Page 11 of The Same Backward as Forward

“I don’t need to sleep,” I said. I’d gotten a few hours here and there since I’d started down this forsaken path. Jackson had fed me—with the groceries I’d bought him, no less.

“Your body will give out on you sooner or later, little Hannah.”

Up until that point, I never would have pegged the town recluse, whose hobbies included firing warning shots and physically chasing people away from an abandoned lighthouse, as a mother hen.

“My body is fine,” I said.

A voice, rough as sandpaper, came from the mattress: “That makes one of us.”

Jackson and I were both shocked into silence. I recovered first. “You’re awake.”

“Unfortunately.” Toby Hawthorne was smart enough to not try to sit up. He didn’t even open his eyes. “If you’re so set on not sleeping,” he continued, the pain in his sandpaper voice matched only by its arrogance, “then perhaps you wouldn’t mind shutting the hell up?”

It was like I was right back in that bar, watching him smirk and lean against the pool table, his glass balanced precariously on its edge.

Gritting my teeth, I crossed the room and started checking his vitals.Pulse first—my fingers on his neck.Then breathing—the rise and fall of his chest, breath against my palm.Pupil reactivity.I needed to touch his face for that one. His eyes were closed. I pried them open.

“This isn’t what I meant when I told you to shut up.” His voice was lower than it had been in the bar, rougher.

“You don’t give me orders.” I finished my check of his pupils. “Follow the light with your eyes.”

“What will you give me if I do?” he quipped.

This was the first time I’d been able to do anything approximating a neurological exam, and the asshole apparently didn’t intend to make it easy. “A quick and merciful death,” I sniped.

He followed the light with his eyes. I tested the feeling in his fingers and toes, ran my pen lightly over the arch of his foot. His body did all the right things.

“Pay up,” my patient said.

I’d promised him a quick death. “As it happens, I lied.”

“You have a name, liar?” Even with smoke-damaged vocalcords, he had a way of making questions sound like silky demands. I didn’t reply. “Better yet,” he continued, addressing the words to the ceiling, his eyes closing, “what’s mine?”

“Your what?” I bit out.

“My name.”

I stared at him, certain that he was messing with me, but my patient didn’t say anything else, and a trickle of uncertainty began to snake its way through my mind.

“My name,” he repeated, less demand thancommandthis time.

“Harry.” Jackson came to stand over the two of us. It took me a moment to realize that he’d given Toby an answer—the wrong one. Then again, I’d never had any indication that Jackson Currie actually knew who he had in this shack.

“Harry,” Toby echoed. It was the arch tone with which he said the fake name Jackson had just given him that convinced me that the Hawthorne heir wasn’t putting on a show.

He reallydidn’tremember his own name.

“Harry what?” he asked.

“Don’t know.” Jackson gave a half-grunt, half-snort, which very effectively communicated that not only did he not knowHarry’s last name—he didn’t care. “I’m Jackson.” His gruff voice grew gruffer. “She’s Hannah.”

“Hannah,” the burned boy repeated, his voice smoky and hoarse. “Spelled the same backward as forward—assuming there’s anHon the end?”

Suddenly, I was right back at the bar again.What about you, palindrome girl? H-A-N-N-A-H. Will I see you around? We could have a little fun, set the world on fire…

He’d known—even then, he’d already known what kind of game he’d come to Hawthorne Island to play. I had no idea whya boy witheverythingwould have been angry enough,recklessenough to want to play with fire. All I knew was that to him, it had been a game.

“What the hell is wrong with you?” The question escaped my lips before I could stop it.