And before I have a chance to protest, he’s stripping off his pants, pulling his shirt over his head. I join, discarding my clothes near the fire, and stand there in my bra and underwear. I see Claire divert her eyes, but the others’—including Kyan’s, I notice with relish—stay glued on my body.
And then we’re off, my hand laced in Tomas’s, our feet sinking in the red dirt, running until the lukewarm water skirts our toes. We rush in fast, droplets spraying everywhere, until the water reaches our waists, shoulders, necks.
The lake is deeper than I expected. After a few steps, my feet no longer touch the bottom, my toes only brushing silt. As the water rushes over my head, my hand still locked in Tomas’s, I feel a sense of relief, of freedom. And a silence.
For once, I don’t hearhisvoice, the insults he levels at me. Just quiet.
Until I feel something slimy brush my foot.
With a jolt, I surface, pulling Tomas with me. I release his hand as I start back towards the shore, running from whatever I felt below the water. But even so, a smile spreads across my face, the freedom from that moment lodging in my bones.
I collapse into the dirt, not minding the red mud clinging to my hands and knees, and someone—Claire?—throws me my clothes. It’s only once I start pulling them on over my wet skin that I hear it.
“Where is he?” Ellery’s voice is loud, panicked. “Where’s Tomas?”
And then the sound comes, inhuman and piercing. A scream that shakes the world around us.
29
Claire
Now
“It was a snakebite,” Declan says. “An eastern brown snake.”
Luke inhales sharply. “That’s one of the most venomous snakes in the world.”
I close my eyes tightly against the memory. Tomas stumbling out of the water, pale faced and naked. Someone screaming, Ellery maybe? Blood dripping from his leg as we hurried to throw clothes on him.
Birrani and Nick emerged from their tents instantly. As soon as he learned what happened, Birrani administered the antivenom he carried with him, but it didn’t matter. Eastern brown snake bites require multiple rounds, and Birrani didn’t have enough.
“It is okay,” Tomas said over and over as the world rushed around him, Birrani loading him into his dune buggy to drive back to the main office where he would radio for a helicopter to get him to the nearest hospital. “I feel fine.”
It was the last thing he said to us as Birrani pulled away. But Tomas was wrong.
He didn’t even make the trip back to the office. The snake venom paralyzed his heart, striking him dead in the middle of the Outback, the place he had longed to visit his entire life.
I feel a tear sneak down my cheek at the memory, and Luke places his hand on my shoulder.
“It sounds like he was a good friend,” he says comfortingly.
“Phoebe wasn’t the same after that,” I say once I’ve regained my composure. “She knew she was to blame. Tomas never would have gone in that water if she hadn’t dared him. And some of us—Adrien in particular—were pretty eager to remind her of that.”
***
Once we’ve finished our drinks, Declan and I go upstairs, retreating to our respective rooms. It’s certainly not the Raven Inn, that much is clear as soon as I enter mine. A faux fur rug lies flat on the beat-up hardwood floor, and dark maroon wallpaper interspersed with framed photos of various sex symbols decorate the walls. Pamela Anderson blows a kiss from above a desk, while Marilyn Monroe’s skirt flies up over a sewage grate directly above the double bed. I understand Luke’s reluctance to rent them out. The floor warps in places, the wallpaper peels, and a thin sheen of dust covers everything in sight.
I collapse onto the bed, which is significantly more comfortable than the one I slept in last night. Despite the darkness seeping infrom the windows, not one part of me craves sleep. Instead, my mind whirs. Recounting the story of Tomas’s death has brought me back to ten years ago. The resentment that filled the cracks in our group. The once happy family turned broken. The grief that festered into blame, all of it leveled at Phoebe.
Is that what led someone to kill her?
All of us have secrets; that much is true. I think of Adrien’s claim that Phoebe ruined her life, of Josh’s lies, of the secret whispers I overheard between Declan and someone else the other morning.No one even suspected.I recall the rage on Adrien’s face in the video I watched of her and Kyan the night Phoebe went missing, and I replay our conversation from earlier.She ruined my life.
Why won’t she just admit what happened? Why all this caginess? Can’t anyone just be honest for once?
Anger curls around my skin like wisteria, threatening to strangle me. This is enough. We all need to come clean.
I throw myself off the bed and walk decisively back out to the hallway. I knock on the door to Ellery and Adrien’s room loudly, and Ellery answers a moment later.
