Hereafter (Shadowlands 2)

He’d have me, I thought as the rain started to come harder.

“Well, why didn’t he tell me that?”

Joaquin looked me in the eye. “Maybe you should ask him.”

I pushed my hair away from my face. It didn’t escape me that even though Joaquin was pissed off, he was managing to see Tristan’s side of things. “You guys are really good friends, huh?”

Joaquin smirked. “When we’re not fighting, yeah. Tristan’s like a brother.”

Just like Darcy and me. The two of us could fight like crazy people, but in the end we’d always be there for each other. And I suddenly understood why Krista had been so eager to be my friend since I’d arrived in town. As the newest girls here, we had a lot in common. She was probably dying for a best friend, a sister figure. But I already had a sister. A sister I intended to keep with me forever, if I could only figure out how.

“We have to do something,” I said. “With or without Tristan. We have to—”

“Look, you should get inside,” Joaquin said, glancing toward town. “I have someplace I have to be right now. We’ll figure this out in the morning.”

As he started to move away from me, the sky opened up, rain flattening the grass all around us and soaking my clothes right through. The leaves on the trees turned upside down, and some of the smaller ones bowed toward the ground. I started to shiver.

“We can’t wait until the morning,” I protested, hugging myself against the sudden chill. “What if someone else gets taken tonight? What if they get sent to the wrong place?”

“That’s not going to happen,” Joaquin replied, shaking his head. Water dripped from his eyelashes and chin. “No one ever gets taken in a storm.”

I laughed sarcastically. “Oh, and there’s no chance that rule is going to be broken?”

Joaquin gave me a hard look. “I’m sorry, Rory, but there’s something I have to take care of. You’re just gonna have to trust me. I’ll be at your place first thing in the morning.”

Then he turned and slipped into the woods, disappearing between two huge trees. I just stood there, soaked and baffled, my teeth chattering, waiting for the punch line. He had something to take care of in the middle of the woods, right now, when two seconds ago he’d been about ready to throw down with Tristan?

Shaking from head to toe, I turne

d to look back at the mayor’s house. I’d never seen it from this angle before, and for the first time, I noticed the large garage facing the driveway. The door was open, and sitting inside, safe from the rain and wind, was a sleek silver convertible. The very same car I’d seen idling near the cliff the other night.

The mayor had met with Dorn. Dorn, who was watching me just like Nadia was. A chill went down my spine, and as I turned to go, I saw Tristan standing on the porch under the cover of its wide roof, staring out at me.

You’ve been here longer than anyone, Joaquin had said. And Tristan hadn’t argued. Was that really true? How long was “longer than anyone”? And was it even possible that one person had been sent to Juniper Landing alone, with no one there to guide him?

Slowly, I headed back toward town. Joaquin didn’t want to deal with this tonight? Fine. As of that moment, I had my own mission to carry out.

Navigating the descent to the cove that night in the pouring rain and pitch dark was terrifying. The wind was so fierce it drove the rain sideways, each droplet a sharp dart against my skin. Halfway down the rocky decline, my foot slipped on the rocks, and as my arms flung out to grasp at the nothingness, I was sure I was about to fall to my death. Then my back hit a jagged point and I remembered: I couldn’t die. But I could feel excruciating pain.

I scrambled to my knees and checked the pocket of my rain jacket to make sure my flashlight hadn’t tumbled out. Shakily, I pushed myself to my feet and took baby steps all the way to the bottom of the hill. When I could finally see the sand, I unclenched my jaw and jumped the last few feet. The ground squished beneath the soles of my sneakers, bubbling up around the rubber treads with the consistency of oatmeal.

I could just make out the shadowy humps of the tents in the distance. Not surprisingly, they were dark and still. I flicked on my flashlight and ran it along the rock wall to my left, inching forward until I finally found the opening of the cave. It looked smaller somehow, as I stood there in front of it alone. Threatening. For one brief moment I thought I saw something flicker deep inside, and I almost turned around and ran.

No one’s here, I told myself, listening to the rain as it thwapped against the vinyl cover of my hood. They’d have to be crazy to come out in this.

Of course, I was crazy just for being here. And after seeing the Lifers storm-surfing last week and the cliff-diving the other night, I already knew that some of the others weren’t exactly on the right side of sane. But this place was mine now, as much as it was theirs. If someone was inside, they were just going to have to deal.

I took a deep breath and slipped into the cave. The narrow opening was clogged with smoke, the heady, ashy kind that billows up after dousing a fire. As I came around the corner, I covered my mouth with my sleeve and ran the flashlight’s beam along the floor. Sure enough, the fire pit was smoldering. A few small embers still glowed bright orange in the darkness, and thick gray smoke snaked up from the center of the charred logs, disappearing near the high ceiling of the cave.

“Anyone here?” I called.

No response. Somewhere in the deepest depths of the cavern, water dripped at a steady rhythm.

This made no sense. If someone had been in here just before me, I would have bumped into them coming out, either on the beach or on the rocks. Unless there was a back entrance to the cave, or some other way out to the cove that they hadn’t shown me.

Forget it, I told myself. You came here for a reason.

I tried to ignore my trembling hands as I aimed the flashlight beam at the wall to my right. I found Krista’s name again, the bubbly flowery lettering proclaiming her arrival. A few feet away, Nadia had written her name in slanted, sophisticated script: NADIA LINKOVA (NASH) 1982. Right under hers, Cori had added her name: CORI HERTZ (MORRISON) 1982. No wonder they were so close. They’d shown up here around the same time. Another reason why Krista probably expected the two of us to become BFFs. I moved on, illuminating unfamiliar names like Corina Briggance (Horrance) from 1993 and Wallace Brooks (Garretson) from 1979. I paused when I found Kevin’s name, huge and jagged, near the top of the wall, an intricate fire-breathing dragon painted above it, the tail curling around his year, which was 1965. Kevin had come here the year my father was born.