A Fierce and Subtle Poison - Samantha Mabry Page 0,46

I could say. An apology would’ve rung hollow with him—a promise would’ve done the same. Like the detective, he hated me and would always hate me for breaking into his world.

Someone—a stranger, an obliviously happy festival-goer—bumped into my shoulder, and broke my standoff with Dr. Ford. He stayed put as I turned and began to snake my way through the crowd to where Carlos and Rico were waiting with an idling taxi. They were yelling at me to get a move on. Behind me, in the plaza, the band ended another song, and another cheer rose up.

“Who was that?” Carlos asked, climbing into the cab.

“No one. A friend of my dad’s.”

Carlos let it drop; for him, it was a good enough explanation.

On the way to the beach, as Carlos and Rico sang along to the cab’s radio at the top of their lungs, I was preoccupied by thoughts about Dr. Ford’s arms, blotched and inflamed, with tiny white blisters dusting his skin like rock salt. I’d seen those blisters on my own skin after I’d fallen into Isabel’s courtyard. They’d come along with a burning fever and delirium, slurred speech and bloodshot eyes. When I’d gone back to the hotel and looked at myself in the mirror, I’d looked . . . deranged. Tonight, Dr. Ford had looked the same.

Isabel could do that to a person—mar them inside and out, tip and tilt them from their core. She could, of course, also do much worse.

Fifteen

I’D MISSED THE ocean—I hadn’t realized how much. I stripped off my shirt and my jeans, tossed them in the sand, and sprinted toward the surf in my boxers. The water, I noticed as I plunged into it, seemed off: strangely cold, with a slightly fungal scent and a less salty taste on the tongue. The recent storms must have brought new water in from far away.

Rico and Carlos were shouting nearby. When I looked over, I could barely make out their heads bobbing up and down and their arms flailing as they tried to dunk each other. I stayed where I was, floating on my back and letting the cold water soothe the memory of my once-burning skin. The seaweed that the storms had uprooted grazed against my legs and my back. I imagined they were the fingers of dead men.

Eventually the three of us raced through the water, parallel to the coastline. It was a dirty fight, and one that I would have won had Rico not whacked me in the face with his fist. I saw stars, swallowed a mouthful of black salt water, and thought for moment that my nose had been broken.

Almost thirty minutes later, we were laughing, bone-tired, as we pulled ourselves out of the ocean and back onto the beach where we swatted at stray mosquitoes and stumbled around to find our clothes. Carlos tripped over a beach chair and fell face down in the sand. When he tried to get up, he tripped and fell again. The more he told us to shut up, the harder we laughed.

When I finally got back to my room at the hotel, it was nearly dawn. I cracked open Dr. Ford’s book in bed, but it almost immediately slipped from my hands and landed on my chest as I fell asleep.

In the morning, I woke feeling a pinch on my face. I slapped my cheek, but the mosquito was quick. He flew over to the nightstand, where he landed on the dumb cane leaf. He took a few light steps, exploring with his slender proboscis. Then he froze. His legs actually seemed to crack in half before he tipped over dead.

Outside my door, I heard the sounds of mild chaos, mostly the hustle of feet, commands given in harsh whispers, and the squeals of carts being pushed swiftly across the mezzanine.

Another mosquito landed on my arm. This one was slower, already fat. I was able to smash it against my skin, where it left a bloody streak.

On my nightstand, my phone rang. It was my dad, telling me that breakfast in the courtyard was cancelled. He asked me to join him in his room, where he had already rung for room service.

“The mosquitoes are back,” he said before he hung up.

Every few years, from the islands to the east, millions of mosquitoes make a giant journey for their tiny bodies. Like ships, they follow the winds and the tides. Once they reach San Juan, they bounce from one thing with blood to