John. His pockets of herbs, his bug of the day, that great juddering laugh smashed out of him.

I double over, vomit. No warning, just ejection, my body saying no.

My throat is fire when I stop, finally able to suck in breath. I feel the vague sensation of a hand, soft against my shoulder, before Matthew backs up.

“It’s all right, Lady Treadway.” He stares at the dirt between his boots. “It’s normal. You’re reacting normally.”

I can’t speak yet. I swipe at my mouth with one wrist, swallowing sour, and step around the mess.

Matthew turns and continues at a jog to where John’s body stands pinned, slumped, eyes flat and empty.

I drop into a crouch a few yards away, holding my head like it’s going to fly apart. Matthew leans against John’s truck, looking down at the hood, away from the body. The body. He scrunches his eyes shut.

I cover mine with two fists, tears streaming past my fingers.

“Okay,” he says after a moment. “Okay. Do you know where the…?”

He leans far into the truck’s window, and I find myself holding my breath tightly, waiting for the vehicle to willfully reverse direction, alive and malevolent.

When Matthew emerges again, safe, I stand up, prickling with relief.

“He left the keys. Right. I’m going to reverse. Carefully. Why don’t you take—Max, is it?”

Everyone knows Max’s name. He snuck into every single garden on the island when he was a puppy and tore up the lighthouse steps one morning when Matthew left the door open. Matthew’s pretending unfamiliarity, creating distance. It always felt aggressive before, but right now, for the first time, it strikes me as courteous. Why pretend we’re friends with everything else going on? What a relief not to fake it.

I nod and clasp Max’s collar, pulling him away.

“Farther, I think,” Matthew calls from the driver’s seat.

I’ve got to be twenty feet away, well out of range, but I back up more. It’s the Day; he’s being cautious. He doesn’t want me to die.

The realization surprises me more than it should. I’m a human being. Of course he doesn’t want me to die.

The pickup’s engine starts up. Its purr rumbles in my stomach like a threat.

Matthew doesn’t look intimidated. He rolls it back.

John’s body makes a sucking noise as it uncouples from the hood and falls like wet lumber onto the ground. His head lolls to face me as he falls.

He looks surprised. That was the last emotion he experienced. Not shock, even. More like wonder.

It’s not the worst end for someone like John Ashford.

My eyes sting hot and flood again. I turn away, fighting off a scream. I don’t want Matthew Clare of all people to see me like this.