the woman on the train platform, Abuela all flood back. Four women, one of them thousands of miles away, all talking about waking her, about something coming, something evil.

“And my daughter, Georgina, she’s always fighting it, questioning it.” Her eyes are back on me again, the twin flames sputtering behind the glassy surface of her eyes. “I miss him too, but it won’t bring him back . . . and it will only make her angrier.”

“Make Georgina angrier?”

“No! Are you not listening, Gabriel?”

I didn’t tell her my name.

Did I?

The air begins to feel impossibly thin in the messy, overstuffed living room. I have to leave so I can breathe.

I stand up with a jerk. “I think I’ve taken up enough of your time, Señora Ramirez. Can you tell Georgina that I stopped by?” The last bit feels really surreal, like this was just a normal sit-down with a friend’s parent.

She shrugs again, then picks up her phone and begins her pointy-nailed poking.

“Okay, well . . . I’ll just see myself out, then.” I don’t even know why I’m still talking. She’s certainly not listening. I wipe my hands on my pants and walk quickly to the door and out onto the front walk. It isn’t until I step onto the sidewalk in front of the house that I start breathing again.

I grab the bike from inside the gate and close the latch behind me, but when I lift my leg to get on, the street starts to tip, and another vision blasts me like a slap in the face.

I can hear the surf, but not in the Hamptons. Warmer, calmer, and more turquoise waters. Then I notice the cinnamon sugar sands of that beach in Puerto Rico beneath me as I run . . . or wait, someone’s carrying me. A man. I hear an echo of a little boy’s screams, of my screams, bubbling, as if from underwater . . . I take deep breaths, working to push the memory back down, trying to stop the street from spinning.

Get a hold of yourself, Gabriel!

My father’s voice barks in my head, the edges of his words worn down by alcohol.

“Shut up!” I yell in the empty street, and slam my open palms against my ears, trying to silence him but he’s already inside my head.

I squeeze my eyes shut, but the memory is still there, playing out like a movie projecting on the back of my eyelids. But nighttime has fallen over the ocean and the landscape shifts. I turn around and see an entrance to a cave in the distance that wasn’t there moments ago, it’s rocky walls lit by torches, the sounds of the ocean angry now, pushing at me from behind.

Where the hell am I? This can’t be the same memory. But I find I can’t move anymore; my hands seem to be bound. Another scream rings out, this time a man’s.

It’s me.

I’m screaming.

The sound jolts me, my eyes fly open, and it’s gone. The beach, the sun, the cave, my father. Everything. I’m pulled back to Georgina’s street as if I never left, which of course I didn’t. My scream still echoes against the buildings on either side.

Was that my father carrying me in the beginning? Yelling at me?

I shake my head, hard, trying to clear it like an Etch A Sketch.

I can still hear my father yelling at me, the surf beyond. Why does that day keep pushing its way up through my brain? And what is the connection with the cave? Since it doesn’t fit with the other memory, could it be its own message?

If so, damned if I know what it’s about. Abuela said the childhood one was to warn me away, to get me to leave. But what if this one is a warning from the future, not the past?

I can google images and see if I can find the actual cave, if it’s even real. I pull out my phone, but it greets me with its shiny black screen of death. I can charge the phone at Ruth’s house and see if she’s shown up. If the cave is in the Hamptons, it can’t be anything but a sign—one that will hopefully lead me to her.

I jump on the bike and start peddling furiously down the street, anxious to get there but also to put that conversation with Señora Ramirez far behind me. As I go, I notice neighbors peeking out from behind curtains.

The last few hours have been a living nightmare. Lars’s head, Georgina’s mother, the sad house that seems to have had all the life bled from it, and the memory that only comes back in fits and starts.

And then there’s my father’s voice. I’ve heard it before, but never that loud.

I can’t think about all that shit, I need to focus. I look at my watch: eight fifteen. Georgina should be calling me any minute now, but I won’t be able to answer if my phone is still dead. I head in the direction of the McCarthys’.

Ruth. I have to focus on saving Ruth.

I’m pedaling faster and faster, desperate to get back.

It’s getting hard to see with the tears streaming from my eyes. Partially from the wind, partially from fear for Ruth, and partially from my father’s abusive voice that’s still yelling in my head, feeling like a punch across time.

Chapter

Eighteen

I finally turn the corner onto Ruth’s road at eight forty, the feeble bike light barely cutting through the heavy darkness. What do they have against streetlights on this fucking island?

I whip the bike around the hedged corner of her house and only get a few feet toward the entrance when suddenly I’m flying through the air, watching the bike wobble, roll, and ultimately crash in front of me as I fall on my ass.

I’m trying to spin around when someone jerks me to my feet, nearly wrenching my arm from its socket.

“What the fuck?! Let go of me!” I scream, flailing my fists, but there are too many hands pulling, punching, yanking.

We’re in the dark shadow of the greenery, and I try to see faces. Who has me? But it’s just a whirlwind of fists and arms and blue-jeaned legs, but weirdly no voices. Pain erupts in my jaw, the back of my head, my leg. I fight like hell, the way my father taught me, forcing me and my brother to spar, barking tips at us as we reluctantly threw punches at each other.

I hear a van door slide open behind me, then I’m being picked up, my body bucking like a horse, and I hit the floor of the van with a slam, the ridges of the sides digging into my back. The hollow sound of my head hitting the metal side is amplified.

I’m struggling to get up when the door slides shut in front of me. I finally get to my hands and knees, and reach, desperate to find a handle, but there’s nothing inside. I futilely bang on the door with my fists.

The engine starts up and the van roars backward, throwing me forward, my shoulders smashing against the wall, then it peels forward onto the road. I’m thrown back, my body tumbling toward the back door, my head thunking with each spin.

I must pass out for a bit, ’cause the next thing I know, I’m lying squashed into the back corner, drool (or blood) trailing from my mouth. I try to sit up, but the pain that flames through my skull is more than I can stand, so I lay my head down again until the world stops spinning. I start to make out voices coming through a small, wired window leading to the front cab.

“This is good. This is good, right?” The voice sounds nervous. And weaselly.

“Fuck if I know. I’m just glad Gennaro called, or else this asshole could make real trouble for us.”

Oh, that could only be the Southern guy, Hank.

Gennaro. Gennaro . . .

The officer at the front desk at the station! I can see his nameplate on his desk. I remember him watching me as I stood outside. I knew there was a reason I didn’t like him.

“I wasn’t even supposed to be working tonight! I had tickets to the Yankees game!”

“Don’t bitch at me. Cameron’s the one who didn’t show up.”

Cameron. Wait, is he dead? Nah, these goons would know if he were. Does that mean he got out? Good for him. Wish he’d gotten me out first.

I start banging on the wall, my hands already sore from the fighting. “Hey! Assholes! Where are you taking me?”

