Wondering whether you still smelled like his fingers.

Like the beach.

Like paint.

Chapter Forty-Two

The screen door creaks when it opens. A warning, but one that arrives too late.

Brent’s footsteps are heavy. Slow. Deliberate.

“Abby?” He says my name casually, all his fake shock and anger discarded. Somehow I’ve made it into my old bedroom. I’m holding on to the door, trying to stay on my feet. But the floor isn’t a floor: it’s water, and it’s breaking up beneath me.

Run. I think the word. I think the word and I break into a sprint. I skim through the house, barrel out the door, sprout wings in open air, and fly. I’m running, I’m sure I’m running, and yet when he edges down the hall and sees me swaying there, I realize I’m still holding tight to the walls, still pinned inside the house.

“You’re still awake,” he says.

Fuck you, I try to say. But the words turn into stone; as they drop, my body collapses.

I don’t even feel it when my head cracks the floorboards. I only notice the dust stirred by my breath, and his shoes coming toward me.

“That’ll be one hell of a hangover,” he says.

He drugged my drink.

I am in a dark sea.

I am on the floor.

I wonder where he got the climbing rope, and why I can’t feel my arms.

And then I lose the rope, and I lose my arms, and I lose my whole body. I fall down into a hole so deep it swallows me up completely.

—

I wake to a slosh of water, and to the steady vibration of an engine. I’m on a boat.

The sky is scattered with stars. A high moon burns through the cloud cover.

Brent is captaining slowly, probably so we don’t make too much noise, and trailing the stink of exhaust behind us on the water.

He’s humming.

Fear rattles through me but I can’t move. There’s a screaming pain in my head, and the burn of vomit in my throat. My clothes are soaked, and my wrists chafed from the nylon cord lashed around them. He’s bound my ankles, too, and wedged me down between the bench seats.

In the distance: the thud of pounding music. The smell of wood smoke carries to me. Someone is having a bonfire.

I need to get out of the boat. But I’ll never be able to swim with my hands tied. I’m not even sure I could tread water, even if I get free—my body feels like a sandbag.

Still, I have to try.

Brent turns away from the wheel, cutting the engine. I can’t begin to reach the side of the boat to roll over. I aim a weak kick with both legs and miss him entirely. The effort blackens my vision. The thud of the music, even from a distance, makes my head throb.

“This would have been a lot easier if you’d just finished your drink,” he says.