Stolen (4 page)

Late in the afternoon, when Bree was losing all hope and growing rather hungry, a shadow flicked across her knees. She glanced up, and nearly yelled out.

Soaring as gracefully as the wind itself was a heron. He tucked his wings to his sides and dropped silently toward Crest’s runoff. The bird followed the stream as he descended, until he looked no larger than a pale leaf fluttering to a standstill.

Bree cursed herself, wishing she were down there as well, but she hadn’t really believed Mad Mia. The bird stayed near the tributary, wading silently in the shadows. It plucked something from the water—a frog, maybe—then moved upstream and out of Bree’s sight.

Still cursing, she gathered her gear and started her descent.

The light was slipping from the sky, and Bree knew the bird would be gone as soon as dusk was. Still, there was only so fast this pass could be traveled. Her body moved on its own—the memory of where to grip, what holds to press her fingers and toes into seared in her mind. She scrambled down rock, raced through switchbacks, squeezed between shelves.

When she reached the lake, she was sweating again, and the blue-purple tinge of twilight hung before her. She crept as silently as the heron itself. There was a stone in her slingshot and a flame of confidence in her chest. But at the edge of the water, Bree found herself alone. She circled the lake, checked the tall grasses, walked up Crest’s runoff. Nothing. The bird was gone.

“Dammit.” Bree launched her stone into the water. It splat, and rings rippled outward. A bullfrog laughed at her.

“Dammit, dammit, dammit!”

She kicked at a clump of reeds and felt the blister on her heel split open. The sting was both distant and unbearable.

When her pulse calmed, Bree searched the tributary for a rock to replace the one she’d loosened. She found a handful of nice stones—the size of her palm, smoothed by the moving water—and pocketed them before heading home.

Tomorrow
, she told herself,
you can stay at the lake all day. Set up in a tree. Wait where you’re in range. Maybe he’ll come again—at dusk. Dawn, if you’re lucky
.

Back in the village, dinner was under way. The bonfire blazed. Mad Mia was plucking through the discarded crab and clamshells, pocketing a treasure here and there while everyone else ate.

Keeva grabbed Bree at the elbow and hauled her aside.

“Explain,” the woman demanded.

“Explain what?”

Keeva folded her arms over her chest and eyed Bree from head to toe, as if she was something she might like to defeather and then roast over the fire.

“You’re on food detail, Bree. Have been since you were ten. I’ve never specified if that means fish or oysters or clams or crab or rabbit or frog or fowl. I don’t specify because up until now, you’ve always gone where you thought the catch was, and you’ve always brought plenty in. But I will monitor you if I have to.”

The only thing Keeva had monitored lately was water. Freshwater. It was all she seemed to think about.

“I skip one day of duties and you’re threatening to monitor me? Monitor Mad Mia. She’s the one not yielding results.”

Stupid rain dances.

Keeva lifted her arm and the sting of a backhand laced Bree’s cheek.

“A boy is dying because of your trap,” Keeva growled. “And my patience is waning. Act like you are more important than the good of the village again, and you swim for the horizon.”

Bree choked down the retort on her tongue. No one survived a swim for the horizon. No one ventured farther than the crab traps, not ever. To do so meant death, even for those who took one of the fishing boats. There was no other land. There was just water and waves and extremely strong currents, because the bodies always came back: washing up on the beach, crashing against the ragged coastline. Bloated. Blue.

“There has to be more land somewhere,” Lock always argued. “Where else are those birds always flying?”

“Fine, there’s land,” Bree would say. “But it’s nowhere close. Nowhere we can get to without wings of our own.”

Bree turned her back on Keeva and fled home. She wouldn’t stop trying to save Heath because of a death threat. She’d kill the heron tomorrow. Mad Mia could take the blood, and Bree would bring the bird to the bonfire to be roasted. Heath would live. Keeva would have her dinner. Both tasks completed. Simple as that.

Bree lay awake that night, listening to the distant crash of waves and Heath’s labored breathing.

“Did Sparrow visit?” she whispered to Lock.

“Crap, Bree,” he gasped. “I didn’t know you were awake.”

You’d have known if you had used your ears
, she thought, rolling her eyes in the dark.

