“Reckon you already accomplished that,” John interrupted him, pitiless.

Scott was flabbergasted. He turned toward John, and his face was slimy with tears and mucus. “You’re the one that hunts,” Scott said venomously.

“Yeah, I do.” John nodded. Proud. Not a speck of remorse or chagrin. “Maybe that’s why I understand the importance of a fast kill. And the virtue of eating the meat, or letting some other hungry creature at it, putting it to good use one way or another. That’s how the food chain works, you know.” John was fuming now. He spat. Not at Scott or the dead fawn, but angrily into the water. “Maybe that’s why I’d rather let nature run its course than prolong some poor creature’s suffering just so you can cradle it in your arms and whisper sweet nothings.”

Scott stared at him. “You are sick,” he said. “You think I did that for me?”

“Well, you certainly didn’t do it any favors, did you?” John nodded at the crumpled, bloody carcass at his feet.

Involuntarily, Scott glanced down at the fawn, then had to look away. “I’m about to puke,” he muttered.

John rolled his eyes and snapped the blade of his Swiss army knife back into place. “Take all the time you need,” he said over his shoulder, heading toward the path.

John walked briskly. He stretched his back, tight from the drama, and returned the knife to his pocket. He wondered what sort of scene might await back at the house—if Ryan and Alex would be trying to comfort Rae and Kimmy with explanations about the natural order of things.

Where the woods had gone eerily silent as they all stood in appreciation of the beauty of the lagoon, moments before the attack, it was now alive once again with tittering birds and hissing insects.

12

LATER THAT EVENING in her bedroom, Rae was fluttery and restless, her mind shuttling between Ryan and the man with the Labrador from the beach this afternoon. The man liked her, that much was clear. Although it hadn’t been immediately apparent to Rae, as soon as Lisa intervened it was obvious. Lisa wouldn’t have reacted the way she did if she hadn’t thought the man was interested in Rae. Even so, the forcefulness of her mother’s reaction perplexed Rae. Sure, the man was a little older. He was fully a man, not a boy, but probably no more than ten years older, Rae guessed, and ten years was the age difference between her parents. So if there was anyone who had zero business judging what sort of attraction there might have been between Rae and that man, it was Lisa.

In any case, even Lisa’s tantrum on the beach hadn’t been enough to defeat Rae. The more she thought about it, the more validated she felt by the attention from the man, because it stood to reason that if that man in his twenties didn’t think Rae was too young for him, then seventeen-year-old Ryan definitely wouldn’t think she was too young for him. Rae was now circling her room in her pajamas, the TV on but muted, so that she could fully focus on practicing her look.