They smack back in response, the sound echoing through the empty cargo space. “Keep it down in there!”

“Fuck you!” I start banging over and over, the metal cold beneath my fists. “Where’s Ruth? What have you done with her, you bastards!”

My breath is coming in harder and harder, but I keep beating the divider with my hands, my arms, then kicking at the metal, snot flying from my nose.

“If you hurt her, I swear to God, I’ll kill you!” I roar, but they just slide a metal door over the window, and I’m left in the dark, windowless van, with only thin threads of light coming in between the back doors.

I scurry back there and try the handles. No good; they’re locked. Is there something I could wedge between the doors?

I pat my pockets, but all I have is my dead cell phone. My house keys are back in my duffel bag, but they wouldn’t have helped anyway.

I touch my watch to light it up. Nine p.m. on the nose. Is Georgina okay? Her unanswered texts don’t seem so innocent now.

Was she just late to our call or is she trapped in a van of her own? Or worse?

I slump down and bury my face in my arms. I’ve never felt so helpless, so full of rage, in my entire life, and I’ve spent a lot of time angry. All those fights with my older brother that ended with him pulling my arm behind my back, forcing me to give, hoping to appease our father and keep my brother from hurting me more than he already had. I could almost taste the hate and impotence I felt when I finally gave in, despising them both in that moment.

Then I remember the anger I felt when anyone even mentioned my father after he left when all I wanted was to forget he ever existed. I mean, really, he didn’t play much of a role in my life before he left. I think I missed the idea of a father more than the one I was given. Truth is, Mr. McCarthy was way more of a father figure for me than my own ever was. Just the thought of Ruth’s father makes my chest hurt. He couldn’t possibly know what’s going on here, right? No, in my heart I know he doesn’t. He would never risk the safety of his family. But would they hurt him? Sure they would.

God, I feel powerless. I felt it when I was a kid, I feel it now, but so much worse.

I’m six feet, bigger than my brother and my father, and as close to manhood as I could be. A lot of people would say that I shouldn’t ever have to feel that way again. But I know that’s ridiculous. I’ve never seen anyone more powerless than my fucking father, and he was a college football player.

I swipe the tears away as if they had wronged me, the anger sparking off my skin. I bang my hand one more time on the van’s floor just to emphasize the futility of my situation. I listen helplessly to the smooth road whir beneath the tires.

The van turns, then turns again, and the smell of the ocean starts to get stronger, the roar of the waves louder and louder. There, helpless in the dark, that memory pushes its way back in, taking advantage of my helplessness. It fills itself in some more, like a puzzle I’m being forced to solve, fitting pieces in, the image becoming clearer and clearer against my will.

I’m back at that fucking beach in Puerto Rico, I still don’t know what year, but I was little, my legs still insulated with the fat of childhood as I looked at them under the clear turquoise water. I glanced back at the shore and saw my family spread out on the nearly empty beach, my mother perched under an umbrella in her dark sunglasses, my father right beside her, a pale shell among the warm coquina color of my maternal family.

Between and among them were coolers brimming with cool drinks and beer for the adults and plates of steaming fried plantains, the starchy smell of my aunt’s cod fritters reaching for me like an old friend. I wanted to go back and eat, but I was drawn to the deeper water and walked out a little farther.

My mother didn’t usually let me go in beyond my knees, but Jorge was out beyond the breakers Jet Skiing with our cousin Javier, their whooping and yelling riding back to us on heavy breezes. Me? I just wanted to feel the water at my waist, on my shoulders. Little by little I walked in, the dangerous waves made mild by the seawall farther out. I loved the way my body felt weightless in the salt water, the gentle waves buoying me.

I pulled down the goggles that my uncle gave me over my eyes and dipped below the surface of the water. I could see the sand beneath, strips of seaweed waving at me along the sea floor, thin, clear fish with long noses darting in and out.

I was about to stand up when I noticed a flurry of sand coming toward me like a storm from the deeper part. I squatted down, curious as to what could be making all that fuss. I remember excitedly thinking I might see a dolphin or maybe a leatherback turtle! But as it got closer and closer, I saw something moving among the clouds of sand, then a flash of green, and . . . the tip of a tentacle.

I backed up, my small feet stumbling on the uneven ocean floor, just as the eyes appeared right in front of me. They were yellow, yellow like what I saw next to Frost’s boat. It was a sea creature of some type, but the eyes . . . though they had triangular pupils, the look felt human, filled with anger the way my father was when he and my mother fought, which was more and more often. But then they blinked, and green skin closed the wrong way over the eyes, the waving tentacles coming closer and closer reaching for me.

I reared up, my arms flailing, my feet trying to find purchase, desperate to run but afraid to turn my back on the creature. I was screaming underwater, the sound sputtering when I was able to get my head above the waves, but I couldn’t seem to get any closer to shore. It was like the sand underneath me was shifting, pulling me deeper as I desperately tried to get away. And then I was above the water, strong hands pulling me up and holding me tight against a hairy chest.

Earlier, I had assumed it was my father, but when I look up in the memory, it was my uncle Esteban carrying me out of the water in his strong arms. “I know it was scary, m’ijo. But you’re going to be okay.” His voice in my memory is soft and calming.

I coughed hard, spitting salty water up and out of my lungs, then stretched up to look over his shoulder and back the way we’d come. Just as he stepped out of the water, I saw the end tip of a tentacle wave from where I’d been. I imagined the creature walking out of the water and following me, tracking us back to Abuela’s, finding me in my borrowed bed.

I began screaming harder then, the sobs coming so close together I started to choke. Snot mixed with seawater as it poured from my nose.

My uncle put me down on the sand, and my parents were there, my father’s speech slurred as he asked questions of me I didn’t have the breath to answer, my mother cooing her comforting mom sounds. All the adults were talking at once, asking me what had happened. As soon as I could talk, I told them about the creature with the triangular pupiled eyes, about the arms with suctions cups on them that reached for me, tried to pull me farther into the sea.

I remember the adults laughing, talking about kids’ imaginations, my mother making excuses for me. I became furious, insisting that it was true.

Then my father slapped me, hard.

Both my small child body and my eighteen-year-old body jolted back with the shock.

I was stunned, my chubby hand rushing to my reddening cheek. I looked over at my mother, waiting for her to protect me, but she did nothing, she only looked away. My Puerto Rican family stared at the three of us, their faces full of pity for me but still doing nothing as my father yelled at me to calm down and stop talking nonsense. I looked back up at my uncle and saw him looking at my father with rage in his eyes, but my mother noticed too and scooped me up and corralled my father to leave.

It was the first time he’d ever turned his anger on me, but certainly not the last. But worse? I had seen something in that water, I knew it, but he didn’t believe me.

He never believed me. Never believed in me.

As my mother walked with me perched on her hip, my whole body bouncing with her footsteps, I remember feeling enraged, powerless, silenced.

