A flicker of the Daneelie shoving his dirty spear through Remo ignited a spark in my chest. Wordlessly, I reached out and took the tainted fruit from her.
A distant roar rose over the crush of water, and Giya’s face whitened. I hoped it was the sound of the last tigri impaling itself on someone’s spear.
“Are you planning on using the apple on Quinn?” Her voice cut through my throbbing temples.
“I don’t know.”
We stared at the apple for another long beat, then walked toward the frothing water, slipping inside its cool, cleansing depths until we were completely submerged. When I came back up for air, the concept of needing oxygen underwater still so foreign to me, I found Giya dripping yellow gel into her palm.
“It floats,” I said.
She frowned, so I gestured to the aloe spear.
She set it on the water and watched it bob. As she lathered up, I returned to the beach and sat, knees bent into my chest, toes curled in the sand, apple stowed securely inside my palm. I shut my drained eyes, but the memory of all that had happened spooled behind my lids, so I fixed them to the boulder I’d sat on yesterday.
Was it yesterday?
How I hated the continual white sky.
“Whose dust did you magnetize, and when?” Giya worked her rope of hair into a lather.
“Karsyn’s. The night of the betrothal revel. He attacked me. Tried to kill me.”
Her eyes darkened like thunderclouds. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Because I struck a bargain with Remo about keeping quiet.”
She wrung her tresses so hard suds foamed between her knuckles. “I don’t understand. I thought Karsyn attacked you . . .”
“Remo arrived mid-assassination-attempt. He helped me stop Karsyn.”
The corners of her already bowed lips turned down some more. “I will kill the little twerp. Along with his grandfather and Joshua Locklear.”
“I appreciate your savage compassion, cuz, but I don’t want you going anywhere near them.” I shot her a smile meant to ease her vengeful temperament, but it mustn’t have been very effective, because her lips didn’t unbend and her eyes didn’t brighten. “Want some help with your hair?”
Her eyebrows stayed flat, unmoving, but her mood . . . it raged and writhed through her body. I wanted to reach out and steal her anger, lob it atop my own, let it fester inside me instead of inside her. The Farrows and the Locklears were my burden to carry, not hers.
“Giya . . . let it go.”
“Would you let it go if someone hurt me?”
“No.”
“Then don’t expect me to let any of it go.” Giya dipped her head back, rinsing out her hair before squeezing more soap into her palm and kneading the lengths anew. There was something cathartic about the spectacle, as though it wasn’t only dreadlocks unraveling but also our collective tension.
As I watched new strands break free, a bolt of horror shattered the serenity. “How did Remo kill himself?”
The aloe spear jolted out of Giya’s grasp. “What?”
“How did he take his life?”
“Amara—”
“How?”
She pursed her mouth. “I don’t know. I was sort of trying not to look. With the machete, I think.”
My palms became ice, and the back of my neck fire. He’d used the machete on the apple. I pressed a trembling hand to the organ beating too hard and too fast inside my chest, feeling as though it was about to detonate like the train.
Giya frowned and then she didn’t. Then her eyebrows popped up. Both our gazes arrowed toward the top of the cliff. Quinn would come back, but would Remo? Cruz had said the apple needed to be ingested. What if a residue of apple had remained on the machete, and the blade had nicked his stomach?
“Where, Giya?” Foam danced around the cracked polish on my toes.
“Where what?”
“Where on his body did he . . .?” I couldn’t finish my sentence.
Again her expression turned guarded. Did she think I was asking because I wanted to torture myself with the details?
“I don’t know,” she confessed.
I closed my eyes and strengthened the dam, needing to keep myself together a while longer.
“Are you two having a relaxing bath?” Kiera’s voice pierced the torpid air.
Slowly, I stared over my shoulder toward where Josh’s sister stood, her outline unfocused, mere dabs of color—white, gray, red. Another person stood beside her. Although the contours of his body were as hazy as hers, Cruz was unmistakable. Then again, he was the only man left in the valley.