Kate Brian - Endless

“Only you would ask that at a time like this,” I said, half joking.

Her blue eyes widened. “Like you didn’t notice? Please.”

“His name’s Liam Murtry,” I told her.

“He saved, like, a dozen people,” Krista said, looking him over appreciatively from across the room. “It’s like Superman’s arrived in Juniper Landing.”

“Yeah, he seems pretty perfect. Which probably means he’s a psycho ax murderer.” I meant it to come out as a light quip, but my tone entirely missed the mark. Who could blame me, though? I was turning out to be a seriously bad judge of character.

Krista fixed a sort of probing look on me.

“What? First my favorite math teacher kills me,” I said under my breath. “And then I fall in love with the guy who’s taken it upon himself to shift the entire balance of the universe?” I shook my head and took the last roll of gauze out of the box, then ripped the bottom of the box open to flatten it. “From now on, I’m not trusting my instincts about anyone.”

I cast a cautious glance over at the twins again. Their temples were still locked, their lips still moving. They gave me the heebie-jeebies, which meant they were probably the loveliest people I’d ever meet in my life. Well, my afterlife.

“I still don’t know how everyone is so convinced that Tristan betrayed us,” Krista whispered. “I mean, it’s Tristan. He can’t be the bad guy.”

“Then where is he, Krista?” I snapped. “Why doesn’t he come back and plead his case?”

How could he have done this to us? What could have made him turn on innocent people? On my dad? On me?

Krista was just opening her mouth to respond when her mother and Officer Dorn stepped up behind her. The mayor’s thin lips were set in a grim line.

“Girls,” the mayor said. “We need to talk.”

I didn’t trust the mayor. Which was only fair, because I was pretty sure she didn’t trust me. As Krista and I followed her back into her octagon-shaped office, Joaquin and Dorn fell into step behind us. Good. I felt safer with Joaquin at my back. I glanced over my shoulder at Darcy to make sure she was okay and saw her wrapping an elderly man’s ankle with a bandage, chatting with him and smiling. Once we were all inside the office, Dorn pulled the door shut behind us, and the chaotic din of the clinic softened to a dull, continuous hum.

Dorn stood in front of the door, his eyes sharp on me, his hands clasped before him like a Secret Service agent. Krista and I stood awkwardly in the center of the room, while Joaquin walked over to a leather chair and sat down in it casually, like he owned the place, his ankle resting on his knee. Outside the windows, the storm raged over the ocean, darker and darker clouds gathering. A broken tree branch, its jagged golden insides exposed to the rain, scratched an even tempo on the windowpane behind the mayor’s right shoulder.

“What can we do for you, Madame Mayor?” Joaquin asked, folding his arms behind his head.

She shot him a look full of venom, to which he merely cocked an eyebrow, then she sighed. “This has gone entirely too far.”

“Nothing like a good disaster to mobilize the local politicians,” Joaquin quipped.

“This is not a joke, Mr. Marquez!” she spat. “It’s high time we find Tristan and Nadia and find out what the hell is going on around here.”

“Oh, so now you believe us?” I asked. The mayor had refused to hear a word against Tristan. She didn’t want him to be guilty, so she hadn’t listened. I didn’t want him to be guilty, either, but I knew what I’d seen. I’d seen the guilt in his eyes when we found his stash of tainted coins, and I’d watched him flee.

The mayor’s eyes narrowed at me. “I’m not saying I think Tristan is guilty, but he has been here longer than any of the rest of us. He knows things about this island that none of us could possibly know. If anyone has the answers, it’s him. Is there still no sign of him or Nadia?”

Joaquin and I shared a hesitant glance. He sat forward, rubbing his hands against his thighs.

“We did find something,” he said slowly. “In a cave near the bridge. They were staying there. Very recently.”

“What?” Krista asked, paling. Her hand fluttered up to toy with the leather bracelet around her wrist—the same one every Lifer wore. Suddenly my skin started to itch beneath mine.

“And you didn’t go after them?” Dorn demanded.

“There was this whole thing where the ferry was sinking?” Joaquin replied sarcastically, rising to his feet. He was just as tall as Dorn and almost as broad. “It kind of seemed more important at the moment.”

“Well, put together another search party. Double your numbers,” the mayor ordered. “As soon as we get this mess sorted out, you’re to go out there and find him. This island is only so big. It’s not like they can stay hidden forever.”

“Speaking of this mess…” Krista said quietly.

We waited for her to finish. Outside, something crashed, and there was a scramble and a shout. The mayor closed her eyes and I saw her lips move as she counted, slowly, to ten. Behind her head, lightning split the dark sky and a boom of thunder shook the house. I gripped the back of the nearest chair as the residual rumbles lingered.

“What about it, Krista?” the mayor said finally, impatiently.

“Well, what does this mean?” Krista asked, turning her palms up. “If there’s no ferry…will people stop coming here?”

Joaquin and the mayor and Dorn looked to one another, as if waiting for someone else to have the answer. But we all knew that no answer was coming. Nothing like this had ever happened before. The mayor and Joaquin had been here longer than Dorn, but even with their century’s experience on Juniper Landing, there was no precedent for the mess we were currently in. Finally, the mayor walked around her desk and sat, resting her head against her fingertips, her elbows perched atop a perfectly clean leather desk blotter. She took a breath and then raised her chin.

“I don’t know, but if so, I believe it’s a blessing,” she said.

“A blessing?” Joaquin asked, his face screwed up in consternation. “A blessing that we can’t serve our purpose?”

“We couldn’t anyway,” Dorn put in. “We haven’t ushered anyone in days, and the town is at full capacity. We’re running out of beds and explanations for the weather, the fog, the crowded conditions.…Plus there are dangerous criminals walking around among the innocents, so yeah, I’d agree that the loss of the ferry for right now is a blessing.”

“But it doesn’t mean we can grow complacent,” the mayor said firmly. “With the storms and the overcrowding, it’s getting harder and harder to keep track of everyone. Do you even know how many charges you currently have on the island?” she asked, looking directly at me.

I pressed my lips together, thinking of the coins that had been appearing on my nightstand on a daily basis, which now sat in a heap at the bottom of the drawer. At first I had been able to keep a mental tally of the souls who had been assigned to my care, but after a few days of chaos, their faces had grown murky in my mind.

“No,” I admitted, looking at my feet.

“Do either of you?”

“No,” Joaquin and Krista chorused.

The mayor heaved a sigh. “We have to find Tristan. I want every available Lifer on it. We need to fix this situation, and we need to fix it now.”

There was a sudden rap on the door. Dorn moved to answer it, but it whipped open before he could get there, and Darcy stepped inside. Her posture slumped in relief when she saw me.

“There you are! It’s so insane out there, and you disappeared on me.”