Erin Bowman - Stolen

“There isn’t an after .”

“You don’t know that! That’s what I’m saying. Please, Lock. Just meet it. Greet it like an equal and maybe I’ll end up the same. Maybe in a few months we’ll both be together again, and then Heath will follow another few years down the road.”

“And maybe we’ll all meet in death, too.” He held her gaze. By the dim light of the moon, his green eyes seemed almost storm gray. “You’ll take care of Heath, right? You’ll watch after him for me?”

Bree felt her chin trembling and forbade herself to cry.

“Promise,” Lock insisted.

The best she could do was nod.

Lock studied her a moment, like he was etching a permanent rendition in his mind, then he reached out and tucked a tangled mess of hair behind her ear. His hand paused there, fingers grazing the nape of Bree’s neck. She knew she should pull away, but he looked so resigned and broken, she couldn’t bear it.

“I’m sorry, Bree. And I’m scared. I know I told you I wasn’t, but I’ve been scared my entire life. Especially the last few months. Please just be with me tonight. Here. With the waves and the stars and the whole sky as our blanket. I can’t be alone.” He moved nearer, so close his lips practically brushed hers. “I can’t be alone, and you’re the only girl on this whole island who makes me feel like I’m someone worth having.”

Against her better judgment, Bree kissed him.

It was bittersweet and simple. It was a distraction from the real issue.

She pulled away.

“We should go home. Before the tide comes in.”

“You afraid to get your ankles wet?”

“I’m afraid you’re going to do something stupid.”

“This is stupid?” He kissed her neck. “I thought we were having a good time.”

“I was talking about your boat.”

Lock tensed and drew back, stared out to sea. In the distance it appeared calm enough to be ice, moonlight winking off the surface.

Bree stood. “Are you coming?”

Lock stared at her outstretched palm, then her.

“I’m really sorry, Bree.”

“I know. Let’s go home.”

She extended her hand farther.

He took it in the end.

Walking back to the hut with their fingers threaded, the regret hit Bree. She shouldn’t have kissed him. And even still, she wanted to forgive everything. She wanted to make excuses for him. Lock was watching his life burn out like the last embers of a dying fire. Of course he was desperate to feel something—anything—as often as possible.

She wished she knew how to draw the line between protecting her heart and letting it have what it craved.

BREE WOKE BEFORE THE SUN and instantly knew something was wrong. It weighed on her chest, a suffocating, heavy blanket. Death .

She threw off her sheets. Hands shaking, she found a candle and lit it. “Heath?” she whispered. The silence in the hut was sharper than a knife. “Heath?”

The glow of the candle fell on him, pale as a ghost, mouth an open slit. His chest moved, and Bree buckled to her knees. His skin was still clammy, but he was breathing. Bree let out a sigh, but the pressure on her chest did not lessen.

And she knew.

Blood pounding, she held out the candle. At the far end of the room, Chelsea lay still asleep. The mattress between her and Heath was empty. Bree stumbled from the hut. “Lock?” The town was quiet, the world murky in dawn’s first light. Her feet moved faster. Across the town, beyond the empty bonfire pit, and toward shore. Somewhere within the trees she dropped the candle so she could run.

She was yelling his name now. Loud enough that the waves couldn’t swallow her words or the wind whip them away. The air tasted like tears, and when the sea came into view, it was angry; choppy waves and gray surges. The horizon burned as brightly as the fear in Bree’s chest.

Halfway down the sloped rock, she spotted his slumped form facedown in the shallows, the waves lapping over his shoulders. She fell twice on the way to him, cutting open her palm. Then she was on her knees on the froth-slicked rocks, rolling him onto his back. Vacant eyes stared at her, and she lost all composure.

“You stupid idiot!” she screamed, clenching the front of his shirt into her fist. “I hate you, I hate you, I hate you!” She hit his chest, her own tears mixing with the salt the waves threw into her eyes.

The bronze skin she’d run her hands along just days earlier was now tinged a dull silver, like he wore a sheen of the ocean on his limbs. His lips were as cold as the shell of an oyster. Lock looked clumsy and dense, certainly not capable of hauling fish from the ocean or cracking a smile. The thought of dimples appearing on his cheeks seemed ridiculous, but it was his eyes that destroyed Bree most. Those green eyes that used to feel as lively as the ocean itself, as mischievous and scheming and magical. They were nothing now. They were holes. They were an empty, bottomless reminder that Lock was gone. That this was just a pile of bones and flesh and cold, bloated muscle. Her Lock was lost. Drowned hours ago in the water she could never escape.

Fingers grazed Bree’s shoulder and she bolted to her feet.

“You woke half the town,” Keeva said.

Behind the woman, a crowd had gathered. Chelsea and Heath were not present, and Bree felt the tiniest pinch of relief. They didn’t know. Their world had not yet been shattered.

“So foolhardy,” Keeva said, gazing at the horizon. “Each thinks he will be the first to reach it, even though none before ever has.”

“Well, he was Lucky Lock.” It took Bree a moment to find the speaker. A boy named Kent just months from his own Snatching. He kicked a stone toward the corpse. “Not too lucky now, is he?”

Bree didn’t remember deciding to do it. One moment she was standing over Lock’s body, and the next she was towering over Kent’s, her knuckles throbbing from the punch she’d delivered right to his mouth. Like she could force the words back into his throat. Like she could make them unsaid.

She was winding up to deliver another when she was yanked away. Not knowing who held her, and not caring, Bree turned and swung. Keeva grabbed her wrist, cutting the blow short.

“Compose yourself, or you’re heading for the horizon next,” she spat. “This body needs burying. Earth, sea, or sky—you’ll decide with Chelsea.” She turned on Kent. “And have respect for our dead. You face the same fate come the new year, and I doubt you’ll be laughing then.”

“My lip!” Kent said, touching it and looking at his bloody fingers. “She split my damn lip.”

“You deserved it. Go cry to Sparrow if you need a bandage.” Keeva wheeled on the rest of the crowd. “Well? There’s work to be done!”

Bree watched them disperse. Ness was sobbing into her hands, and Bree hated that the tears seemed genuine. Lock sometimes felt like Bree’s whole world, like the sun and the moon and the star-pocked night sky, and now that he was gone all those things seemed to burn less adamantly. How was it possible he could have the same effect on someone else? He was hers. Bree’s. They were each other’s.

She grabbed Lock at the wrists and hauled him out of the surf. Heath would have to see this—Lock’s body, blue and bloated. The bastard. The selfish bastard, forcing this upon his brother.

Bree broke down again, a brilliant sunrise her only audience.

They sent Lock back to the sky.

Chelsea stood before the pyre, stoic. Heath sobbed, but from the comfort of his bed. He couldn’t sit up, let alone stand to walk into town. Bree watched the flames slowly devour the water-logged corpse. The smell was awful. The sun was angry. It was another hot day, and it unfolded even when Bree’s world had stopped.