Kind of like now.

I’m pulled out of the memory when the van comes to a stop, and the back doors fly open. I launch myself through the opening, desperate to escape and find my friends, but I’m immediately caught by one of the goons.

With the moon higher now, I can make out their faces and am not surprised to see another of Frost’s security guys. They pull me across the sand as I kick and punch as much as I can, but they have a tight hold of me. They haul me through a copse of palm trees and along the front of a tall cliff of rocks.

“You fucking idiots! Someone is bound to come down to the beach and see you and call the police!”

“Private beach access, genius. No one is coming for you.”

Shit! I look around wildly, trying to figure out exactly where we are, but what the hell do I know about the Hamptons? I know it’s a dangerous fucking place, that’s what!

Why didn’t they cover my eyes? A rush of cold settles in my stomach as I realize it’s because I’m not making it back from wherever they’re taking me. The thought terrifies me beyond anything I’ve ever felt, but there’s something in my chest that tells me everything I’ve been through in my life, including these recent visions and memories, has prepared me for whatever awaits me tonight. Well, as best as one can be prepared when they’re descending into hell in the middle of the Hamptons.

Someone’s shouting from above, and I look up and see a ledge that teeters over the water, a platform carved within the rocks and sand dunes, and behind it . . .

The entrance to a cave.

The cave.

The cave from my visions.

Jesus Christ. I hate being right all the time.

Can I see the future now? And if so, fuck all good it did me!

Wait, does this mean I’m closer to Ruth? Or to my own death? Why can’t this gift be straightforward for once?! A caution sign or maybe Keep Out?

As we get nearer, it’s like the familiar walls are mocking me, flickering with the lights that line the walls and walkway. Just to add to the nightmarish ambiance, there’s music playing too, probably that group from hell we saw at the club, but you can barely hear it over the roar of the ocean. The surf is angry tonight, just like in my vision. It’s unceasing crash of waves reflecting the feelings in my own body.

It’s harder going as they try to get me up and over the rocks, climbing and hauling me along. I’m not even fighting them at this point, I figure I should save my energy for whatever they have planned for me in the cave. But as we get closer to the entrance, I remember something from a horror movie. A hostage technique.

I let my body sink, turning it to dead weight. At first, it seems to be working: they’re having trouble lifting me, but then two more guys come over from the entrance and take my legs. Then I’m being carried by my four limbs as if I were about to be tied to a spit, cooked, then fed to a racist caricature of a cannibalistic tribe, probably with culturally appropriated bones in their noses.

I’m bucking my entire body now, twisting and turning, but the more I do that, the more it feels as if they will pull me limb from limb. I finally just let my body slack and look around. If I can’t escape with strength, at least I can use my brain. I look around the entrance to the cave and see a bunch of cranes poking up over the nearest edge. I look down to the beach and see construction equipment. Wait a minute . . .

Private beach.

Construction.

Suddenly the tree in the logo pops into my mind and I realize what it is—it’s a fucking white poplar.

White Poplar Luxury Apartments.

Way to be obscure, Cameron!

As we arrive at the entrance, I see there really are literal torches burning on either side, and from the glow coming from the cave, it is filled with them. Like a goddamn movie set. I resort to the one tool I’ve always had when I feel powerless: my smart-assedness. I figure at least I can enrage them before they kill me. “What’s up with the tiki torches? Were they out of battery lamps at Home Depot?”

One of them leans into my shoulder, putting his mouth and cruddy teeth right next to my face.

“That wouldn’t be very atmospheric, now, would it? We’ve been doing this ritual since before your great-grandparents got it on.”

I flinch. “Eww. Keep my ancestors’ sex lives out of your mouth! And when was the last time you brushed your teeth? Your breath stinks, you revolting bastard!”

The guy just cackles, and I wonder who the hell cast this movie? They could have found someone less stereotypical, more convincing.

We pass through the entrance to the cave, and I see guys standing around on either side, some holding torches, others with rifles held in front. “Wait, where are the women? Oh right, the only way you guys can get women is to abduct them!”

The same guy chuckles. “Oh, we have a woman tonight. One I think you know.”

My head jerks at this, trying to see around the inside of the cave. They pull me upright, zip-tie my hands in front of me, and slam me to my knees near the cave wall.

“Hi, Gabs,” a tired voice says next to me.

Chapter

Nineteen

I whip around and see Ruthie beside me, her hands also tied, her eyes dark and hollow. I lurch over and throw my tied arms around her, hugging as tightly as I can in the awkward position. My heart is full and breaking all at once.

“I never thought I’d see you again,” I say softly into her flower-scented hair.

“I know,” she whispers.

I pull away and stare into her face. “Are you okay? Did they hurt you?”

She shakes her head. As I look her over, I notice just how small she is, slight like a branch. I forget that ’cause her personality can be so huge, it makes her seem much bigger. I feel a new wave of rage take over. Her bloodshot eyes glance up at someone walking toward her, and I only need to see them narrow to know who it is.

“I’m sorry, Gabs. Seems you were right about him. I should have listened.” The words are spit from her mouth like a curse.

I look up and see Frost strutting toward us, a stalk covered in brightly colored silk. The only nod to discretion is a black Givenchy knit cap over his close-cropped head like a burglar. Even that had to be fucking designer. He stops in front of us and looks down. I can tell he likes looking down at people.

He points to Ruth and me on the ground. “BFFs forever, am I right?” He grins and I notice a flash of gold on his teeth. Lord, he’s even wearing a grill.

“Let her go, Frost.” My voice is low and steady.

“Yeah, you know that’s not going to happen, dontcha, Gabi? What, you learn that line from a movie and you’ve just been dying to use it?”

“Just like you’ve been waiting to wear the entire Versace line all at once? What, did you knock over a delivery truck or something?”

A few of the guys around us snicker, quickly smoothing the smiles from their faces when Frost glares at them.

His eyes flame a bit. “I could buy that company three times over, shithead.”

“Maybe you should. Then you wouldn’t be buying up the entire coastline and displacing the people that actually live here, or, as you seem fond of doing, killing them.”

“Oh, always standing up for the little guy, aren’t you? I’ll have you know my great-great-great-grandfather built this fucking town.”

“Well, good for him! What do you think he’d do if he knew what you’d become?”

He was strutting now, back and forth in front of us like a caged lion. Or actually, we’re the ones in the cage and he’s taunting us. “I’m continuing his legacy. He’d be proud. But you wouldn’t know anything about that, would you, Gabriel?”

I feel the skin on my head tighten, my eyes narrow.

“That’s right; I looked into you. Your father couldn’t stand your geeky ass and took off to the West Coast.” He squats down and leans his face close to mine as I huddle with my bound limbs. “That must have hurt, huh? Went off and left you and your spic mother—”

The familiar flame of rage roars in my belly, rushes up through my chest. I pull back my head and bash it into his, knocking him backward onto the floor. In the chaos that follows—sycophants helping him up and Frost rubbing his head—I can almost forget the pain in my own forehead.