“He’s got a fever,” Lock said after a moment.

“And?”

“And Sparrow thinks it will break.”

“The wound’s not infected?”

“She didn’t say.”

Bree sighed. “What do you think, Lock?”

“I think it’s not good. I think . . .” Bree couldn’t see him, but she heard him sit up, and she imagined his gaze skimming over Heath’s bed to settle on hers. “Come outside with me?”

Bree complied.

Beneath the glow of the moon, Lock looked troubled. A wrinkle was visible between his brows.

“I didn’t want to wake them,” he said, jerking his head at the door. He sunk to the ground and leaned against the hut. Bree did the same. “He’ll be okay, right? He has to be. This is Heath. He’s sick every month. If he was going to die, it would have been from blood loss when they pulled the spike. He’s . . . he’s not supposed to go before me. I’m not supposed to outlive him.”

Bree dared a glance Lock’s way, and spotted a tear on his cheek. She’d never seen Lock cry, and even now it seemed impossible. Like she was looking at a stranger. For a moment Bree thought of telling him about Mad Mia and the heron, but she took his hand instead. His fingers were calloused and rough, like hers—hands of work—but they seemed stronger, sturdier. Twice as large. Like he had twice everything she did. Twice the love in his heart and pain in his chest. Twice the need for Heath to live.

She bit back her words. If the heron failed, if it didn’t work—Bree didn’t want to be that girl again. The one who chased the promise of a fable. She didn’t want to let Lock—or Heath—down.

A shadow moved on the other side of town, threading between two huts and pausing just beyond the bonfire ring.

“That’s Maggie,” Lock said, pulling his hand from Bree’s. No wonder he’d been lying in bed,
waiting
. He stood and Bree protested.

“I need to clear my head,” he said.

“I thought that’s what we were doing.”

“This is different.” He looked down at her, frowning. “Don’t wait up for me.”

Bree watched him leave. And then she kept watching the spot where he’d disappeared between the trees, hoping he might reappear. Alone. Muttering an apology. Thanking her for holding his hand. Asking her to hold it again.

She let the waves crash a dozen times before she stood and slipped inside.

IT WAS MIDDAY AND THE heron hadn’t reappeared.

Bree’s butt was numb and she had a cramp in her neck from craning it at such an unnatural angle. She was beginning to fear she’d wasted her morning. Maybe the bird wouldn’t appear until dusk. Maybe it only
ever
appeared at dusk. If it didn’t show, Bree would need to find food in a hurry. She hadn’t checked her snares in a few days. It wouldn’t be much, but if she snagged a rabbit, it would buy her time. Keeva couldn’t banish her when she still brought in food . . . could she?

Saltwater already had plenty of fishermen. And Bree wasn’t contributing to the village’s growth. Most of the girls her age had a child (or at least one on the way), but Bree had eyes only for Lock, and it seemed every boy on the island
but
Lock was aware of it. They steered clear. (The horrible, snapping monster-of-a-girl she’d been in the years following her mother’s death probably helped account for their distance.)

Still, even if Lock
had
looked her way, Bree doubted it would have made a difference. Not where birth numbers were concerned. She was pretty certain Lock was infertile. Cate had two kids, but neither looked like Lock, and Maggie and Ness had been lying with him for the last year without consequence.

If Bree wasn’t going to become a mother anytime soon, and there were other hunters and fishermen to replace her, maybe Keeva really would cast her to sea. Just to make a point. To prove that she could. The woman
was
ruthless. She’d cut Conner’s right pinky off when he swiped more than his fair share of dinner once. The boy had been ten. Bree thought it too harsh, but as Lock pointed out, his friend never stole again.

Bree heard grass swish beneath her and readied the slingshot in her hands.

It was only Lock.

He strode to the edge of the lake and dropped his gear, tore off his shirt. Bree watched for a moment, and then, terrified he’d keep ditching layers, coughed lightly.

He nearly tripped in surprise.

“What the heck are you doing?” he asked. “You know Keeva’s furious with you? You should have been fishing this morning.”

“Same goes for you.”

“I
was
fishing. It’s noon now, you idiot. Besides, I deserve to cool off.” He kicked off his pants, and waded in. The water crept up his legs, over his knees, to the hem of his shorts, before he finally dove. “You coming in?” he asked when he resurfaced.

