Dark and Shallow Lies

by Ginny Myers Sain

  Then he turns and heads out to the front porch.

  He doesn’t say goodbye.

  I crouch down low to talk to Wrynn. “Hey,” I tell her. “Thanks for finding Evie for us.”

  She looks at me, all red-faced and puffy-eyed. “Don’t let it get ya, Grey,” she pleads. Her voice is a terrified whisper. And at first I think she means the hurricane. Elizabeth. But then she says, “Da rougarou.” I reach out and run my hand over her stringy red hair.

  “Don’t worry,” I tell her. “I won’t.”

  But she grabs my hand and squeezes so hard it hurts. “You promise me, Grey,” she begs. “Please! He’s gonna get Evie, sure. ’Cause Case told him right where she’s at. But when he comes back here, don’t you let him get you, too. You fight with everythin’ ya got.”

  She turns and runs to follow Case outside, but when I step through the front door after her, they’ve both already disappeared.

  I manage to make it back inside before my legs go out from under me. I lean against the wall and slide down to sit on the bare floor.

  The house shakes as the wind moves around the corners with a high-pitched keening sound that makes me shiver.

  It’s howling.

  Like a bayou werewolf.

  I think about the way Wrynn acted when she saw Hart.

  That terror in her eyes.

  He’s gonna get Evie, sure. ’Cause Case told him right where she’s at.

  I find the little blue pearl around my neck.

  Twist Elora’s ring around my finger.

  My hands are shaking when I reach for my backpack. I pull it across the floor toward me and unzip the front pocket. I’m looking for that photograph of Elora and me. Our tenth birthday. The pink sheet cake. Or the sketch Sander did of the two of us. I just want to see her face.

  I need to feel less alone.

  But the first thing I find is that birthday card from Hart. The one in the purple envelope. Folded in half. And water-stained.

  The one I never opened.

  I pull it out and unfold it. Then I stare at my name scrawled in pencil across the front. I trace the letters with my finger before I break the seal and pull the card out of the ruined envelope. Because I need to remind myself who Hart is. Who he’s always been.

  The front of the card features a dancing pig in a pink tutu. She’s holding a can of beer in one hand and throwing a peace sign with the other.

  IT’S YOUR BIRTHDAY! GO HOG-WILD!

  And there’s a handwritten note on the inside.

  Happy birthday, Shortcake. Sorry this year has been so shitty. You deserve a better party. Hope you get to celebrate in style sometime soon. Love, Hart.

  And that’s when the hurricane hits.

  Category 10. At least.

  Soon.

  I stare at the word. That slanting s and those two egg-shaped o’s leap right off the paper to lodge themselves deep in my throat. They make it impossible to breathe.

  Soon.

  A one-word love note.

  An unfulfilled promise.

  A delicate gold bracelet with one tiny charm.

  A single

  perfect

  red

  heart.

  That’s when I know for sure.

  And knowing feels unsurvivable.

  Whatever he might do to me tonight—

  even if he kills me—it can’t be

  worse than this terrible knowing.

  27

  It’s unbelievable—wrong—to think of Hart and Elora together. Like that. They aren’t really related. Not by blood, anyway. But still. It’s like finding out grass grows from the sky and rain falls from the ground.

  I feel upside down.

  Betrayed.

  And I couldn’t even say if I’m jealous of Elora for what she had with Hart.

  Or if I’m jealous of Hart for what he had with Elora.

  Either way, I don’t want it to be true.

  But there’s no denying that s and those o’s.

  Soon.

  That word ricochets inside my head like a bullet.

  Soon Elizabeth will be here.

  Soon La Cachette will be underwater.

  Soon we’ll all be drowned.

  I shove the card in my backpack and zip it up tight. And I tell myself I’m being ridiculous. So what if Hart and Elora were in love? It doesn’t mean he’s a murderer.

  Only I can’t get over the fact that he lied to me about going out to Keller’s Island that night. And if he wasn’t out there, what was he doing while everyone else was searching for Elora out at Li’l Pass?

  I think about how he tried so hard to convince me that Case was guilty. And then Zale.

  And about the way Wrynn looked at him.

  Like she was face-to-face with a monster.

  He’s gonna get Evie, sure. ’Cause Case told him right where she’s at.

  Oh, God. I lean back against the wall and hope like hell I don’t pass out.

  Because I think I finally know what Elora has been whispering to Evie from beyond the grave. She’s been saying that Hart is the one who killed her.

  That would explain the wind chimes.

  All Evie’s jumpiness this summer.

  Because there’s no way she would want to hear that. Not about Hart. Not with him being her knight in shining armor.

  The dead? They lie. Just like the rest of us.

  And—shit!—I’m the one who told Hart that Elora was whispering secrets in Evie’s ear. So now he knows that she knows. If Hart kills Evie, it’s all my fault.

  I have to do something.

  Now.

  Because soon Evie will be dead.

  Soon Hart will be back.

  I jump up and run into the kitchen to pull on my boots and grab a flashlight. Hart’s got a good head start on me. He’s probably back at Li’l Pass already. And maybe it doesn’t matter anyway. If we’re all gonna die. Maybe nothing matters.