“You always did have a hard-ass head,” Ruth says from beside me, and as I struggle to get back up to my knees again, I laugh. Loud. Which only seems to enrage Frost further as he stumbles to his feet, refusing the help of his cronies.

I watch him for a second, my body weirdly calm. “Wow. Talking about movies, you’ve clearly watched too many. It’s like you’re a kid acting out some boomer bad guy from Lethal Weapon.”

“Nah, I’m thinking one of the Fast & Furious movies,” Ruth says beside me, and I nod at her. “He always had a hard-on for John Cena.”

Frost darts forward at that, pulls her head around by the hair.

I lurch toward them, but Ruth’s chauffer, John, comes up behind and pulls me back, punching me in the face for good measure. I look up at him, blood streaming from my nose, pain echoing in my skull like a church bell. Why do these guys always have to hit in the head?

He squats down to my level as if we’re chatting. “I’ve wanted to do that since I first saw you at that shitty Queens train station,” he says with a smile.

I spit blood onto his smug face and try to ignore the throbbing. “How nice for you, then.”

I turn back to Ruth and Frost. He’s put his bony face right up to hers, and I can see matching anger flaring behind her eyes.

“I think you should keep your mouth shut, princess. I was just with your flat ass because of your father’s investment in our project.”

I look over at Ruth, and though there’s no hurt on her face, only anger, I can tell by the slight twitch of her lip that she’s fighting off tears.

Frost wasn’t done. “Now? I don’t need you, and thanks to your BFF here, they’re going to blame your disappearance on him.”

He stands up and starts pacing again. “I tried to tell you, but you didn’t listen! Gabriel here was so jealous, he couldn’t stand to see you living a lush life, dating, having parties. You moved into another class, and he just couldn’t handle it.” He stops in front of me and smiles down, sure he’s won.

I look over at Ruth. “It’s true.”

She and Frost say at the same time, “What?”

I keep my eyes on my friend. “I am jealous.”

Her face crumples. “Gabi, it’s not like I chose this.”

I nod. “I know. I know that. And it’s not about money, or anything. It’s just . . . we were inseparable since day one, you know? And then things started to change, you and your family started building a new life, and I felt . . . left behind.”

“I tried, Gabi. But you never wanted to do anything. Just wanted to stay in your room with the black walls.”

“Yeah, that was stupid. I think I thought if I did what I always did, things would stay the same.” I look into her eyes. “But that isn’t fair to you.”

Tears stream down her cheeks now. “Things change, G. But I will always love you.”

I smile, though I’m crying now. “Me too.”

An impossibly loud crack explodes in front of us, so loud the entire cave echoes. Ears ringing, we look up to see Frost holding a substantial handgun in the air, smoke coming from the barrel. Pieces of rock from the cave ceiling drop to the floor around him, one chunk hitting the nearest thug in the head and knocking him to the floor like a bowling pin.

“Enough of this sentimental bullshit!” Frost screams, spit flying from his thin lips. “Besides, it’s a waste of everyone’s time, since, if you haven’t figured it out yet, neither of you is making it out of here alive tonight.”

Okay, that hits me harder than a punch in the stomach, but I fight to keep my expression even. I’ll be damned if I’m going to let this asshole think he can get to me. If torturing Frost is the last thing I do, I can die happy.

Ruth narrows her eyes at her ex. “My family will make sure you hang for this.”

Frost laughs. “Honey, your father’s wealth is now tied to my family! Today he bought in on the White Poplar deal, investing pretty much all of his new money. Your money. There’s no way he’ll question anything and lose the security he worked so hard to build.” He points to me. “And your little friend here, well, no one’s going to be looking for him.”

I tilt my head at him in question. “Do you actually know any Puerto Rican families?”

“Clearly not,” Ruth offers from next to me. Then to Frost, she says, “You should meet Gabi’s grandmother.”

“Actually, I’d pay money to see that cage fight,” I add.

“My money’s on Abuela.”

“Enough!” Frost doesn’t shoot the gun again, but his usually pale face is beet red and he’s huffing like a bull.

I can’t help but poke my finger into the wound. “Oh my, Ruth! I guess our banter is pissing him off.”

“Excellent. It always was a superpower of ours.”

Frost slides his jaw back and forth, then nods at John the asshole chauffer and one of the other Hamptons gangsters (what an oxymoron that is: Hamptons gangsters), and they lift us up. They begin dragging us to the edge of the cliff. The minute we realize where they’re taking us, both Ruth and I begin to jerk and writhe, trying to loosen their grasp. That just gets us more captors.

We’re standing back-to-back at the edge of the cliff. Ruth leans her head against mine and asks, “Got any escape techniques from those horror movies of yours?”

I shake my head. “I’ve been trying to think of something, but I gotta tell you, my brain isn’t working like it normally does. Seems really being taken captive is so terrifying that planning is a challenge. They don’t show that in the movies.” And it is terrifying. Dying was not part of either of our summer plans.

I peer over the edge and see that the tide has come in, the roiling surf that much closer, that much higher.

Frost is silent as he looks out over the water, his eyes scanning the horizon. “Where is he?” he murmurs.

I turn to him. “Who you looking for, shitweasel?”

His face lights up in a sadistic way. “Oh c’mon, Gabi! You’re a horror fan, so you should know our pet monster! He’s going to love meeting you too.”

“She, actually,” I respond, remembering what Georgina told me about Cthulhu. And the old woman at the train station. And Magda. And Abuela. Jesus, guess I should start listening to old ladies more often.

I shake my head to get my thoughts back on track. “Are you looking for your Cthulhu knockoff?”

He looks over at me, amused. “Knockoff? He’s an ancient god and he deserves your reverence.”

“First of all, don’t misgender her. Cthulhu is a she. You should know that from the illustration in your creepy book. And clearly she has shit taste in men if she’s hanging out with the likes of you!”

He stands up straighter. “It was my ancestor who woke him first.”

I hear the old woman from the train’s voice in my head: They woke her! They woke her and she’s angry.

“Yeah, and apparently your ancestors couldn’t translate Latin.”

“That’s not the point! You can’t even imagine the success that creature has brought to my family since those early generations. Hell, we built the Hamptons, but our luck was starting to fade until my father had the ledge under our house blasted and that woke him again. I pulled out my great-great-great-grandfather’s book—” He points over to the tome that he’s placed on an outcropping of rock in the cave.

“Wait . . . you can read?” I can’t help myself, seriously.

He ignores me. “Then I learned how to keep him awake all summer, and each year our wealth grows.”

“Oh, it’s that easy, huh? You just murder dozens of innocent people each summer? Throw them to their deaths and then go out for beers?”

“First, no one is innocent. And second, technically, I don’t murder anyone.”

