I roll my bottom lip between my teeth and tap my fingernail four times on the counter. ‘You know, I’m all right.’

‘Anything else you need?’

‘I – no. Thanks.’ It’s not Booker’s fault, but I have no one else to be angry with, and I can tell he’s being flippant.

There’s a sort of amusement flickering in his hooded eyes. ‘Remember what we said about trouble.’

I puff my cheeks. ‘Yep.’

‘Enjoy your summer.’

The finality of the statement irks me. Once I’m back outside into the stifling wash of heat, I take a long look at the door, turn the doorknob once, twice and go.

CHAPTER 7

CHAPTER 7

I agree to go to the bonfire with Peyton. I have things to do.

Firstly: get along with the Seasonals. They’re a valuable resource. And secondly, without a way of lawfully getting to that report in the required timeframe, I’m going to have to take drastic measures. I had intended to do the whole thing by the book – I was even going to suck it up and play nicely with the law enforcement – but without that report, there’s nothing for me to do here besides knocking on doors one by one.

Peyton and I are fashionably late. We’ve taken a golf cart down from the dorms and I’m driving, the warm breeze on my face refreshing. Peyton’s leather jacket sleeve keeps brushing against my bare arm because she’s sitting so close to me. She’s got her hair scrunched in a bun on her head, little wispy tendrils curling downwards around her face. I am apparently driving too quickly for her liking and this is all she wants to talk about.

It’s a pretty night – the heat has cracked and there’s a wash of lulling pink still clinging to the edges of the sunset. Something hypnotizing, too, about the glow of the street: little round bulbs tethered like ship lines to all the lamp posts; a warm orange blaze from inside the bars; moonbeams bouncing off the sea, dancing erratically, a billion hands motioning Come hither underneath. I’m struck by all the ways light can reflect when one is surrounded by sea. I want, for some reason, to remember it, and look a little longer.

Firelight comes from the beach, and we follow it.

I park at a gravel lot just off the high street. Salt and smoke burn my nostrils and reach into the back of my throat. Maybe forty Seasonals are already scattered across the shoreline – as far as I know, everyone. I already recognize some of them from the hallways at Seiburt.