leaving a drunken map of driftwood and debris strewn across the sand. Low, slanting rays of sun began to poke through the mist as I took off, desperate to run the guilt out of my body.
Or, at least, to try.
The sea spat up the strangest things after a storm. I’d seen baseballs, high-heeled shoes, terra-cotta pots, and even a desk chair wash up after a night of thunder and lightning. But as I sprinted north, my shoes spraying grit with every footfall, my eyes landed on the strangest thing I’d seen yet.
It was hard to make out clearly in the gauzy light of dawn. Tendrils of fog curlicued around the mass, but from what I could see it was a…carpet? A rolled-up rug, maybe, or the contents of someone’s laundry basket. Though why clothes would remain clumped together after a storm, I couldn’t say.
I wrinkled my nose, the briny scent of the ocean doing its best to wake me up, and frowned as I ran closer. Maybe it was a half-zipped duffle bag, and that was just the arm of a sweater sticking out, or a—
Fuck. I skidded to a stop.
It was a body.
There was a body. Of a person. On my beach.
What the hell was I supposed to do?
I took a step, then a second one. My head felt funny all of a sudden. Fuzzy. Like I wasn’t quite inside my body anymore.
I moved forward, the strangest sense of deja vu flowing through me. There’d been a scene almost exactly like this in the second season of Infinity Falls, when I’d found Hadley’s character on the shore, only to discover, half a season later, that she was possessed by the ghost of her evil twin sister.
Reminding myself sternly that ghosts weren’t real, and that even if they were, there was no reason to expect one to be haunting my beach, I stopped a foot short of the body. It was facedown on the sand. I couldn’t tell if it was moving, or if I was just dizzy.
Taking a deep breath, I knelt down and put my hand on the body’s shoulder. No response. Wincing, I rolled it over, then froze.
I’d prepared myself for something awful. A bloated, blue face, or something an animal had gotten to. Instead, I found myself looking at a person who was—there was no other word for it—beautiful.
That didn’t seem like the right word for someone who might be dead on my property, but it was true.
It was a guy. Somewhat younger than I was, though it was hard to be sure with his pallor and the whole maybe-being-dead thing. Late teens or early twenties though, I’d guess. Not particularly tall.
Cuts and scrapes decorated his face, and dark circles ringed his eyes, but they just set off his delicate features. His long lashes and dark eyebrows were wild, his hair damp and plastered to his face, and even though his eyes were closed, he was defiant somehow. Like he was daring me to look away.
That said, he also looked like he’d been dragged for several miles across the Atlantic floor before washing up here. His clothes were soaked, and seaweed was starting to dry in papery ribbons where it stuck to his sweater. There was grit on his cheeks and a clamshell in the cuff of his sodden jeans.
I still wasn’t sure if he was breathing or not, so I swallowed and made myself touch his neck, feeling for a pulse, and that was when I noticed it—his neck was covered in bruises, blooming angry and purple across his skin in petal-like blotches.
No. Not blotches. Finger marks. Like he’d been strangled.
What the fuck had happened to him?
Whatever it was, it was bad. He’d clearly run into trouble. I frowned at his strangely gorgeous face, scenarios flashing through my mind—killed by the mob, international assassin, prince in disguise—each unlikelier than the last.
I heaved a sigh of relief when I felt a pulse. Faint and flickering, but undeniably there. But my relief was short-lived, because I still had to figure out what to do next. I glanced around the beach, bathed now in a soft morning glow, and wished I’d brought my phone with me. This guy needed 911.
When I looked back, his eyes were open. They were startlingly green. And terrified.
Not a look I was used to getting from people, if I’m honest. Morbid fascination, sure. But not fear. Not even Aggie had looked afraid of me at the end. Just angry, and betrayed.