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He pushes in one last time, grunting as he goes, and then he leans forward, one hand bracing himself on either side of me. Breathing hard, he places shaky kisses down my spine before he undoes the belt around my neck.

“You’re perfect,” he tells me again, his voice gravelly. “So obedient and willing for me.”

I feel like I’m dissolving into the table. To my surprise, I have tears in my eyes, every feeling inside my chest stirred up like sediment.

He reaches around and starts undoing the rope next, sliding it out from under my body until I feel released. “Stay here, please,” he whispers, and honestly I couldn’t move even if I tried.

I hear the tap running and then he comes back and presses a warm wet cloth between my legs, cleaning me up with so much tenderness that my heart flutters.

I exhale and close my eyes, relishing the feeling of being cared for, doted on. I may not have anyone in my life to love me, but at this moment, somehow I feel loved.

Then he whispers for me to sit up. He helps me to my knees then bends over the table and literally picks me up. I’m a heavy girl but he does it with ease and carries me, pressed against his bare chest, through a narrow door to the captain’s quarters.

He lays me down on a V-shaped bed. I stare at him. Though he’s lit from behind, I can still make out the tattoo on his arm. A raven, with a faint moon behind it, its feathers trailing down to his forearm.

“What does your tattoo mean?” I whisper.

“It means I like ravens,” he says, but there’s levity in his voice. “To many local tribes here, a raven is known as the keeper of secrets.”

Very apt indeed.

“To me,” he continues, “they are omens, but where one can decide whether it’s good or bad. It reminds me of perspective. And to be frank, it reminds me of here. I got this tattoo done during a supply run to Campbell River, back when I was new to Madrona and in love with this nature. I still am.”

“Ravens are also psychopomps,” I tell him, remembering my lit classes, and also because I like the word psychopomp. “Connecting the living world with the world of the spirits. A mediator between life and death.”

“I like that,” he says, giving me a soft smile before he climbs into bed with me, pulling up the covers. “But I don’t want youthinking about death right now. I want you to sleep. We have to be up in a couple of hours.”

He pulls me to him so that he’s spooning my back. I twist around slightly, looking up through the glass hatches to see a million stars in the sky. They make me feel so small and inconsequential that I have to look away. I snuggle back into Kincaid as he drapes his arm around me and holds me tight.

“I can fix you, Syd,” he whispers in my ear.

“How?”

“Trust me.”

CHAPTER 23

We startoff the trip into the peninsula, not by hiking, but by ATV. When we all met by the totem pole just as the sun was coming over the ridge, we were led by Nick over to the ATVs parked in the maintenance yard. Kincaid showed up a minute later, then Dr. Hernandez with a cart full of supplies, plus tents, one to each person.

It was hard not to look at Kincaid, to pretend that we hadn’t been in each other’s arms until his alarm went off at 5 a.m. and I had to run to my room to shower and get ready. It helps that I’m so exhausted I can barely see straight.

But the ATV is waking me up. I’m sitting beside Lauren and Munawar. Rav and Patrick are in the front beside Dr. Hernandez who is driving us to our drop-off point. The other two vehicles are driven by Nick and Kincaid, taking the rest of the students and supplies. I purposely picked the one with Hernandez, which prompted an odd look from Lauren. Truth is, I need some space away from Kincaid to clear my head—I’m so afraid that everything we did last night is visible, like he scrawled his lust on my body. Which I suppose he did, but those rope marks are hidden.

And I wasn’t about to sit with Nick, not after the baby goat incident. Now that I’ve seen that dark side of him, now that I’ve seen his surfer persona is an act, I don’t want anything to do with the guy. He officially gives me the heebie jeebies. Between him and Michael, I wonder who will give me the creeps at Madrona next.

The trip on the ATV is supposed to take about 90 minutes, following a logging road as it heads toward the peninsula. The weather isn’t as beautiful as it was yesterday. There’s morning fog in patches and some clouds in the sky, but it’s still dry and warm, and when the sun does burst through it illuminates the scenery in a million shades of green.

I remember being awed by all that green the first day I got here, even though it had been cloudy at the time. Feels like a million years ago. Time has ceased to exist here at Madrona, and if it weren’t for the weather getting incrementally warmer as the days go by, along with the flowering of the Nootka roses and blackberry bushes, I wouldn’t even notice spring blending into summer.

“Oh look!” Lauren says, nudging me to look at a black bear and her cubs off in the distance. One of the moments again where I wish I had my camera. I make a note to ask Kincaid if he brought his Polaroid. I’m sure we’ll see lots of wildlife on our actual hike.

Suddenly, I picture the baby goat stuck on the wall of the barn and I feel sick to my stomach. That image will forever be burned into my brain. That knowledge that Madrona is doing something they shouldn’t be doing.

“What’s wrong?” Lauren asks, leaning in to be heard over the roar of the ATV and the crunch of the rocks beneath the tires.

I shake my head, Nick’s threat ringing in my head. “Just a little motion sickness,” I say loudly and we bump around. “How are you feeling? You still thinking of going home?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “Now that we’re out here in the wild?” She leans back, closing her eyes and breathing in deep. “No, not really. I’ve been looking forward to this damn trip ever since they announced it. I don’t even know if there’s a point to it, I mean why are the marine sciences people like Justin and Dr. Hernandez here since we’ll be in the mountains? More busy work, I’m guessing. But if it gets us out of the lodge, then I don’t care. I was starting to go insane.”