“Is that a map of the island?” Hope whispers.
Tattoo Sleeves looks our way, and the others with him straighten. It isn’t exactly an unfriendly look, but something about it unnerves me. Maybe it’s his eyes, intensely deep and sparkling under intimidating brows. Suddenly it feels like the worst idea in the world to rush a confrontation.
Alexa takes a sharp inhale. Before I can stop her, she’s stepped out of our patch of shadows and into the moonlit sand.
“Shut it down,” Tattoo Sleeves says. “We’ve got friends.”
I pay close attention to where the dark-haired one places his fingers so that when we’re alone again, I can reproduce whatever it is they are so eager to keep from us. He presses, not swipes, at the lowest spot in the left corner. The blue light disappears.
“Sky Cassowary?” Alexa walks tentatively toward the blond. The flower tattoos ripple as his muscles tighten. “Is that you, or am I hallucinating again?”
The sharpness in his eyes softens, but not enough for me to loosen my grip on the spear.
“Alexa Pierce,” he says, not making even a slight move toward her. The challenging tilt of his head, the torchlight flickering in his hard, glassy eyes, the tight curl of his lips—all of it says he’s not exactly relieved to see her. “Is that you, or am I back in the nightmare I left on the mainland?”
Alexa rasps a low laugh. “Nice to see you, too.” She tosses her hair over her shoulder, an attempt to look calm and collected, not at all rattled by his harsh coolness. And it probably works, for the others. But I see the tension in her fists, balled at her sides. Her worst fears are coming true.
“This your Wolf, Cass?” The dark-haired one approaches Alexa, appraising her. As if moonlight, firelight, and starlight are enough to illuminate her entire character in this single dark moment.
I drive my spear into the sand, draw a line between our two groups. “You’ve come close enough.”
He’s a little forward for my taste.
To his credit, he holds his hands up in surrender. Doesn’t even test the boundary I’ve set. “Fine with me,” he says. “We don’t mix well with Wolves.”
I’m about to tell him we’re not all Wolves, but reconsider. If our being Wolves keeps him on his side of the line, Wolves we’ll be.
Funny, though. He’s the first person I’ve met who doesn’t seem afraid in the slightest of what a Wolf might do.
“They’re harmless, boys,” the redhead says. He hitches a satchel over his shoulder and sets off in the opposite direction. “But that doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be careful.”
Finnley, as silent-but-present as the strange totem of stones, turns to follow him.
“I’m sorry,” Hope says, “but can someone explain what exactly is going on here?”
The dark-haired guy flicks his gaze toward Hope. Waves crash on the sand once, twice, three times. “No,” he says, finally. Simply.
And walks away.
THIRTY-TWO
“FINNLEY! WAIT!”
Hope is over the line before any of us can stop her. Cass, Alexa’s Cass, puts himself in Hope’s path before she can get any closer. He doesn’t touch her—he doesn’t have to. His eyes alone are a force field.
“You don’t know who you’re dealing with,” Cass says. “I can’t let you near her.”
Alexa is fire, a tempest, as she joins Hope’s side. “I don’t recall Hope asking your permission.”
“Well, Alexa, you are a Wolf, aren’t you?” Cass gives a mock bow. “Didn’t know asking permission was in your vocabulary.”
“Arrow to the heart,” Alexa says, as if saying the words lightheartedly could repair the damage.
“Cass.” The dark-haired guy puts a hand on Cass’s elbow. An entire conversation happens in a language I am not fluent in, a silent language made up of varying degrees of narrowed, hard-as-iron eyes. “Enough,” he finally says. And then, to me—me, at the back of the group, still standing behind our line in the sand—he says, “Have a minute with her. But if anything happens, don’t say we didn’t warn you.”
His eyes linger long enough for the message to sink in. They’re serious—they seriously believe there’s something dangerous about Finnley. Finnley! Who helped us sail here, who built our fire, who has been close with Hope, one of the most gentle people I’ve ever come across, for years.
Then again, Finnley didn’t fill Hope in on her plan before she mysteriously disappeared. Maybe I didn’t read her right. Maybe none of us did. Maybe I should have given more weight to my instincts, to her whispers and her thorns.
The redhead passes his torch to Finnley. She holds it with her inked hand, the F-I-N-N-L-E-Y on her pinky reasonably confirming she’s the same girl we came here with—not a twin, not a clone.
And yet.
Something is off about her, and not just the hair. I can’t put my finger on it, not even when I join Hope and Alexa just a few feet away from her.
“Where did you go?” Hope’s voice is like a rainbow, seven separate yet inseparable shades of emotion. “We looked everywhere—we spent two entire days in the jungle! I ate grasshoppers, Finn, and you know how much I loathe insects. Why didn’t you tell us you were leaving?”
Finnley shakes her head, her sleek new hair. “I . . .” Her empty eyes sparkle in the torchlight. “I wish I could tell you.” She glances at the guys, who linger a bit down the beach, close to the edge of the jungle.
“They didn’t—those guys didn’t hurt you, did they?” I start toward them, because hell no they will not hurt one of us and get away with it, but Finnley’s free hand closes around my wrist like an iron vise. It lasts for only a microsecond before loosening up, so quick and drastic a change I wonder if I’ve imagined it.
“No! No, no.” Finally, Finnley is there, behind her eyes—I wonder now if she’s been here the whole time, if maybe I’m seeing things. Again. “The guys have been nothing but honorable with me, Cass especially. Food, water, privacy, respect, all that good stuff.”
“All that good stuff,” Alexa repeats. “Seriously? What sort of ‘good stuff’ did Cass give you, exactly?”
Finnley looks confused at first, but something subtle shifts on her face. “Look, I’m not sure what you’re implying, exactly, but I’m pretty sure the answer is nothing like that happened. And”—she looks at me, and this look, it is not friendly—“I think I’d know if I had been hurt, all right? Alexa’s people certainly taught me enough about pain—not all of us had the chance to become privileged little Wolves, as we all know too well.”