“Running out of the lighthouse.” Mia tipped her head in the direction of the door. “Lacey found me. That’s the first thing I remember.”

“Lacey? The younger sister?”

“Yes,” Mia said. “She was coming to meet up with us, and she found me.” That part was clear—Lacey grabbing onto her arms, her fingers digging in, jagged nails catching flesh that was smeared with blood.

“We came back in and found them,” Mia continued. She and Lacey had run toward the lighthouse, their thighs bunching, their feet pounding against the uneven ground. Why could she still feel the burn of it, the pull of tendons and ligaments, but couldn’t picture how she and Asher and Monroe had sat on the floorboards?

“It was too late,” Mia finished, though Izzy would know that from the outcome. Their cuts were too deep.

Mia stopped in front of the fireplace mantel. There was a jewel-encrusted box that sat on top of an ivory ledge. They’d stored their joints there. Sammy Bowdoin and Asher and Cash.

She rubbed her fingertip over one of the pearls that lined its seams.

“Is that all?” Izzy asked.

Pale bodies caught in moonlight. Dark hair spilling over a blood-drained face. Asher’s slumped form, his eyes closed like he was sleeping.

Her own skin had been slick, and she’d tried pressing the bottom of her shirt against the wound to stop the flow. Nothing in her had screamed to let it be, to let the life seep out of her, slowly and surely.

So why had she dragged the razor across her wrist? Why had any of them?

The fog slinked in, obscuring even the details she knew, she knew she remembered.

Mia nodded, almost forgetting the question. Is that all? Yes. Yes.

“I was expecting more.” Izzy shifted, but she was still leaning against the windowsill, her face mostly hidden.

“They called it a suicide pact.” Mia shrugged, as if nonchalant, as if the night hadn’t ruptured the very fabric of her being despite the fact that she couldn’t remember any of it. She’d talked about this before, with the cops, with therapists, with Mama—though the last one had been filled with uncomfortable arm pats and loaded silences.

When Izzy didn’t say anything, Mia licked her lips. “I left the morning after it happened. My aunt lives in Portland. I went to stay with her.”

Izzy’s fingers drummed against her thigh, an uneven beat. “How long did that last?”

Mia laughed, without humor. She didn’t like to think about that time. Didn’t like to think about any of this. “A week.”

“You must have still been in shock.”