“You expect us to believe that a pale daddy’s boy like you called forth an ancient cosmic god and used her to make money?”

Frost grins at me. “What, the horror geek doesn’t believe in the supernatural?”

For the first time, a quick comeback doesn’t pop into my head. Usually they’re like shark teeth, one waiting directly behind the other so I can fight with my wit. But the truth is, I do believe. I did when I was a kid too, but now I know that dear ole Dad beat that out of me. Literally. No wonder I buried that so deep.

I glance over at Ruth, who is looking at me with a serious face, fear etched into her features. And one final piece of the memory clicks in.

It was as Mom was gathering our things to leave, I glanced over at my grandmother, and she was staring at me. Our eyes met while my father ranted, and my mother made excuses for him. Though Abuela didn’t say anything, I could see a mirror of fear in her eyes as she would glance back at the water, then at me.

We never talked about it, I was too little to understand, but even back then I knew that my parents might not believe me, but she did.

Ruth is looking at me that way now.

Then there comes a rush of wind, the waves rising and smashing on the rocks behind us out of rhythm with the tide, and all eyes shift to the water.

I smell her first, salt, fish, and rotting flesh, gagging the breath from my throat. Then, rising from the choppy sea are the gray, glistening tentacles I’ve only gotten glimpses of, waving in the air as if tasting it. Then shoulders rise with the waves, heavily muscled arms, and finally, a head breaks the surface, a huge forehead with tentacles writhing from either side. Taloned hands reach for the rocky face of the cliff, pulling the huge creature up and out of the water.

It’s as if my entire body is numb, my brain rushing to decipher what I’m seeing, but in my heart, I know. I’ve known since that tumble at Luquillo Beach. There’s a mixed cocktail of fear and absolute fascination running through my veins as I watch her pull her body up, her saggy gray breasts swinging above the water. Of course Lovecraft changed the gender, the racist, sexist bastard. Because despite how terrifying she is, there is no denying the power that comes off her in waves like electricity. She’s still below the cliff, and she’s looking up at Frost. Her eyes are gold, the pupils deep black and triangular.

In that moment I know that she isn’t what I saw when I was a kid. But I also know that there are all kinds and generations of creatures, entities, and gods living in our world with us, creatures like her in the 95 percent of the ocean we haven’t explored yet, but in modern society we just deny their existence and explain them away. Like my father telling me I was weak, throwing my paperbacks away when I couldn’t sleep at night, until he turned his back on all of us. He wasn’t real, but this is.

She is.

Without my father’s voice in my head, it’s like an entire dark mirror world is opening up to me, one I’ve known about my entire life.

As if hearing my thoughts, Cthulhu’s head turns, the tentacles spraying water across those of us at the edge, and her gaze lands on me.

Like the creature in Puerto Rico there is intelligence in those golden orbs, but it’s cold and calculating, no emotion. The gaze of an apex predator. In those eyes I can see the smoke and swirls of thousands of years, a depth of universes that goes back to the beginning of time. What has she seen living through so many ages of the earth? But as with all old beings, there is also a weariness within them, eyes that have seen too much and only wish to close and sleep once more. My abuela always says that sleep is her drug of choice. I have a feeling the creature below me would agree with her. If only these greedy fuckers would leave her alone and let her sleep.

The men come up behind me and Ruth, grab us by our shoulders, and look to Frost. We’re all staring at Frost then, even Cthulhu.

He rubs his hands together in excitement. “Well, it’s feeding time.”

The goons wrap their hands around us and move us slightly closer to the edge. I can’t let this happen. I try to pull my arms free, but I just end up losing my balance and teetering at the edge of the cliff. I look up at Ruth and she looks back at me, tears streaming now.

I smile at her; grateful I get to see her face once more at the end. “Well, we always said our friendship was ride or die.”

“Yeah, but I was hoping for more ride than die, though.” She smiles back, a sad, resolute smile.

They inch us closer, my boots kicking rocks and sand off the edge, stones falling down the cliff. I can see the creature’s face now, and we lock eyes again. I wonder why she doesn’t just reach up and pick us off one by one, having a feast then settling down to sleep beneath the earth. But I have learned from all my reading and movie-watching that ritual is important; it’s part of what brings our society structure and order, such as it is. But as we regard each other, I get the sense that she’s waiting for something. Or someone. Or maybe just dinner.

This is it. I’m going to die in the middle of my own fucking horror story just when I start to figure it all out.

Our captives bring us right to the edge, and out of instinct our feet scrabble and scramble, trying to find purchase. Then among the sound of crashing waves and sliding sand, a voice comes from the path to the cave.

“I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

Chapter

Twenty

I look in the direction of the voice, delicately balancing on the edge. All heads turn to see Georgina standing in the middle of the path, arms crossed, dressed completely in black with an obsidian-looking pendant around her neck, her curls shoved under a black knit hat.

Part of me is so happy to see her, so relieved that she wasn’t abducted too, and so grateful someone thought to try to save us. The other part is horrified that she has also put herself in danger. What the hell is she doing?

I scream, “Georgina! Run!” as men surround her.

That’s when she opens her jacket to show wires and tubes strapped to her chest.

“Don’t come any closer, assholes.”

One of the men yells over to Frost, “It looks like she has some kind of bomb strapped to her chest!”

I smile at her. “You get that idea from Triggered?”

She smiles back. “You got it! Loved that film.”

One of the men steps closer to her, and she shows him a white cylinder with a red button on the top like a cherry on a sundae. “Eh, eh, eh! If you come any closer, I’ll press this and we’ll all go up. BOOM!”

When she yells the last word, the man jumps backward, then looks at Frost and throws up his hands.

Frost snorts and says, “She’s bluffing. She’s not going to kill herself over this asshole.” He gestures to me.

“I wouldn’t blow myself up for any one person, but to stop you from killing more innocent people like my brother? Hell yes, I would!”

“Brother?” Frost points at her. “Wait . . . I know you . . .”

I stare at him, incredulous. “Of course you do, idiot! We hung out last night!”

Frost doesn’t seem to hear me. He’s waving his finger at Georgina. “No, no. I know you from somewhere else . . . Wait, you’re Miguel’s sister . . . the journalist. Aren’t you?” A cruel smile spreads on his face. “Shit, I had you on the list for later this summer, especially after you befriended Gabi here. Guess you’re going to have to go early.”

As soon as the last word is out of his mouth, a kick comes from the guard closest to Georgina, and knocks the remote out of her hand. I watch it skitter across the rocks and feel my body sag.

“You idiot! That could have been a dead man’s switch!” Frost yells.

The idiot shrugs. “It wasn’t.”

They grab Georgina on either side. One of them moves aside her jacket and examines the things strapped to her chest. “They’re fucking empty tubes. There’s no bomb.” Then he roughly pulls her along, and on Frost’s directions, they stand her next to me.

