“Good.” Val laughs, and that edge disappears. “Then you can help me with my monologue. It’s a mess. I just finished memorizing it on the plane this afternoon.”

Lex pulls a crumpled cigarette out of his bag, and we pass that around between the four of us. The fire is getting low, so Jude and Lex go off to gather more driftwood. I watch them down the beach, doing more flirting and laughing than wood-gathering.

Val gets a call from Chester. She rolls her eyes and steps away for some privacy. I can’t hear what she’s saying, but that hand planted on her hip tells me she’s annoyed, and I almost feel sorry for the poor guy.

It’s finally quiet for a few minutes then. Just the sound of the fire dying. And the hypnotic repetition of the waves. I lean back on my elbows and breathe in smoke and salt. The fire and the sea. It’s almost more intoxicating than the beer, that smell. If somebody could invent a candle that really smelled like this, they’d be so rich.

Then, from somewhere behind me, I hear voices. Hushed and secretive and carried on the wind. I can’t make out the words, but there’s something familiar about the barely there sound. It brushes against my memory the way the seaweed brushed the backs of my knees.

More whispering.

I think it must be Lex and Jude. But when I sit up and look toward the water, I see the two of them standing close together, arms full of sun-bleached driftwood. The moonlight makes it look like they’ve been gathering bones.

I glance over my shoulder and there’s no one there, but I still hear the sound of muffled whispers. Leftover partiers, probably. A half-drunk couple hooking up in the tall grass.

I get to my feet and take a few steps away from the fire. Toward the dunes. And that whispering sound.

“Who’s there?” I ask. My voice is soft, almost a whisper itself. But no answer comes back to me on the damp night air, so I try again. Louder this time. “Is somebody out there?”

There’s nothing now. No sound at all. So maybe I never heard anything to begin with.

I turn back toward the water to find Lex and Jude and Val again. Just to make sure they’re not messing with me. I count heads. One. Two. Three.

“Hey.”

A voice from the darkness. Not a whisper this time. A solid word.

I spin around to look behind me, and a figure is walking out of the blackness. A guy about my age. Someone I haven’t seen before.

“Looks like I missed the party,” he says.

My muscles tense. There’s something about the way he moves. Too slow. Too easy. Too sure of himself. Like he owns the place or something.