Page 79 of No One Aboard

Rylan didn’t move. He couldn’t move. Not until a tissue-soft hand skated over his own.

Lila.

“Let us in, lovey,” she said, soft and silken.

Rylan shrank back inside the anchor locker. His parents joined him, crowded inelegantly like Tia and Nico and Rylan had been only days before.

Were they here for an explanation? An apology? How many times did Rylan need to tell them he couldn’t be what they wanted him to be? He couldn’t pass the tests, he couldn’t endure the trials.

Lila’s slender arm enrobed him, and Rylan found himself hyperventilating.

Francis patted his knee. “Deep breaths, boy.”

“I don’t, I don’t, I don’t,” Rylan dry-sobbed, unable to break out of the horrible loop until his mother pinched his arm.

“I don’t know what’s wrong with me.” He spilled open, everything chaotic and slippery, falling into himself even with his parents positioned to keep him upright.

Francis’s hand rested on the back of Rylan’s neck, forced him to sit up as Lila ran her fingernails through his hair.

“We’re not here to yell,” Lila crooned.

“We’re concerned about Tia,” Francis said, grasp gentle but firm. “She’s been...”

“Brazen. And unsteady,” Lila finished for him. “Since she came home. Don’t you agree?”

They weren’t here about him. They weren’t upset. Rylan tried to reclaim his scattered thoughts. This was about Tia. Of course it was. Tia and her blood-spattered legs. Tia with the mallet raised above her head.

“Sh-she was trying to, she was trying—”

“Tell us what’s been going on,” Francis said. He brought Rylan’s head forward, pressed their foreheads together. Lila traced swirls on Rylan’s shoulders and upper back.

“I... I...” Rylan couldn’t focus on anything but his parents’ proximity. Their touch. The anchor locker was a safe place. The horrors with the sailfish were over. The fish wasdead, Tia had gone to their room, and his parents were here tocomforthim.

“She’s been moody. These outbursts are concerning,” Francis said. Rylan couldn’t see his face, but he felt their skulls crushed together.

“We just want to know how to help her,” Lila murmured. “Like we always try our best to help you.”

Had that beenhelping, what they’d asked him to do on deck this morning?

His brain, the part of him that thought like Tia, said no. Hell no. But the rest of him wasn’t so sure. He was the problem here. He was the reason MJ was dead, the reason the sailfish suffered. Even Tia wanted him to be braver so they could run away together.

Tia... running...

Was that what they were getting at? Could they sense their only daughter was ready to leave and never look back?

Francis massaged the back of Rylan’s neck. “Come, now. Do we need to get her help?”

How they were going to do that when they weren’t even returning to Florida was beyond Rylan, but he could hardly think.

Maybe Tia did need help. She was impulsive and aggressive. How long before she did something she was going to regret again? How long before she left him behind for good? Their plan wasn’t thought out.NothingTia did was thought out. What if she was making a terrible mistake? And he was letting her?

Francis leaned back and pinched Rylan’s shoulder firmly. “Tell us what’s—”

“She’s trying to leave,” Rylan whispered, tears slipping through his closed eyelids. “She’s planning to run.”

If Francis and Lila were shocked, Rylan couldn’t read it onthem. Francis withdrew his hand. Lila’s swirls became sympathetic back rubs. She kissed his hair and tsked.

“You can’t run from family. It isn’t right,” she said.