Here I am, about to die with my oldest friend on one side and newest on the other. I manage to grin at Georgina. “Thanks for trying.”

She shrugs, smiling back. “Hey, it worked for a few minutes, right?”

Turning to Frost, she says, “Thing is, I uncovered some really interesting information about her.” She points down at Cthulhu, hanging from the cliff, waiting patiently. “I know what she’s really looking for.”

“Oh yeah? You went to some Lovecraft Reddit page and think you found the ‘truth’?”

“No, I went deeper and older than that. I work in a library. It’s what I do.”

A chorus of laughing surrounds us. Of course they’d laugh at that. None of these shitheads have probably ever been in a library.

Frost stands at the edge of the cliff and looks down at Cthulhu. If I didn’t know better, I’d say I can see affection in his eyes.

“We understand each other, don’t we, my brother?” he yells down to the creature.

Cthulhu looks back up at him, not like a dog waiting for a treat, but more like she’s merely tolerating him.

“I’ve been giving him what he wants for the last three summers.” If she were closer, I swear he would be petting her bumpy gray skin.

“Nope, not what she really wants!” Georgina shouts over the waves.

He lunges toward her so quickly we all jolt with surprise. Frost puts his face right up to hers, fury sparking from his eyes. “And you know what he wants, huh, townie?” Spittle flies from his mouth and onto Georgina’s cheek.

Ruth and I are watching this exchange while I’m trying to figure out what it is she found out and where. That’s when I feel Georgina elbowing me in the side. I look down and see her slipping me a folding knife. Surprised, I take the knife with my bound hands and start to saw the plastic tie quietly and discreetly. No one is paying attention to me; they’re all watching the confrontation between Georgina and Frost like it’s some kind of MMA match.

Ruth sees what I’m doing, and to distract Frost, she yells out, “The smart money’s on the townie, you slime bags!” This seems to fully enrage Frost. He’s shaking now, all his focus on Georgina’s face, like they each represent their social class and this is a battle for the ages.

My breath is coming in hard and fast. It’s challenging to keep the knife angled, but death by ancient monster would be so much harder, so I keep sawing through the plastic zip ties, little by little.

Georgina grins. “I do know what she wants, Frederick. Seems she will keep returning each summer until she’s fed on the bloodline of the man who first enslaved her with his greed all those generations ago.”

The tie falls loose from my wrists, and I grab it before anyone can see, while Georgina continues.

“She’s not hungry for townies, as you call us; that’s why she’s never satiated. No, she wants vengeance.” Then she looks at me and I know what she’s going to do before she does it.

I pass the knife back to Ruth and give her a small nod.

“And Gabriel here?” Georgina nods her head in my direction. “He and I are going to give it to her.”

Magda’s voice echoes in my head: She must satiate her appetite with the blood of the usurper. The old woman on the train tried to tell me this too. And now I understand why I saw the cave in my vision.

Frost waves his arms in rage. “Oh, you think—”

“Now!” Georgina shouts, and she and I grab Frost by either side with our freed wrists and shove him over the edge of the cliff. The three of us watch him fall toward Cthulhu as one of her claw-fingered hands rises and picks him out of the air. She holds him in her palm, and for a second, she brings him to her face, seeming to smell him, looks back up at us, then starts to climb back down the rocks.

Frost screams from between her fingers, his eyes wide and full of terror.

Georgina yells down after them, “That was for Miguel, you dipshit!”

And Ruth adds, “And I don’t think we should see each other anymore!” My two friends give each other high fives.

There’s a line of people next to us, Frost’s army, all of us peering over the edge, watching as the cosmic monster and the monster with the blood of the usurper both disappear beneath the waves.

Then the three of us turn around and are facing a dozen of Frost’s musclemen, all glaring at us.

The chauffer, John, steps forward and says, “You think you’re out of danger now? You cut off the head of a hydra, another one grows in its place.”

“Two, actually,” Georgina corrects him as we watch them step closer, pushing us back toward the edge of the cliff.

“What?” John tilts his head.

Georgina rolls her eyes. “When you cut off a head of the hydra, two grow in its place, not one.”

I interrupt. “Well, wait. Not if you’re talking Lovecraft, and it seems these guys have a thing for that racist old dick. That hydra was a mother figure who only ate the heads of her victims, and they would appear on her body. So many heads, but not the same as the Greek—”

“Would you shut the fuck up already?” John shouts as he stalks toward us, flanked by the other men. “I’m not like Frost,” he adds with a slimy grin. “I’m not entertained by your witty repartee . . .”

I grab Ruth’s and Georgina’s hands. Since it seems we’re going to die anyway, I want to do it holding on to my friends. Ruth’s hand squeezes around mine, and I look over and see she looks frightened, but resigned. I look over at Georgina and find a shit-eating grin on her face.

“What, you happy we’re about to plunge to our deaths?” I say.

“We’re not plunging anywhere, Gabriel.”

At that, lights flood the area, and a sea of blue uniforms appear all around us, up the trail, above on the cliff over the cave, with Captain O’Connor at the front.

The bad guys look all around them, then Georgina holds up the black necklace from her chest with her free hand. “Been live-streaming and emailed the link to the captain. I knew they’d make it here sooner or later.”

A couple guards try to run but are quickly caught and handcuffed. The officers flood the cave and its entrance, the guards holding up their hands now, resigned to their fate.

I give Georgina a high five. “Nice one, G!” But with the impact, I stumble a bit, and start to teeter over the edge.

Both of my friends’ hands dart out and grab me by my shirt, pulling me up and fully onto the ground.

“Can we stand a little farther in?” I ask, and they both nod and give a nervous chuckle.

Once we’re a few feet from the cliff of certain death, I turn to Georgina. “How did you figure out where we were?”

“I took another look at Frost’s modeling agency logo you showed me.”

We both say, “It’s a white poplar!” at the same time.

Georgina laughs. “Then I went straight to Ruth’s so we could come here together, but her parents said you two were out. By that time, I had realized I missed our call and all the texts you sent beforehand, but you weren’t answering your phone. So, I drove home to get my necklace camera and my mother told me you had come by, worried about Ruth. I guess the rest is history.”

Ruth pipes up. “Yeah, well, we would have been history without you!” She skips over and grasps Georgina in a fierce Ruthie hug.

Georgina’s face flushes red, then she relaxes into the embrace. I’m having what my counselor used to call big feelings watching the two of them, and I bite the inside of my cheek to keep from crying.

“Guess you should rethink your role as final girl, Georgina,” I say, smug with my assessment of her.

Georgina balks at me. “Well, I think you should rethink your assessment of Ruth here. This is not a girl who needs your protection. She’s a badass!”

They high-five each other, and I’m suddenly feeling left out again. Damn, I’m a big baby.

