“Okay. Let’s—” Dr. Kapoor continued, but she didn’t get to finish.
“What do you think you’re doing, Vanya?”
Sophie gasped, shrinking back, and my breath stopped in my throat, the world spinning around me as Dr. Hardcastle strode toward us, fury in his face.
I’m sorry, he’d said. Sorry. Like it mattered. Like it could remove even the slightest bit of evil from the act. Sophie’s fear and mine crashed together and turned to rage. This man—this man had stranded our mother. Had left her behind and he had promised, he had promised her that he would keep her daughter safe, and he had lied.
He had left us on the shore. He had cast us in the cold water. And all he’d said was sorry.
The rage filled us both. There was nowhere for it to go. But I—I had lived my life among people. Among rules and society. I knew how to swallow it down. Sophie didn’t.
He saw us, both of us, and his eyes widened. Was he afraid in that moment? I hope so.
Sophie screamed and threw herself at him. If she’d had a weapon, she would have killed him. She had her fists, though, and her nails, and she flew at him, all fury and agony. Her nails raked his cheek. He yelled in pain and caught her by the wrist. She thrashed, kicked at him, but however much strength her anger gave her, he was still bigger than her, still stronger. He spun her against him and wrapped his arms in a bear hug around her, hands grasping her wrists so all she could do was scream and struggle against him, her hair a ragged veil over her face.
“Aren’t any of you going to do something?” he demanded. “This thing—”
“She is not a thing,” I screamed at him. I grabbed at his arm. “Let her go!”
“Jesus. You’re her,” he said. “You don’t understand. These creatures are dangerous.”
“Let her go, Will,” Dr. Kapoor said.
He made a noise in the back of his throat, like a scoff, and threw Sophie free of him. She hit the pebbled ground and rolled, scrambling upright to sit, panting, her teeth bared. I ran to her, wrapped my arms around her for both comfort and restraint. I couldn’t push my fear away, or my anger, because it would only flow into her. I had to let it submerge me.
And I had to keep going anyway.
I pressed my brow against her hair. “It’s all right,” I told her.
“He hurt us,” she whispered. She shook, and I felt it through my whole body.
I watched the boat vanishing into the fog as my mother wrapped her arms around me and a shriek tore through the air. I felt the cold shock of the water as he flung me away. I remembered a monster.
I stood. “You deserve so many things,” I told him. Contempt turned every word to acid, and I relished the way it burned my lips, my tongue. “You deserve to be hurt. Maybe you deserve to die. God knows you deserve to be afraid. But you don’t deserve to have one bit of power over me. You don’t deserve one more moment of fear or anger. I will not give it to you. And I will not let you keep us from what we have to do. Stay here and rot. You don’t matter. You are nothing.”
His face contorted: rage first. Then contempt. Then—desolation. He looked as if he wanted me to scream at him and strike at him, because if I hated him for what he’d done, it would save him from having to do it himself.
Sophie pulled herself to her feet, clinging to my hand. “He needs to be punished,” she hissed at me.
“Yes,” I said. “But we can’t wait around to do it. Don’t let him take anything else from us.”
She took three short, sharp breaths between her teeth, her hand gripping mine tight enough to hurt. Then she nodded.
We left him there on the shore. We made for Belaya Skala.
PART FIVE
ALL WHICH IT INHERIT, SHALL DISSOLVE
VIDEO EVIDENCE
Recorded by Sophia Novak
JUNE 30, 2018, 9:16 PM
The island is calm. Almost inert. A gentle breeze stirs the air, and a few birds tilt in gentle crescents above the island, but otherwise there is only the scrape of the skiff against the rocks to break the stillness. But it is the kind of stillness that promises a storm. Sophia, holding the phone that is recording the video, steps out onto the shore. Liam hops out after