The Ones We're Meant to Find(20)

Two weeks of memories reviewed, five and a half months more to go.

At four months to go, Actinium got up, went down, came back up. Kasey found a protein cube pressed into her hand. Later, she descended herself to use the ground floor restroom, and was startled to see that GRAPHYC had closed for the day. Time did not pass in Actinium’s windowless unit—only Celia’s life did—but outside day became night then day again. The morning news alert popped up on Kasey’s Intraface. Tremors, detected off the coast of Territory 4. Pundit Linscott Horn’s speech postponed. Meridian, messaging to ask Kasey where she was. No messages from David; safe to assume he’d spent the night at P2C headquarters.

Two months to go. Kasey looked up and met Actinium’s gaze. His eyes were bloodshot; she imagined hers were too. But neither offered to take over for the other. An agreement existed between them, made at some point during the wordless night.

They were both in this to the end.

One month. One week. One day.

Then blackness. The final memory played. The tsunami of Celia’s life pulled back, taking Kasey’s with it. She felt like a corpse, deposited on the sand. Ears flooded, eyes brined. If senses were a nonrenewable resource, she’d just spent her entire allocation on a fraction of her sister’s life. It was so much more saturated than hers. So much more. The world would have lost a lot less without Kasey, whose brain was already rebooting, compiling conclusions. They’d found no red flags. Nothing of surprise, secret nighttime sojourns aside (their absence would have been more surprising). Nothing, as Actinium had said before, that would have left Celia feeling cornered. The only victims were the ones she’d left behind.

Like Tristan/Dmitri.

I need to know if it was my fault.

Wait.

Where were the boy-specific memories?

Stored in a separate place, Kasey discovered. A folder labeled XXX. She opened a preview of it. A mistake. She closed it; this was where she drew the line. “You do it,” she said to Actinium.

“There’s another way.” Actinium opened Celia’s biomonitor data, and Kasey berated herself. Right. Emotions could be elucidated through numbers. She pulled up a monthly health report round-up. She knew what she was looking for: empirical evidence of heartbreak or trauma. Irregularities in neurotransmitter levels. Imbalances in mood. Data and charts, all of which she found.

None of which illustrated the picture she thought she was searching for.

Instead, for the first time in her life, Kasey had to read the numbers twice. She looked to Actinium, saw his eyes glazing over as he digested the data.

Not ready to do the same, Kasey stood, distancing herself. Blood rushed to her brain, as if gravity had been restored and she might fall and break. She wanted to, for a frightening second. Break and join Celia in her senseless world. Because Celia was still dead. The sea had killed her.

It’d been killing her for a long time now.





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THE SEA’S ALWAYS PRETTIEST AFTER a storm. This morning, it shimmers beyond the sunken pier, sequined by the sun. The sky, I reckon, must be a cloudless blue. If only I could see it in color.

Then again, if only I didn’t have boats to build and stranglers to neutralize.

I touch a hand to my neck. My windpipe’s bruised, and swallowing kills. Turns out there are more ways to die on this island than I’d previously thought, like at the literal hands of a boy.

I could have left him on the shore. The storm might have drowned him. The ocean might have lapped him up and returned him to Joules-knows-where he came from. I could have disposed of him without lifting a finger, and it’d serve him right.

Instead, I kept him. Bound to M.M.’s bed, still naked—I refuse to dress my would-be murderer—but alive.

Because he’s just like me. We both washed up ashore, bare as babies. If he remembers anything, anything at all, about what’s out there—other islands or the cities from my dreams—I don’t care if he’s the devil himself. He could be the answer to my past and my future. He could better my chances of finding Kay.

We’ll see once he wakes.

Beneath my feet, the tide rises, slurping through the pier planks. The sea breeze tastes divine, especially after last night’s events.

One last inhale, and I leave the pier. The nape of my neck prickles as I trek across the beach. It’s strange, knowing there’s another soul on this island. The house, when I return, looks different somehow. A floorboard creaks, and I jump, but it’s just U-me.

The heebie-jeebies settle once I enter M.M.’s bedroom. It’s bright at this hour, its eastward window aglow. The walls are papered with tiny flowers. The air is iridescent with dust, and sweet, too, the scent of yarn coming through the slatted doors of the closet, where M.M.’s sweaters hang in a row. I’d sleep here more often if doing so didn’t make the rest of the house feel too empty. On the couch, I can convince myself I’m one of many guests, only passing through.

The boy, though, has made himself right at home under the blanket I spared to cover him. I sink into the sun-warmed rocking chair by the bed and watch him sleep—rather deeply, I think enviously, for someone restrained to the bedposts. I bet it’s a dreamless slumber. I bet—I know—he didn’t wake once last night. He was out like a light while I had to fight to keep my eyes open after my near-death experience just to avoid death-by-sleepwalking-into-storm.