I swallowed down a lump in my throat despite myself. “Thanks.”
He reached out the hand holding the closed lighter, hesitated, and then rested it on my own, which was clenched around the opposite elbow. My bad wrist throbbed, but I couldn’t move to stretch it out. I didn’t know what to do.
I was not a hugger. But since having my memory ripped from me, I’d been hugged, kissed, squeezed, petted, pinched, smothered, and any number of other space invasions.
This was what people did when they wanted to express comfort. They touched. I couldn’t twist away. I couldn’t snap and tell them to leave me alone. Their gestures were supposed to make me—the sufferer—feel better. But since I wasn’t suffering—or, at least, not suffering the way they thought I was—I endured their pokes and prods because it made them feel better.
I held my breath, tried to ignore the pain in my wrist, and waited for Cal to remove his hand. His skin was warm but the lighter was cold metal. I was on three-Mississippi when a girl stood next to him and stared at him until he dropped his hand. I didn’t recognize her.
“Bye,” she said to him, shooing him away.
Cal looked like he might say something, then seemed to change his mind. He waved at me with his plastic cup, but he waved too hard and dropped it, then lunged for it and missed. He shrugged and went off in search of another one.
The girl turned to me. She had short black hair and was wearing a long, elaborately buckled coat and lace-up boots despite the warm night. “Ari Madrigal,” she said. Her face twisted into a scowl. I hoped her scowl was default and not specific to me.
“That was a little rude,” I said.
She shrugged. “I need to talk to you. He doesn’t.”
“Sounds . . . dramatic.”
I looked around for Diana. I didn’t see her by the keg, and the light of the bonfire only extended so far. Maybe she’d gone down to the water. Or maybe she would arrive any second and rescue me. Cal Waters had found Kay. He lit a cigarette for her and leaned in like they shared a secret. Kay and Cal—that would be an unexpected pairing. I tried to remember if Kay had ever had a boyfriend before, but the girl in front of me snapped her fingers in my face.
“I will never understand what Win saw in you,” she said.
So the scowl wasn’t a default. “Excuse me. Do I know you?”
“Probably not, but I know you.”
I looked at her more closely. I didn’t recognize her—at least, not her face. Something about her seemed familiar, though. Her expression was fierce, but I remembered . . . lightness. Buoyancy.
Weird.
“You owe me five thousand dollars,” she said, unblinking.
I stared at her right back. “What?”
“Win’s mother never found it—I’ve been watching. She would’ve spent it by now, but she’s got nothing. He had to have left it with you. But he owed it to me. So pay up.”
My hands had started to shake. Five thousand dollars. That’s how much my spell to erase Win had cost. I remembered finding an envelope thick with bills at the very back of my closet in a shoebox, and I remembered laying it on the hekamist’s kitchen table. Close-up details, snippets of a movie I’d seen and mostly forgotten. I’d told myself it was my money, my windfall—left by my parents, maybe, like guardian angels. Meant for me.
But maybe it had been Win’s money. I had no way of knowing.
“Listen, uh . . .”
“My name is Echo,” she snapped. “We’ve met. But of course you wouldn’t remember.”
“Echo,” I said. “I don’t know what you’re talking about. I don’t have any money of Win’s.”
“You do, though. Or at least you did before you spent it. Didn’t make the connection until I was sure it wasn’t with Win’s mom, but it’s so obvious. You’re going to pay me what I’m owed or I’m going to tell everyone that you erased Win with a spell.”
I stopped breathing.
How did she know?
When my lungs filled with air again, I managed a feeble protest. “I didn’t erase Win.”
She breathed out through her nose, frustrated. “Don’t even try to play that game because you’ll lose. Pay me my money or everyone finds out.”
If this girl really knew what I’d done, she could tell everyone. And they’d all know I’d lied to them. They’d find out I couldn’t dance, and that I’d wasted everything for this boy they all still loved.
“I told you,” I said, trying to sound sure of myself. “I don’t have any money, and I didn’t do that. Didn’t erase him.”
She took a step back. Licked her chapped lips. “All right then. Prove it. When I met you the first time, what were we doing?”
“I don’t have to answer—”
“It’s a simple question, not a trick. Answer me.”
I tried to turn away but couldn’t pivot in the sand. In a flash, Echo was there, blocking me.