Erin Bowman - Stolen

“BREE, DO YOU SEE THIS?” Lock shouted from his perch on the rocks, a massive fish held up on his line. It was flailing away its last moments of life—tail flapping, gills puckering madly.

Bree gave him a courtesy eyebrow raise and returned her attention to the water. She was standing in a mostly calm pool, just behind the rock jetty Lock was fishing from, water up to her knees. Silver scales flicked into view. She threw her spear and missed.

“I don’t know why you insist on using that thing,” he said.

Because it required skill. Because she wasn’t just waiting aimlessly, hoping some suicidal fish would come along and decide to chomp on the hooked end of her line.

“Also, did you see this?”

Lock hoisted the fish higher, but all Bree could see was the way his pants were hanging on his hips, a V of muscle cut off by the waistband. Muscle everywhere, actually. His chest. His shoulders. His biceps, flexed on account of the weight on his line.

Bree wasn’t the only girl to notice how Lock had filled out his scrawny frame in the last year. They’d been flocking after him like gulls to oysters, and he certainly hadn’t been fighting them off. Bree was starting to suspect Lock’s desire to go shirtless lately had nothing to do with the heat.

Lock shook his catch at her more adamantly. It was dying a slow, pitiful death.

“Yeah, you snagged a fish the length of your forearm, and in shallow waters, too. You want a ribbon or something?”

“Why would I want that when I can have your sarcastic back-talk?” He shot her a smile, then bent over to unhook the fish. Bree watched the muscles in his shoulders as he struggled with it.

Why couldn’t he wear a stupid shirt?

She turned back to the fish in the shallows. It was days like this that she missed her mother most. It would be nice to ask her if this was normal: a guy being able to make your knees knock even when he’d done nothing but show you a slimy, stinking fish. Bree didn’t like it.

She threw her spear at another flash of silver. This time her angle was right, and it pinned the fish to the ocean floor. She retrieved the spear, tossed the catch in the small bucket set on the nearby rocks, and stretched.

It had been a merciless summer, heavy with humidity, greedy with rain. Bree gazed toward Crest, barely visible at the center of the island where it broke from the trees. Her island’s freshwater came from that mountain when it rained, running down the steep rock face to fill the small lake at Crest’s base. Keeva had been yelling about conserving supplies lately, claiming less water should go into irrigation and more into their stores. Drinking water trumps crops. Bree agreed with the philosophy, but not the approach. Keeva was working everyone into a frenzy, talking like they’d be parched and dead by the next sunrise. Mad Mia was even doing nightly rain dances as a result, chanting beneath the glow of the moon.

Like it would help.

Like her antics ever helped.

Granted, there was that one time she treated Lock. He’d been a kid still, with a fever nearly as bad as the one that later killed Bree’s mother. Everyone had been certain he would die, but Mad Mia gave Lock a few ladles of some vulgar-looking concoction, and two days later the fever broke. Lucky Lock , they called him after that. Course, no one bothered to drop the Mad from Mia’s name.

Bree wiped the sweat from her forehead and inspected the cloudless sky. Last year, a stretch of weather like this would have made her desperate for winter. For cooler temperatures and snow that could be boiled for drinking water. But not now. This year was different. She was dreading the change in seasons.

Lock had less than a week until his birthday—six days, to be exact. Bree had three months. His fate was sealed, and hers, uncertain. She wasn’t sure which was worse. At least the boys could prepare—mentally, emotionally. They’d be Snatched at eighteen, no exceptions. Gone without a trace. But for her . . . She didn’t know what would happen come December. She had theories, of course. The odds were good for girls—only about one in every ten wouldn’t make it. But the last six girls to turn sixteen were spared, and there wasn’t a skilled female hunter who’d come of age and could say the same. This didn’t bode well with Bree.

Lock appeared untouched by his looming birthday. He was still smiling constantly, carefree and boisterous, like he had any number of days stretching before him. Bree was positive it was a front, that underneath he was shaking in his skin, but any time she tried to broach the subject he’d grow very interested in completing some chore his ma had assigned him. Or chatting about the weather. (Not that there was anything worth commenting on—it had been hot, hot, hot every day for the last three months.)

Bree waded out of the water and strapped on her leather sandals. Half the village was still fishing, some in the water with spears, others on the jetty with their poles like Lock. She could even make out a few boats bobbing beyond the docks, checking the crab traps or trying their luck in deeper waters, but not too far. Never too far. It wasn’t safe.

“You staying at it?” she called to Lock. The sun was getting dangerously hot, and the best fishing hours were behind them.

He twisted to face her, and every muscle in his back came to life with the motion. Bree cursed herself for noticing. He should have stayed scrawny forever. Although maybe she would have fallen for him anyway. That tends to happen when you spend all your time with someone. It’s practically guaranteed when you spill your secrets like they aren’t precious. Her ma always said that was why it hurt so much to lose Bree’s father. She’d told him every last dream and fear, so when he was Snatched, it was as though a piece of herself had been, too. Like her soul was stolen away, never to return.

Bree had listened, but she hadn’t heard . Not until now. She was finally beginning to understand what her mother had meant—how opening up can make you vulnerable.

Lock picked up his bucket of fish. “Nah, I’ll head in. I’ve got a good haul here, and Ma asked me to fix a leak in the roof. You want to help?”

“Ooh, tempting. You know how to show a girl a good time.”

“Come off it, Bree. You’ve got nothing better to do. Patch the damn thing up with me. Please?” He made a show of it, hands clasped and everything.

“Fine, but only because you’re begging.”

“Course I’m begging. You think there’s another girl I’d rather patch a hut with?” He smiled and a pair of dimples winked.

“I don’t know, Ness is pretty handy with a needle. Maybe she’s good with roof repairs, too.”

Lock rolled his eyes. “The only labor I’ve ever seen that girl do is limited to stitching and sewing.”

Just the other night Bree had seen Lock drawing Ness toward the lake, his grip firm on her hand. She’d laughed at something he said. He’d kissed her neck. Clearly he didn’t mind that Ness couldn’t patch roofs.

And there was Maggie, too. And Cate. But Bree didn’t bring them up because he wasn’t asking for their help with the roof; he was asking for hers. Lock was always asking her for anything but what she really wanted.

So take what you want or quit complaining. He could have had Conner help him .

And then Bree remembered Lock’s best friend had been gone four weeks now. The only sign of Conner was the vague resemblance on the three kids he’d left behind. Sometimes that was all Saltwater felt like to Bree: an island filled with ghostly remains.