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As she makes her way back down to the beach, is distraught by how little attention she has given the colony in the last few days. She can hardly see them through the rain, has to run the whole length of the beach before they appear, huddled together in an effort to protect the little ones. Though really it is not a beach anymore. Just a thin line of rocky coastline. The black sand has been eaten. There is no sign of any penguins, and the birds she can see in the sky are less flying than being thrown. could almost be taken off her feet, too—she feels as though if she let herself she could be carried away—but she loves these creatures, so she will be solid and heavy, she will keep her feet anchored to the ground.

King Brown sees her first, he lifts his head and barks where have you been? She strokes his back as she steps past him into the huddle, watching for babies though they are much bigger now, almost ready for the water seeking them. Some of the mothers are barking at her too, Silver and Tiny, but they quiet when she sits down among them. The rain is smashing them all and the larger seals are doing their best to protect the pups. A storm like this could kill all the juveniles not yet ready to go to sea, and any of the adults who stay with them. moves some of the babies into more sheltered spots behind the big males, but she can hardly see—even with her hood raised there is a steady stream of water in her eyes. Some of the seals abandon the colony, flopping into the water and disappearing beneath the waves to where they are safer. But those with pups stay, they will stay as long as they can. thinks she will too but the wind and the rain are pummeling her and the waves are sweeping under her, threatening to wash her out. She is gripping at the rocks with frozen fingers. She doesn’t know what to do, how to help them. She loves them but she doesn’t think she ought to die here because of that love. Once, not so long ago when she was a child, she might have thought that the noble thing to do. Now she feels very far from a child, and if nearly being murdered has taught her anything it’s that she wants to live long enough to get off this island. The salt of it lives in her veins; it is such a part of her that it is slowly killing her.

“You’ll have to swim,” she says aloud, though they’ve never spoken each other’s languages and the seals can’t hear her over the storm anyway. She looks at the pups and says it again. “You’re ready. Make yourselves ready. Let your bodies do what they were born to do and swim.”

All she can do is urge them. She can put all the years they have spent together into her urging, and hope that whatever connection they have goes beyond their species. Or, if she is nothing among them, at most an oddity—if they hardly notice her, as she most often suspects—then she will hope it’s their own nature they listen to, that ancient call to the waves. It is too soon, they are too young, but sometimes the world asks more of us.

She wishes them courage, profoundly and with her whole self, and then runs.

She is slammed by the wind into the rocks and feels her shoulder jar. It hurts but she doesn’t think it’s dislocated. steadies herself and keeps going. She is aiming for the boathouse, though god knows if that will hold up in this weather. The closest building after that is the sleeping quarters, but it doesn’t have a roof anymore. Beyond that is the hospital, which feels very far away right now.

She risks the boathouse, keen to get within some walls, and closes the door behind her. Inside it’s much quieter, but she can see the remaining Zodiac bobbing wildly and water is spilling onto the floor with each surge of the waves. The roof creaks loudly, threatening to be taken.

And then she hears something else. Something distinctly human. peers around in the dim light. She can’t see anything. There are goosebumps on her skin.

A figure moves. Rising from behind a fuel drum.

“Hey, kid,” says Hank.

Raff was back at the lighthouse but has no idea where the rest of her family are. She doesn’t know where her dad is. She is alone with a man she has been so frightened of that she has been driven out of her home to live by the sea, a sea into which she always thought she’d have a better chance of escaping him. But today that sea is as violent as this man is.

reaches for something she can use as a weapon, and her hand finds a torch on the bench.

“Don’t call me that,” she says, and she hears a fierceness in her voice that hasn’t been there before.

“My god,” Hank says. “It’s got you too.”

She swallows. “What has?”

“You’re all mad,” he says. And she wonders for a moment if that could be true. If Hank is the one sane soul among them, the rest lost in a shared spiral. They’ve kept him imprisoned in a basement, after all. That’s a pretty crazy thing to do. Half of them talk to ghosts, and she chooses to live with seals, for god’s sake.

decides it doesn’t matter. This man tried to kill her.

“What’s the plan, Hank?” she asks him. “What are you gonna do?”

“I don’t know,” he says. “I don’t think I can go back. Not now. But I’m too much of a coward to die.”

“You’re fine with killing, though?” She is so angry with him. She hates him, hates how small he has made her.

“What do you mean?” he asks.

“You’ve been drowning things.”

“The ocean’s been drowning them.”

“You put my head under the water.”

He frowns. “Did I? I don’t remember that.”

stares at him and is surprised to feel the hatred trickle away. Instead all she can see is how unwell he is.

She knows what she will do now. She will get him safely onto that ship and then she will leave him in the hands of people who will know what to do with him, and she won’t think about him ever again, not for a single second of the rest of her life, and that will be her revenge. And she and her dad will talk about all of this, she’ll explain to Dom that he did not fail her, that she’s powerful, and expanding, and she will tell him she loves him and that she’s going to carve a life for herself now, but that she won’t be far from them, from her family, not ever.

“I think you need to get off this island, Hank,” says, lowering the torch.

That’s when he lunges at her.