  Except it does.

  Because there’s a difference. I don’t want Hart to kill Evie back there in the swamp. If Evie and I fight this storm tooth and nail, and we end up drowning together, that’s still better than whatever happened to Elora.

  That’s not what really drives me out into the hurricane, though.

  Not deep down. Not in the bottom of my soul. It’s the hope that maybe I’m wrong.

  Please let me be wrong.

  I have to be wrong.

  I jerk open the kitchen door, and the wind knocks me backward. It’s late afternoon, so it shouldn’t be dark yet. But it is. It isn’t raining at the moment, though, and that’s something.

  I lean into the wind and start down the wooden steps into the bayou. And I immediately sink up to my knees. It’s like walking on the bottom of a lake. Every time I take a step, water rushes in to fill my footprints.

  Erasing them.

  Like I was never there at all.

  It’s slow going. I keep having to stop and pull my boots out of the mud, and I have to skirt around some low-lying places that are already covered by high water.

  When I finally get back to Li’l Pass, there’s no Hart.

  No Evie in the old dryer, either.

  Nobody at all.

  I long for the warmth of Zale’s electric touch. For the calm of his ice-blue eyes.

  I turn in a slow circle to peer through the thickening dark.

  But I’m utterly alone.

  Then I see it. Sudden movement in a cluster of scrawny trees and twisting undergrowth on the other side of the Li’l Pass.

  A floating ball of light.

  An old fear claws at me.

  Because now I’m hunting fifolet.

  The water is way up in Li’l Pass, but it’s not flooded yet. I splas
h across and pull myself through the mud on the other side. Then I push into the thicket. Thorns tear at my arms and legs as I move deeper into the center.

  And suddenly there they are. Trapped in my flashlight beam.

  Hart is standing over Evie, and she’s the one he’s attacking, but I feel his hands around my neck, too. I know those hands so well. I’ve felt them on my skin. It isn’t hard to imagine them

  —rough and strong and familiar—

  Squeezing.

  Choking.

  Holding me down in the mud and the water while the last bit of life drains out of me.

  “Hart!” I yell his name as loud as I can. Somehow I make myself heard over the raging of the storm. He lets go of Evie and looks back over his shoulder at me. His mouth falls open in surprise. And mine does, too. Because he isn’t human. Not anymore.

  His eyes glow with rage. They’re animal eyes.

  His teeth are bared.

  Sharp.

  He’s panting.

  All fangs and claws.

  Wrynn was right all along. For just a second, I see him the way she must have seen him that night. In the moment he first became the rougarou.

  And that’s when I know for sure. And knowing feels unsurvivable. Whatever he might do to me tonight—even if he kills me—it can’t be worse than this terrible knowing.

  Then I hear the boat horn.

  One blast.

  One last chance.

  I’d given up on anything that felt like hope.

  “Run!” I’m yelling at Evie, but I don’t know if she can hear me. “Boat!” I’m pointing in the direction of the boardwalk and screaming my throat raw. “Go!”

  She looks at me. Then at Hart. Hesitates. And I shriek at her again. “Evie! He killed Elora! You know that! Get out of here! Go!”

  Hart is staring at me. He looks dazed. Like I hit him over the head.

  Evie scrambles to her feet and gives Hart one last look, then she takes off. Running like the dickens. But I don’t move. And neither does Hart.

  We’re holding each other hostage.

  The wind is merciless. It’s like being hit with a two-by-four. Over and over and over. I grab one of the spindly little trees and hang on. But I don’t take my eyes off him. I can’t. Because there’s nobody else left in the whole world now. It’s down to just the two of us.

  Him.

  And me.

  A second blast of the boat horn cuts through the wind.

  I hang on as long as I can, to give Evie a few more seconds’ head start, then I let go of the tree and take a few steps back. Away from Hart.

  Because this is where everything ends. We both know it now.

  And that’s when the rain finally comes again.

  The sky splits open and it comes all at once. It comes in buckets.

  Rivers.

  The kind of rain that washes away the blood and carries away the evidence.

  No clue. No trace.

  No goodbye.

  All those visions. Those strange flashes.

  I didn’t understand what I was seeing. I had it all confused.

  It was never Elora running through the storm.

  It was always me.

  How could I not have known that?

  I freeze. Terrified. Struck by my own stupidity. Because I’ve seen all this play out before. I know what’s coming.

  I just don’t know how it ends.

  Not yet, anyway.

  “Don’t, Greycie!” Hart shouts at me, and he picks up his flashlight. “Don’t run!” His voice is pleading. But I do it anyway. I turn and run. I run like I have someplace to run to. Even though I don’t. I run like there’s somewhere to go. Even though I know there isn’t. “Fuck!” I hear him howl. Then he takes off after me.

  He’s tearing through the brush behind me. Breathing hard and calling my name. Even with the wind and the driving rain, he’s all I hear. So I push myself faster.

  We break out onto the wide-open flats, and I feel him closing in on me. There’s nowhere left to hide, except inside the dark. So I turn off my flashlight and let the blackness eat me alive.

