Page 226 of Secrets Along the Shore

“Yes,” I said. “She could hear. But perhaps she always could. Becca, are you sure your sister was ever Deaf? Or had she pretended to be for a reason?”

Becca’s mouth twisted. “What are talking about?”

“I’m just guessing here. But what was going on in her life that maybe she tuned out to the point she made herself deaf to her surroundings?”

Becca stood, pacing the room now like a caged animal. Her words made no sense to me as she kept turning away from me. But I could see torment on her face at the idea of Livvie having selective hearing but not deafness.

She stopped and stared at me. Her lip curled. “How nice for you not to remember.”

I stared at her, my pulse thundering. “Becca…please. Let me go. We can figure this out together. Livvie wouldn’t want this.”

“Don’t you dare say her name like youknowher,” Becca snapped. “You don’t. Not like I did. Not like Ido. She trusted you, and you left her out there. Youleft her.”

Tears burned my eyes. “I was a child,” I whispered. “So were you.”

She moved toward me slowly, crouching beside me. Her breath was hot on my face. Her face was suddenly calm. Too calm.

“You think this is about being a child?” she whispered. “You think time erases what you did?”

“I didn’t kill her.”

“You didn’t save her either.”

I looked away, the shame too great to meet her eyes. My fingers twisted in the cuffs again, raw skin scraping against raw skin. I feltblood trickle. My wrists were slick now, wet with either sweat or blood or both. I pulled harder.

“Becca,” I said, forcing her name through the lump in my throat. “Please. This won’t bring her back. Hurting me won’t fix it.”

She tilted her head. “But it mightbalanceit.”

“No,” I said. “It won’t. You said she knew things. That means she was a threat. Maybe…maybe that’s why she died.”

Becca froze.

A chill spread through my chest, but I had to ask the question. “Who were you with that night? Whoever it was, she feared him.”

Becca stood up again. “He was nobody. He came across the lake. I didn’t know him. We hung out, and I never saw him again.”

She left the room and closed the door behind her, locking it, I was sure.

I lay there in the dark, bound and afraid. Somewhere beyond these walls, the truth waited. Somewhere in my mind, behind all the erasures, all the lost time, the answer lived. And if I didn’t find it soon, I knew Becca would make sure I never left this room alive.

CHAPTER

SIXTEEN

The scentof rosemary was so strong I could taste it. In my dream, it hung heavy in the air, clinging to the walls, seeping into my skin. I stood in a brightly lit room. The walls pulsed like a heartbeat, and my ears ached. Not from sound—not exactly—but a pressure, a phantom pain that built and throbbed as if something was pressing against my skull from the inside out. I turned toward the feeling, the discomfort sharpening into fear.

A man was there. Young, maybe early twenties, clean-cut hair and pale skin. I didn’t recognize him, and yet my body recoiled like it did. His face was oddly calm, serene even, as he raised a syringe in one hand. It had a plastic, hollow point and inside the base held a golden liquid that glinted like sunlight and amber.

He didn’t speak. He never needed to. I knew what he wanted to do.

I tried to move, to scream, but my limbs were sluggish, heavy. That scent—rosemary—clogged my senses. The man leaned in, the syringe mere inches from my head.

I snapped awake with a gasp, my heart slamming against my ribs.

The sun streamed through the dusty window of Livvie’s room. It cut lines across the floor, filtered through the slatted blinds. For a second, the warmth of it tricked me. I could almost believe I was back at the lodge, safe, before the memory crashed into me. The handcuffs on my wrists, the ache in my ankles, the knowledge that I was still a prisoner. Still Becca’s prisoner.

My throat was dry. My arms burned from being bound so long.