His lips touched hers. She would have dreamed of this moment, if she’d known how. Would have tried to guess at how it would feel, to hypothesize the effect it would have on her, to understand what she’d done to attract the attention so she could repeat it. But such facts, if they existed, didn’t matter in that moment any more than air did. All that mattered was that she felt, for the first time in her life, as if she were exactly where she was meant to be.

She half expected him to retreat after that first light kiss—and to immediately apologize or express regret for it. But instead, he pulled her a little closer, caressed her lips with his again. Smiled against her mouth. “Are you cataloging? Taking measurements? Classifying?”

A silent laugh slipped from her smile to his. “I’d like to. But I’ll need a longer example to study.”

His fingers moved from her cheek to her hair. “Well. Anything for science.”

She’d always wondered what drew a bee to a flower, what allure nectar had that would bring them flying in from miles away for just a taste. Now she knew. She’d fly miles too, if she had the wings for it, for this moment. This taste of melding lips and racing hearts and the certainty that eternity could spin out here and now and she’d never miss the normal tick of time, never need the rest of the world. Her limbs felt like tidewater, flowing and ebbing. Her brain was nothing but fog.

Until a scream shattered it all. Piercing—and then, worse. Silent.

Mabena plunged down deeper, hands battling against the water, head an explosion of black pain and white distortion and the sudden certainty that this would be her end. She could feel the pull of the very island itself. The heart of its earth dragging her down. The pulse of its waters covering her. The cut of rock. The weight of time. Lungs burning, rebelling against the brine she’d sucked in.

Hands. Hands shoving. Holding. Smashing her head into that rock. It was them she fought, not just the water, but they were only a flash in her awareness before they were gone or she was gone or the world itself was gone.

Forgive me. She screamed it to God, because she knew He was listening. Meant it too for her family, for Beth, for Oliver, for Libby. Perhaps He’d let them know—Oliver had a line directly to Him, it seemed. Surely the Lord could whisper her apology to him for them all. Forgive me for all I’ve done. All I didn’t do. All I . . .

Black pain. White distortion.