Page 9 of The Same Backward as Forward
I ended up on the shore, where the ocean crashed into the rocks, sending an explosion of sea spray into the air. The sky was no longer storm black. The haze over the ocean could almost have passed for fog, but I knew it for what it was.Smoke.I couldn’t make out even the faintest outline of Hawthorne Island.
A little game of arson.I blinked into the wind, and the next thing I knew, I wasinthe ocean, up to my ankles, then my calves. It was only when the water hit my knees that I stopped.
My sister was out there. Dead or alive—and I knew at that point that shewasn’talive, Iknew, but I couldn’t keep from hedging my thoughts—I needed to get to her.
Even if she wasashes.
It was too far to swim, and I wasn’t far enough gone to try,so I went back to the bar instead. I opened the door, and almost immediately, the entire place fell silent. For better or worse, I wasn’t invisible now.
I was a Rooney of Rockaway Watch, and one of my family’s own wasdead.
“Someone is going to take me out there,” I said.
All eyes were on me. I didn’t repeat myself. I just waited for one of the men at the bar to stand.
The boat didn’t get within a hundred yards of Hawthorne Island before the Coast Guard turned us back. The island was still burning—here and there, scattered flames. The rain or the Guard must have taken care of the rest.
As I stared at the charred remains of what had once been a grand mansion, the Coast Guard’s voice blared over the radio once more. “Turn back,” it reiterated.“There are no survivors. I repeat, no survivors.”
Chapter 7
No survivors.The words haunted me late into the night. The Coast Guard clearly wasn’t looking for anyone. They weren’t combing the waters for Toby Hawthorne. They thought he was dead.
Deep in my mind, a voice whispered,Is he?
The next morning, I had a shift at the hospital. I went, dressed in a fresh pair of scrubs, dark rings under my eyes. My supervisor pulled me aside the second she saw me.
“You don’t have to be here today, Hannah.” In all the time I’d shadowed her, this nurse had been about as no-nonsense as they came, but there was a gentle undertone to her words now.
She knows, I thought.About Kaylie.I hadn’t changed my last name. Had I been kidding myself this whole time to think that I could be invisible, that everyone at this hospital didn’t know exactly who my family was?
“I do need to be here,” I said, my voice as even as I could make it.“Please.”
“Go home, Hannah.” That clearly wasn’t a request. “Take aweek—or two. I’ll talk to your advisor and make sure you aren’t penalized, but I don’t want to see you back here any sooner than seven days from now.”
I wanted to push back, but I didn’t. I left the hospital, fully intending to retreat to my apartment, but somehow, I ended up at the shack instead. I pounded three times on the metal door.
“What do you want?” That was Jackson’s paranoid version ofWho’s there?
“It’s me.” I didn’t say what Iwanted. I wasn’t even sure I knew. The door opened inward, halfway. I squeezed in, and Jackson shut it behind me. For the first time in a long time, I registered how big he was—at six foot six, the fisherman loomed over me, over just about everyone. But he’d never scared me.
I was much more afraid of what I would I see when I looked past him.
What I saw was a mattress on the floor. Toby Hawthorne was lying on his back on the mattress. His chest was still bare but for the gauze that had been used to dress his wound. There was a pile of damp rags on the floor beside the mattress.
He’s alive, then.If Jackson had been tending to his wounds in my absence, Tobias Hawthorne the Second was still alive.
“Did you get the silver cream?” I asked Jackson dully.
“I dug some up.” It wasn’t until he handed me the jar and I saw the dirt smeared across the label that I realized he’d meant that literally.
On the bed, Toby made a noise like the creaking of a door—half-moan, half-rasp.
“You came back,” Jackson noted.
I shouldn’t have, but I’d had to see for myself whether Toby was still alive. Based on that moan, he definitely was. I shouldhave turned around and walked out the door, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that Kaylie wouldn’t have wanted me to.
She’d never been the least bit capable of holding a grudge.
