Chapter 35
LUCY
Ihit the sand at a dead sprint.
Or at least, I try to, with the dry sand fighting me every step of the way.
“Lucy!” I haven’t heard my name in so long I almost trip, but I remember giving it to him last night.
Like a very specific, unforgettable dream.
I don’t stop to analyze any of that though, because I hear the sliding glass door ricocheting closed behind me and glance over my shoulder to see a frantic Hatter—barefoot, in an oddly cut long-sleeve black tee with the right arm cut off, and sweatpants—race out the door and vault the porch railing, not even bothering with the stairs.
Oh God. Runrunrunrunrunrun run!
My name tears out of Hatter again, so raw and desperate it sounds painful, but I can’t stop.
I clumsily navigate toward the strip of damp, hard-packed sand left by the low tide to get better footing, hearing Hatter curse and fight the dry sand behind me.
I make it to the dense runway before he does and break out into the run for my life.
“Lucy, wait!”
Of course I sprint faster, but I’m hyperventilating, the cold air filling my lungs and burning them as I fight against the headwind stealing my ragged breaths. Every few strides I can’t help glancing back over my shoulder, and each time, I see Hatter gaining on me.
The breeze keeps whipping my hair across my face and throwing me off balance. Heat burns through me every time I catch the determination on his face, and the image from just a few minutes ago flashes through my mind.
I have never seen so much hatred on one man’s face.
“Lucy, it’s okay, just… stop!” The wind snatches his words, but I make them out anyway. I keep going, my pulse pounding so hard it feels like my ribs might crack.
Up ahead, a pier stretches into the ocean before the mouth of the marsh yawns into the open sea. I need to climb the steps up to reach the road. Even at low tide, the marsh’s pluff mud makes it impossible to travel straight back to the dock where my boat is.
Why, why, why did I take the beach route? It’s shorter, sure, but now look at me!
Oh, I know why. Because Castle has cameras everywhere in town.
Castle, who got me drugged and assaulted by one of his own men.
Castle, who clearly knows more about me than I’ve ever wanted him to.
Which means despite everything I’ve been able to gather here for my family, we’re all in more danger the longer I stay.
I just selfishly wanted to say bye first.
I texted X asking if he knew where Hatter lived, then followed the impulse from there.
Imagine my surprise when it was my very own boatlord’s duplex bungalow—a walk I knew by heart.
The spur-of-the-moment plan was meant to go like this.
Say goodbye to the first person I haven’t just ghosted in months, and give my final playing card to the last person who will ever know where Lucy McKennon landed before she disappeared for good.
The card I planned to leave wrinkles in my fist as I pump my arms harder.
And now I’m running for an entirely different reason.
My thoughts are too loud, too fast, tangled as my hair in this wind.
Frog is dead.
Frog is dead.
Frog is dead.
Blood everywhere. Body slumped and foaming. Hatter standing over him without a single trace of remorse—only calm, and satisfaction, and his knuckles scraped raw around a syringe.
Why?
“You got what you wanted, so untie me and we can just forget all about this bullshit.”
What did Hatter want from him? What did Frog give him?
God, I wish I remembered everything that happened in the Smoke and Mirrors Room. My memories only pick up when Iris came down the stairs.
Hatter had been so good with her, so calm and sweet. After, he’d treated me with such care, a gentleman.
An infuriating gentleman to be sure, since the Smoke left me with the nasty side effect of desperately wanting to be ravaged by said infuriating man.
And then, certifiably clitblocked, as my best friend, Luna would say, Hatter walked me home. Again, like a gentleman.
And the next time I see him, he’s holding a syringe in his fist and standing over the man who used me.
“You hurt someone I care about. You think I’m just gonna let you walk away?”
I’ve told Hatter things I’ve never told anyone. At first I convinced myself it was to extract information from him, but last night, as I was coming back to myself, I knew it was my last night on Wander Isle and I gave him my secrets anyway. Secrets my own family doesn’t know.
“You’re gonna feel this poison enter your body just like you forced her to… I’m gonna finish what Lucy started, and make sure you fucking die this time.”
Was Frog… was Frog my kidnapper?
All this time, I thought I killed him. Hell, I felt guilt over killing that man. But I was a child. Time is a mystery when you’re a kid, or panicked, or traumatized, or drugged. I was all four.
My parents never found the warehouse—I was too young to know my way back. It’s possible someone saved him after I ran.
When I came back, the Troisgarde consolidated.
