With that grim directive, the Reverend thrusts open the clinic door and swoops out like the mammoth blackbird that he is. But Miss Manners doesn’t follow. She scans the lobby another round...There’s no way she doesn’t feel our presence in the room. Our furnace-like heat. Something brushes against my arm. Next to me, Marcos’s fingers twitch. His nerves. He’s going to snap his fingers, and she’ll hear us. Marcos and I move slowly as if in a nightmare. His thumb and middle finger push together, preparing to snap. My hand lunges for his like I’m catching him in a skydive. Just before he can snap, I lace my small, thin fingers into his thick, balmy ones and squeeze. Marcos’s pale brown eyes watch me through the curtain of lab coats, and—reluctantly—he squeezes back. He doesn’t pull away.

Marcos’s hand is smooth, soft, and, with a tuft of dark hair, tickling me just lightly enough to make my entire spine tremble. Marcos stares at our clasped hands, hypnotized at what I’ve done. The thrill of merely holding this boy’s hand—so dangerous that we’re both begging for this moment to end…and not end. Right on schedule, the trouble activates—every pleasure must give way to pain. Horrible images assault me, one after the other: Ario horrified, my hometown congregation scowling over their pews at me, and my mother…brutally, purposely silent.

Nausea grips my belly, tilting my already uneasy balance in our sweltering closet, but it isn’t safe to let go of Marcos. He’ll snap and give us away. I wince through the pain and rush back to the door slats, praying I won’t see Ramona’s dolled-up eyes staring back from the other side. Apparently satisfied, the lemon-dressed woman clip-clops out of the clinic to join the Reverend…and locks the door from the outside.

I’m halfway out of the closet when I realize I’m still clutching Marcos’s hand. He reemerges with me, and our overheating fingers unstick from each other, finally relieving my stomach. “Sorry,” I say. “I had to stop your snapping.”

“You had to do it,” he says, searching our surroundings to make sure Miss Manners isn’t crouching behind some chair. He pushes his ear to the front door and listens, bug-eyed and breathless. “She creeps me out. You have to keep away from her.”

“Thanks for the hot tip,” I say, caressing Ario’s recorder until my heart finally rests.

“You know, you’ve got a little attitude on you.”

“Well, I’m in trouble! You heard the Reverend. He’s not gonna let me leave the island.”

“He just means for the week that you’re here.”