Kate Brian - Endless

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

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

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

Then he took a step back and turned.

“No!” I screeched.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Sorry for what?”

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

“Nothing.”

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

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

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

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

“Rory…” Joaquin said.

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

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

“I have no idea.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What?” I blurted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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