“I’m busy.” Even as Bree said it, the thought of slipping into the lake was tempting. It was rarely cooler than the ocean, but it was always more refreshing—smooth and silky. Bree liked that it didn’t leave her hair crusted with salt.

Lock swam until he was beneath the branch Bree was camped out in, where he then focused his efforts on attempting to splash her, even though she was well out of reach.

“You’re scaring off the game,” she snapped.

“What game?”

“None, now that you’re here making such a racket.”

He flashed a smile. Those damn dimples.

Screw it. She was sweating, and cramped, and the heron, if it was coming, wasn’t going to show up while Lock was thrashing in the water. Bree stripped down to her tank-top and underwear, and threw the clothes and extra gear onto the grass. Then she stood and edged out along the branch, hands on the limb above for balance.

“You jump from there and you’ll hit bottom, Bree,” Lock teased. “Jam your knees on the rocks and shatter your shins.”

“Really? Is that why you and Maggie jumped from here last week?”

His face washed over blank.

“Yeah, I saw you,” she said. “I know how you like to bring your girls to the lake.”

And it was true. She
had
seen them jump when she was checking snares. She’d been surprised the water was still deep enough, given the lack of rain, and had stayed long enough to make sure they didn’t hurt themselves, then bolted for town. What followed the swim was not something she’d wanted to witness.

“
My
girls?” Lock said from the water. “It’s not like I own them.”

And right then, Bree knew he was never going to look at her the way she wanted him to. The fact that he couldn’t see it—the way he treated those girls and the way he treated her, like they were different species . . . It hurt so much it was like Bree had drowned years ago and was only just feeling the effects of running out of oxygen.

She leaped from the branch. Her feet hit the water, and she was swallowed whole. The lake was warm, but still refreshing, a relief after being in the tree all morning. When she resurfaced, Lock was there to dunk her.

“What was that for?” she gasped.

“For spying on me and Maggie.”

“I left before things got exciting.” Then, because she knew it would annoy him, she glanced at his shorts through the water and added, “Not that there was much to see.”

“Oh, you are going to regret saying that!”

He lunged at her, but she was already fleeing. Bree laughed as she swam toward shore, choking on water, strokes sloppy. Lock continued to spew playful threats as he chased. Bree scrambled onto the grass, only to feel Lock grab hold of her ankle. He yanked her to a standstill. She cursed him, then gasped as he pulled an arm behind her back and pinned it to her spine.

“Apologize,” he said.

“Never,” Bree said into the grass.

He tugged harder and her arm flared hot. “Then say ‘mercy’ or I won’t let you up.”

Bree had only once gotten free of a wrestling session like this without saying “mercy,” and that had been when she’d mistakenly caught Lock between the legs with her knee. Every other victory, she’d earned. She’d fought her way free, slipped loose, beaten him fair and square. He had more muscle than her, but she was fast and small, and used her elbows ruthlessly.

“I’m not Maggie,” she said through gritted teeth. “Or Cate or Ness.”

Lock released Bree’s arm and flipped her over so quickly she barely registered it happening. One moment her mouth was pressed into the grass, and the next he was above her, dripping water onto her from his nose and eyelashes.

“What’s that mean?”

She rolled her sore shoulder. “Nothing.”

“No, it meant something, or you wouldn’t have said it. What are you driving at?” he demanded.

“Just that you can’t expect me to say ‘mercy’ because of a little pain. When have I
ever
folded without a fight? I’m not like your girls, remember?”

“Trust me, you don’t want to be like them. I have nothing to give them.”

“I think Maggie might say otherwise.”

Lock shook his head, frowning. “It might not seem like it, but I give you the best parts of me, Bree. If Maggie were smart, she’d wish she were you. They all would. So don’t go asking me for more. Don’t ask me to ruin this.”

But Bree wanted him to. Badly. His birthday was three days off, and things would be ruined anyway. She’d never see him again, never have the chance to tell him how she felt. And he was still hovering over her, a knee on either side of her torso, looking right at her.
Into
her. Listening, truly, for the very first time.

So Bree did something she’d never done: She sat up and took what she wanted.