  I see the glow of his light, and I zigzag to stay out of the beam.

  And now we’re playing flashlight tag. Like they were that night. The old rhyme jeers at me.

  Run and hide.

  Hide and run.

  I’ll count from ten, then join the fun.

  Say a prayer and bow your head.

  If my light finds you, you’ll be dead.

  Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one.

  Ready or not, here I come.

  I’m Dempsey Fontenot.

  You better run.

  I kick off my boots. They’re slowing me down. Then I swallow the panic along with the rain and keep running.

  Blind.

  Arms stretched out in front of me. Hoping not to feel anything.

  Hoping if I do feel something, it won’t be him.

  Not him.

  Not him.

  Please don’t let it be him.

  I hear the third blast of the boat horn, and I’m trying to work out if Evie’s had time to make it to the dock.

  Something grabs my ankle—cold, wet fingers—and I scream and go down hard. I hit the mud like it’s concrete, and it forces every bit of air out of my lungs. My chest aches and I couldn’t scream anymore, even if I wanted to. Not that there’s anybody to scream for.

  I kick at the hand at my ankle and realize it’s just a twisting root. But I don’t have the strength or the will to get up.

  Slicing rain stings my skin like a thousand tiny knives. The mud is pulling at me.

  Sucking me down.

  If I don’t do something now, this is where they’ll find my body.

  I wonder if Elora kept running.

  Everything feels so surreal. Like watching a movie I’ve seen before. Only I was half asleep the first time. Not paying attention.

  Now I’m wide awake.

  I hear Hart calling my name. The sound of his voice makes me wish the mud would hurry up and do its job. I want it to suck me down and down and down and then cover me up for good, so there’s nothing left of me for him to find.

  But then something thick and slimy moves against my leg. And I’m on my feet before I have time to think about what it might be.

  I stumble again when I hit water, but I don’t go down. Li’l Pass isn’t so little anymore. There’s no jumping it now. The water is up to my knees, and I fight the current to stay on my feet.

  I see the bounce of his flashlight beam, and I hear Hart yelling my name again. Over the wind and the rain and the rushing water. And I’m not completely sure if I’m hearing him outside my head.

  Or inside.

  “Greycie,” he pleads. “Where are you? It’s me. Please.” His voice is broken, hoarse and bleeding. Like his throat is ripped open. Like all of him is ripped open. And I can tell he’s crying. But I don’t call back. I can’t let him find me.

  Because if I do, he’ll kill me.

  Just like he killed Elora.

  Hart’s flashlight beam cuts through the dark again, and I drop down to my hands and knees in the middle of the storm. In the middle of Li’l Pass. My mouth is barely above the water, and I dig my fingers and toes into the mud to keep from being swept away.

  The feeling is familiar, and I remember, too late, what happens next.

  How I drowned the first time.

  On my bathroom floor.

  The bayou is flooding out. Water runs over my back and swirls around my ears. Deeper and deeper. I try not to breathe it in. But I have to breathe. I gasp for air and water rushes in instead. I’m coughing and gagging, and every time my body cries out for oxygen, all I get is water.

/>   Panic stabs at my insides. It slices me up and leaves me in ribbons. I can’t see. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can’t—

  My throat is on fire. The water burns my lungs like I’m sucking in gasoline.

  I lose my grip on the mud, and I feel myself being pulled along with the torrent. Tumbling. Spinning. Arms over head over knees or elbows. Mud in my nose. My mouth. My eyes. There’s nothing to grab on to. Nothing solid in the whole world.

  And then it all goes black.

  Peaceful.

  No more fear.

  Until—

  Hart hauls me up by my arm—like I’m a catfish he’s pulling out of a pond—and I come roaring back to myself. I fight against him. I kick and I claw and I bite. I spit rain and mud and curse words. But he’s too strong, and there’s not enough life left in me. I’m choking. Fighting to breathe. Out of the water but still drowning.

  “Goddammit, Grey.” He gathers me up in his arms. “Just stop.”

  My head is pounding, and it bounces against his shoulder as he carries me through the storm. I vomit bucketfuls of water onto his chest. And I stop fighting then. I turn my face up toward the sky and wait for the rain to drown me.

  Death in the water.

  Just like Mackey said about Elora.

  What does it matter if the water swirls and bubbles up from below or if it falls from the sky?

  Water is water.

  And dead is dead.

  And when I’m dead, then what?

  Will Hart leave me here for the gators?

  Toss me in the river like trash?

  Will they find me floating facedown in the drowning pool? Like Ember and Orli?

  Or maybe he has something even worse in mind.

  Maybe, right here at the very end, I’ll finally find out exactly what he did with Elora.

  28

  Hart carries me all the way back to La Cachette. Then he sets me down gently. On the edge of the boardwalk. Right above the gator pond.

  In the middle of a hurricane.

  “Hang on!” he yells at me. And I wrap my arms tight around the piling. He squats down next to me. And I know exactly what he’s going to say. “Don’t run, Greycie!” he shouts. “There’s no point!”