They sent the kids to Bordeaux Conservatory and kept us locked down in New Orleans where three families’ combined protection shielded us.
After the McKennon rage kicked in, anyone connected to my disappearance was hunted, but no culprits were every found.
Of course they never knew I’d already delivered justice myself.
Except I hadn’t.
And tonight? The justice I wanted? I saw it.
Hatter gave that to me.
Something twists in my chest, and I falter mid-stride. Something dark in me unfurls, releasing like a fist finally unclenching after all these years.
Killing anyone causes immeasurable damage, especially to a child. I’ve never been able to tell anyone what really happened in that warehouse, because I didn’t want my parents to know how profoundly it broke me. I’ve carried it alone for fifteen years.
Hatter was the first person I ever told. And then he did something about it. He killed the man who kidnapped me, murdered my cat, and tortured me in ways I’ve never been able to admit out loud. And last night, Hatter did what no one ever has.
No one came for me back then. No one found me. No one saved me.
But Hatter did.
He saved me.
And now he’s murdered for me.
I just watched him murder for me.
A sane person should be horrified, right? My family is no stranger to violence, but it’s rare that we mercilessly kill people. That’s not what McKennons do. We deal in secrets, truths, and lies. We gamble with life and death. We don’t dole it out. But Hatter killed it in my name. He avenged me.
He saved me.
I should be terrified. I should be running because I’m terrified.
Should.
The word keeps snagging in my brain.
Should. Should. Should.
Then why does my stomach keep flipping when I picture the cruel, satisfied smile on Hatter’s face as the man who hurt me shuddered his last breath?
“Lucy!”
Hatter’s voice is so close now.
Panic spikes through me.
Wait.
No.
I focus on the fluttering in my chest, trying to identify the exact emotions flooding me. Heat burns through me even in the cold air. My chest flutters with something much more curious than panic.
I’m running… but am I running for the right reasons?
“Lucy, please!”
Hatter’s voice breaks on the last word, and I have to swallow back a sob. There’s so much desperation there. He committed the ultimate act of protection, and I’m punishing him for it. Fleeing from him. Oh God. What am I doing?
Hatter’s breaths are getting louder against the heartbeat pounding in my ears now. The sand shifts under my feet, wet clumps splashing up my calves, my ballet flats absolutely not designed for this.
The old pier looms ahead, jutting out into the inlet between Harry’s bungalow and the winding marsh that leads back to my houseboat. The moonlight is so bright, the light pollution so nonexistent, that the wooden pilings cast long shadows over the wet sand beneath.
I round a barnacled erosion wall that’s supposed to extend into the ocean, but the low tide has pulled back far enough to expose a narrow strip of packed sand and oyster shells along the ocean side.
I make a quick decision and cut that way instead of climbing the slick rocks, but the wet sand slurps at my feet, and my ballet flats are fighting for their lives the very first step I venture in.
First one shoe is sucked clean off by ground that suctions like quicksand. I yelp and trip, scrambling to find footing, but my knees hit the ground and then Hatter vaults the rock behind me and I’m up and turning and backing away under the pier to—
“Lucy? I’m not going to hurt you. It’s okay.”
No. No, it isn’t. Frog is dead, Hatter killed him, and I watched it happen.
But Frog was supposed to be dead. I killed him.
Except…
Hatter saved me.
He holds his hands up, coming toward me slowly, breathing hard, treating me like scared prey.
Is that what I am?
“Please, Lucy, I just want to talk—”
My second shoe disappears into the sand. I trip again, scramble backward, crabwalking, my hand still curled around the card and clumsy for it. The shadows fall over me, moonlight slicing through the wood slats of the pier above in pale stripes.
“Jesus, woman.” Hatter’s arm gingerly hooks around my waist and picks me up to standing in one smooth motion. “I’m not gonna hurt you, but at this point, I can’t trust you not to hurt yourself!”
I twist to shove him off, but he doesn’t budge, and he doesn’t tighten his grip either. He just holds me, steady, panting, and furious in a way that somehow isn’t directed at me. And I realize the way my heart is thundering isn’t from fear .
God help me, I’m the exact opposite of afraid.
“Stop running.” His voice is deep and rough and makes my stomach leap. He lets go and steps back, hands raised, desperation written across his unmasked face.
The moon filters through the pier slats above us and catches the lines in his chiseled features. The tattoos, the scars, his dark gaze.
He’s beautiful.