Ruth seems to notice, as she always does. She keeps one arm around Georgina and pulls me in with the other, and we just stand there in a circle, all three of us crying now, our legs shaking from way too many brushes with death.

We only break apart when we hear the clearing of a throat next to us and see Captain O’Connor standing there with her cell phone, the video of Cthulhu with Frost in her hand playing on the screen. “I hate to interrupt, but can we talk about what the hell actually happened here?”

The three of us look at each other and smile. Finally, I say, “Sure, Captain, but you’re not going to believe it.”

“Oh, you might be surprised,” she says with a tired grin, and then I know why her eyes look like they’d seen so much. Perhaps they had.

As we’re starting to walk away, Georgina puts up her finger. “Wait! I need to do something.” She runs into the cave, grabs Frost’s ancestor’s book, runs back to the cliff, and tosses it into the angry waters. She looks at us and shrugs. “Just to be sure.”

I put my arm around her shoulders. “Such an ancient and historical book. That must have hurt.”

“Oh, you have no idea.” But she smiles.

Later that week, after several days of debriefings, meetings with experts from several colleges, even a convo with the archbishop (at the basilica, of course), Ruth, Georgina, and I sit on a bench eating ice cream as the sun sets.

I’ve gotten accustomed to the sights and sounds of the Hamptons, and it turns out not all rich people are so bad that they deserve to be eaten. In fact, very few of them do. You learn something new every day. Guess I had some anger issues, but thwarting a murdering gang and putting an ancient god back to sleep seems to have calmed me down a bit.

“Well, another eight days have passed since Frost’s cronies were arrested, and no more accidents,” I say, contentedly gnawing on my cone.

“Well, fatal ones, anyway. Yesterday I watched a kid try to jump rope with Rollerblades on. They hauled his ass off in an ambulance,” Georgina says as she licks the melting drips of coconut ice cream.

“I still can’t believe I dated that asshole,” Ruth says, holding her ice cream in front of her like she’s already forgotten about it.

“The kid on the Rollerblades?” I quip, but they both ignore me.

“You should meet some of my exes,” Georgina says with a snort.

The two of them have gotten tight. Last night they went to one of the painful town council meetings while I had another classic monster-movie night with Amy. I redeemed myself with The Island of Dr. Moreau, which frightened her so much she watched it holding her arm cast in front of her face, only peeking during the less scary parts. My stomach still hurt from all the popcorn and chocolate we ate. I woke up with a sugar hangover in the family room, Amy sound asleep on my chest. She’s doing so much better, and the nightmares have stopped for both of us.

Ruth jolts and spins around, all in one movement, her now melting ice cream flying everywhere. “Oh, Gabs! I wish you were there last night when my dad announced to the council that not only had he stopped the White Poplar project, but he’s going to back Georgina’s proposed bill to halt new construction on the shoreline to protect it! It’s still got to pass the selectboard but given that the papers are finally covering the rash of murders, there’s no way they’ll turn it down.”

“Yeah. Not sure it would have worked without the anonymous files that showed up at your father’s office,” Georgina says.

I perk up at that. “Anonymous files?”

“Yeah, all sorts of documentation about the Thurston’s family’s crimes. Legal docs too. Their lawyer—well, he’s also my dad’s . . . or was—denies they came from him.”

Georgina chuckles. “Doubt it. The New Zealand postmark supports him on that.”

New Zealand. Cameron. I can’t hold back a huge smile. Good for him.

Then she says, “Well, since Cthulhu is asleep now, hopefully for a very, very, long time, I don’t think we’ll have any more disappearances this summer.”

I pop the cone tip into my mouth and chew. “Well, you guys are going to have to keep me posted, ’cause I’m blowing this Popsicle stand.”

Georgina whips around. “What? Where are you going?”

I shrug. “Remember what Magda said about staying in touch with our Puerto Rico roots? Well, I promised my abuela I’d come down this summer. I want to hear some of her family stories. Besides, I have a memory that came back to me during the confrontation with Frost that I need to process with her. And it seems she knows a lot more about the world than my parents do.”

“I thought you found those visits with your grandmother boring as hell?” Ruth asks helpfully.

And I had. Painfully boring. But now I think about how I will talk to Abuela about whatever this gift is, that she says I have (does she have it too?), why I saw those visions, and what it all means. Next time—though I hope there won’t be a next time—if I’m going to get warnings, I’d like to be able to understand it all better, and she’s the only one who can help me do that. Knowing her, though, I’m sure I’ll leave with more questions than answers.

I didn’t tell Ruth or Georgina about my visions, the feelings that haunted me since that Queens train platform. I don’t know why, but I do know it isn’t because I don’t think they’ll believe me, not after we saw a huge tentacled monster, but more because whatever this is, it’s mine. I used to share everything with Ruth, but this is something that I think will stay between me and my grandmother, and I feel good about that.

“I doubt this visit will be boring. Besides, after how this summer has gone so far, I think boring would be good,” I say after a beat.

Georgina holds out her half cone in a toast. “Amen to that, hermano.”

Ruth cheerfully holds hers out too with a huge smile, and when I look at all that beautiful mint chocolate chip going to waste, I just can’t stand it anymore.

I lurch forward and take the entire melting scoop of ice cream into my mouth, sticky green flying everywhere.

“You asshole!” she shrieks and goes to smack me, but I leap away.

I lift my arms and wave them as if they are tentacles, spraying her white shirt with green speckles, then Georgina jumps on my back. Eventually we’re all rolling on the ground, sand sticking to our sugary hands and clothes, and once again, all is right with the world.

Chapter

Twenty-One

On my last day in the Hamptons, Ruth drives me to the train station. Turns out she was just too afraid to use her license. Guess the events of the last week made that fear seem small.

No shit, this is the summer of facing fears for both of us.

The ride is too short and we’re pulling up to the passenger drop off way before I’m ready. But I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready. Things have changed between us, and we both know it. It’s the massive elephant sitting in the back seat, bouncing its head to Taylor Swift as if it’s all just fine.

“So . . .” Ruth says as she puts the car in park and turns to me.

“We made it in one piece! Way to go, Ruthie!” I’m still using humor to deflect emotion. We all deal in our own way.

Ruth smacks me half-heartedly on my arm, but I can see her eyes are sad. “I don’t want you to go, Gabi. When I’m with you . . . I feel like I’m home.”

My chest tightens like its wrapped in a tourniquet. “I do too, Ruthie, but I think we both have to accept that this is home for you now. And that’s a good thing,” I say, and this time I mean it.

“I know.” She looks back at her hands, tears spilling onto the black leather-covered steering wheel of her father’s car. “But part of me still feels like I don’t belong here.”

I take her hands in mine and wait until she turns and looks at me. “You do, Ruthie. I didn’t want to believe it, but since I’ve been here and seen your beautiful home, the ocean in your backyard, I’ve watched how you’ve grown and gotten stronger. I mean, except your taste in guys, that hit an all-time low with the monster-worshipping a-hole—”

“Don’t remind me!” she shrieks.

