Page 4 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

Mum was thin and pretty, a faded photograph of herself. Some days it hardly felt like she was here at all.

I sat down on the floor beside her. “Hi, Mum.”

She turned her head and looked at me, and she smiled. It took a long moment for the smile to light the spark behind her eyes. “Natty, your hair is getting so long .”

I leaned forward so she could fiddle with it, combing her fingers through it and tucking it behind my ears the same as when I was little. She hummed a tune under her breath. I didn’t recognise it.

Mum’s attention never lasted for long, like a butterfly alighting on a flower for only a second, so I drank it in while it lasted. Mum’s smile made me smile as she smoothed my hair back into place.

My chest felt tight when I stood up. I thought about going to see if Will needed a hand, but I went upstairs instead. I went into my bedroom and closed the door behind me. Leaned on it.

Sometimes I hated this house. Sometimes it felt so small and crowded, even though it was only the three of us, that I couldn’t breathe.

I was so angry with Will, and with myself, and with my whole life and the whole fucking world that it took me a moment to realise that something was different—I could see a light out the window. I crossed my floor, still in the darkness, and leaned on the sill.

There was a light on upstairs at Short Clarry’s house.

Well, it wasn’t Short Clarry’s house anymore.

The former mayor had jumped off the top of the lighthouse while trying to murder Red Joe, who was our current mayor.

I’d missed the whole thing, being at school in Sydney.

Anyway, Short Clarry was dead, and his house had been empty ever since.

A few months ago some suit from the mainland had come over and announced we were getting a police station—that went down like a lead balloon—and a few weeks ago some blokes came over and fitted out the bottom floor of the house, and now it looked like someone had actually moved in.

I caught a glimpse of a shadow passing the window of one of the rooms upstairs, and my stomach twisted.

We didn’t need a copper on Dauntless. That was the last thing we needed. Some government man putting his nose in where it wasn’t wanted. I thought of Young Harry Barnes’s packages, and the shit he’d get into—and me and Button John—if a copper found out about those.

I lay down on my bed and folded my arms behind my head and stared at the ceiling instead.

I could still hear Will clattering around down in the kitchen, being just loud enough about it that it was obvious he was making a point.

And the point, just like always, was that I’d screwed up.

I listened out for a while longer, but he didn’t call me down for dinner.

I glared at the ceiling. If Will was ignoring me, then I’d just ignore him more.

I waited until I heard him coming up the stairs, talking in a low voice to Mum, and then her bedroom door creaked open.

A little while after that, it closed again.

Will’s door didn’t creak like hers, so I watched the light under my door instead.

When he turned the hallway light off, I climbed out of bed and slipped out of my room.

There was no light coming from under Mum’s door.

Will’s light was still on though. He was probably reading.

I tiptoed down the stairs and made my way into the dark kitchen.

I opened the fridge and pulled out the butter, then felt around on the counter for the loaf of bread and the peanut butter.

I made myself a couple of sandwiches and ate them at the kitchen table in the dark.

Then I went into the living room and turned on the TV, just loud enough so that Will could hear it if he was listening and he’d know I was down here and not sulking in my bedroom.

Because sulking in the living room instead was totally different.

There was a wind outside tonight; the sort of wind that sounded as though it might be the prelude to a storm.

Most of our storms on Dauntless came at night, rolling in from the horizon on the edge of the dark.

If it came, I hoped it passed by dawn. I didn’t like it when the boats went out in bad weather.

I didn’t wish that on Will, even if he was being an arsehole to me right now.

The picture of the TV froze a few times, shattering into pixels before resolving itself, so yeah, there was definitely a storm out there somewhere.

I thought about what Button John had said about 4G.

Maybe in a few weeks I’d be able to watch TV on my phone, like I had at school.

Except where the hell would I find money to pay for a decent data plan?

It wasn’t as though Dauntless Island had a lot of work on offer.

Sometimes I thought I should have stayed on the mainland—sometimes I thought Will thought I should have too—but I’d been homesick there.

I’d hated it. I wasn’t made for the mainland.

I’d missed the sound of the waves rolling against the beaches, the crying of the gulls, and the taste of salt on my lips.

I’d missed the horizon. I’d missed the people too.

Life on the mainland seemed fast and complicated.

Parts of it had been fun—the movies, the shops, the cars, McDonalds and Red Rooster—but I’d been lonely there.

On Dauntless, everyone knew everyone. Sometimes that was a bad thing, like if you did something wrong the whole island would be lining up to tell your big brother, with Mavis Coldwell at the front of the queue, but sometimes it was a good thing.

Like when everyone looked out for each other.

You didn’t need to explain how things were; people already knew.

Dauntless was like a warm blanket. There were days you wanted to throw it off because it felt like you were suffocating, but if the weather turned cold, you pulled it tight around you, edges tucked in under so the wind couldn’t bite.

Dauntless was home, the curve of the coastline carved deep in my bones, tidelines marked on the soles of my feet.

There was nowhere else in the world that I wanted to be—if only Nipper Will would let me be here properly , let me get a job on a boat the same way every Harper had done for the last two hundred years.

I was nineteen. I wasn’t a little kid anymore, but Will was still treating me like one.

I turned the television off when the picture cracked apart into broken puzzle pieces, then went back to the kitchen.

I slipped out the back door and leaned against the old laundry tub.

The cement edge of it dug into my arse. Outside the lean-to, the rain was coming down, and sheet lightning rippled through the clouds, illuminating them from behind.

The light in the copper’s house was still on, but I couldn’t see anyone moving over there, just the tangle of oleanders in the backyard shuddering as the wind swept through.

So the last thing we needed on Dauntless was a copper, but the ember of an idea sparked in the back of my brain.

If Nipper Will wouldn’t let me go out on the boats, and I was making fuck all picking up whatever odd jobs I could get around the island, then maybe I could go and see the copper tomorrow and offer to do his yard work.

There was a bunch of old tools in Big Johnny’s shed that looked like they hadn’t been used in years.

He’d let me borrow them, I was sure. I hadn’t done any yard work before—there wasn’t much call for it on Dauntless.

Nobody had any proper lawns anyway, and if they wanted their yards cleared out they usually borrowed a couple of goats off Robbie Finch and let them take care of it.

But a mainlander wouldn’t know about Robbie’s goats yet, and Robbie would never trust an outsider with them anyway.

And I knew I’d be courting disapproval by volunteering to deal with the copper—and Dauntless did disapproval like nothing else—but if Nipper Will wouldn’t let me get a proper job, then what the hell did he or anyone else expect?

If anyone had a go at me about it, I’d point them in Will’s direction.

The sky was split by a bolt of lightning, and a crash of thunder followed it.

I pressed back against the laundry tub, my heart beating faster.

I closed my eyes and could still see the lightning.

Rain battered the tin roof on the lean-to, and I opened my eyes again.

I sucked in a breath of cool air and tasted the freshness of the rain.

Then, tilting my face to the sky, I wrapped my arms around my torso and settled in to watch the storm.