“But I know you, unlike many people, you learn from your mistakes.” Then I think about how different I feel leaving than I did arriving and guess I learn too. “I mean, look at you! You’re driving!”

She gives a fast, loud laugh. “I know, hard to believe. Especially after how driver’s ed went last year.”

“Hey, like I told Mrs. Chelius, I saw that fire hydrant move too, I swear.” I put my hand up to solemnly swear. “You wuz robbed!”

She smiles.

“Look, I just mean, you’re going to be okay. Better than okay. I think you’re going to totally rock this Hamptons life. And I’ll just be a train ride, phone call, or text away, okay?”

Ruth nods but looks back at the steering wheel. “It won’t be the same though, will it?”

I sit back at that, and sigh. “Nah, it won’t. But that’s okay. It’s probably overdue that I spend a bit more time out in the world than wrapped in my cocoon.”

She folds her arms and gives me the look. “Wow, that sounds so familiar. I wonder where I heard that before. Hmm? Could it be that I’ve been saying that to you since freshman year?!” She’s yelling at the end, but I know it’s from love.

“Well, now, Ruth. It seems you were right.”

Her mouth falls open. “Wait, what?”

I smile. “You were right.”

“Can you say that again? A little louder so they can hear you from the cheap seats?” She asks, hand to her ear as if she couldn’t hear me.

I stick my head out the open window and yell at the top of my lungs, “Ruth was right!”

People walking to and from the station look over at us, but I don’t care. I drop back into the seat and listen to Ruth laugh.

“Damn, I’m going to miss you, G.”

We both know that it’s about more than me going to Puerto Rico, this parting, and it’s sad but joyous at the same time. “I’ll miss you too, amiga.”

I go to hug her, but it’s hard over the console between us.

“I’m going to need a proper hug,” Ruth says as she unbuckles and gets out of the car.

I meet her around the front, and we wrap our arms around each other and hold tight, like we’re holding on to our entire fifteen years of friendship, every moment, laugh, shout, and tear. We stay like that for a long time as people pass by, all busy going somewhere, meeting their own change right around the corner.

Then a train rumbles into the station and we hear a voice boom from the track, “Montauk branch train to Jamaica arriving, track one!”

Ruth squeals and we break apart. I give her a kiss on the cheek, look in her ocean-colored eyes one last time, grab my duffel bag from the ground, and tear around the tiny redbrick station. I just make it on before the doors close, and I look through the window, trying to catch a last glimpse of Ruth, but I can’t see her.

It’s okay; I know she’s waving anyway. She’ll wipe her tears, then climb into the car and head home. I turn around and lean my back against the doors.

I’m certain we’ll text often for the next few weeks. I’ll send her some photos from Puerto Rico; she’ll send cat memes. But once school starts, we’ll both be busy, studying, applying to colleges . . . making new friends.

Jesus. Why does that last bit scare the shit out of me?

My phone buzzes. I sit down and read the text from Georgina. My cousin Carlos is going to call you when you’re in PR. I told him he had to save you from half a summer hanging with the old people. You’ll like him. He’s a badass too.

I smile. Guess I am capable of meeting new friends. I met SonicReducer, after all. And she’s starting at Queens College in the fall, so she’ll be close by.

Which will be good. I mean, what if they discover chupacabras in Flushing Meadows? They’ll need us then.

Nah. That’ll never happen . . .

THE END

(Or is it?)

Acknowledgments

My first thanks always go to my agent and friend, Linda Camacho, for guiding me, supporting me, and, yes, putting up with me. I wouldn’t be a published author without her. And to my brilliant editor, Carolina Mancheno Ortiz, who I swear understands these characters even better than I do. She helped me shape this into the story you hold in your hands. And to Claudia Gabel, who saw the potential in Gabi’s tale from just a few paragraphs several years ago, thank you for taking a chance on me.

Also grateful to my friend D. M. Hoffman, who helped me strengthen Gabi and Ruthie’s friendship early on with a substantial and incredibly helpful beta read. And for sharing my love of and commitment to writing horror for young people.

Appreciation always for Dawn Kurtagich, who makes me believe I can do anything. Our twice-monthly talks are lifeblood to my writing life. We await our golden swans together.

So much gratitude to Katie Rasmussen for guiding me on my very unconventional research trip around the Hamptons, and to her parents, Erik Rasmussen and Margaret Berglund Rasmussen, for their warm hospitality and welcome.

As always, unlimited thanks to my husband, Doug, and our son, Carlos, for talking me through this and all my weird stories from their inception. Doug helps me process all my wildly divergent thoughts and keeps my feet on the ground while my creative mind flies. I’m grateful to Carlos for his deep understanding of plot, and how when I was in the last throes of revisions he would show up at our house and say, “You want me to make you lunch, Mom?” I always responded, “Is that a trick question?” They are both unfailingly supportive and I love them beyond measure.

But this novel would not exist if not for a panicked, early morning phone conversation with my honorary son and mentor, Cory. I called him certain I was never going to have another idea for a book again, and within five minutes of his supportive prompting, I yelled out, “Cthulhu in the Hamptons!” He’s talked me off more literary ledges than I can count, and I’m so fortunate to have him and his family in my life.

And finally, as a lifelong horror fan, I wrote this in part to honor the foundational influence H. P. Lovecraft’s creative work had on me and the field of horror, but also, as a modern Latine woman writer, I struggle with the bigotry and misogyny of the man. It’s a complicated relationship for me, and I thank Gabi for helping me give voice to that discomfort and to riff on my favorite of the man’s monsters. After all, what’s more punk rock than Cthulhu?

About the Author

Photo by: Katie Rasmussen

ANN DÁVILA CARDINAL is a writer and part-time bookseller with an MFA in writing from Vermont College of Fine Arts. Her young adult horror novels include Breakup from Hell, Five Midnights, and its sequel, Category Five. Ann lives with her husband in a little house with a creepy basement and is always on the lookout for parts of monstrous creatures floating in the Vermont rivers, as Lovecraft wrote about. Visit her online at anndavilacardinal.com.

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Copyright

YOU’VE AWOKEN HER. Copyright © 2025 by Ann Dávila Cardinal. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins e-books.

Without limiting the exclusive rights of any author, contributor or the publisher of this publication, any unauthorized use of this publication to train generative artificial intelligence (AI) technologies is expressly prohibited. HarperCollins also exercise their rights under Article 4(3) of the Digital Single Market Directive 2019/790 and expressly reserve this publication from the text and data mining exception.

Cover art © 2025 by Steph C

Cover design by Julia Feingold

Library of Congress Control Number: 2024944531

Digital Edition JUNE 2025 ISBN: 978-0-06-329957-3

Print ISBN: 978-0-06-329955-9

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