CHAPTER 2 LYRA
LYRA
O nce upon a time, Lyra might have had it in her to let another person protect her, but that was before . Before the dreams had started. Before she’d realized that her entire life had been a lie.
For years, her parents had let her believe that she was normal.
They’d let her just go on like the defining trauma of her life had never happened, like her biological father hadn’t abducted her from preschool on her fourth birthday, like she hadn’t witnessed his suicide.
And once Lyra had remembered, it was like nothing about the life she’d lived fit anymore, like the person she’d been had never even been real.
She hadn’t wanted anyone to know why she’d changed, so she’d pretended that she hadn’t.
She’d faked it for as long as she could.
But there was no faking anything with Grayson Hawthorne.
And these days, when it came to the possibility of being hurt in any way, Lyra had to face it head-on.
She had to protect herself , and Grayson made that so very hard.
He was a hand on the back of her neck, pulling her from the darkness, telling her that she did not have to be fine.
But she did.
So instead of letting Grayson escort her back to the puzzle-filled mansion on the north point to get some sleep, Lyra warned him not to follow her and took off on another run.
Even though she’d already pushed her body to its limits.
Even though she needed her mind sharp for what was to come.
Lyra ran because her thoughts were a mess. She ran to stop her body from remembering his. She ran because she could .
Grayson must have sensed that it really wouldn’t be wise to follow, because he didn’t, and eventually, once Lyra had pushed herself hard enough and long enough, the ghost of his touch left her, and the only thing that existed besides the burning in her muscles and her lungs was the island.
Lyra felt it like an extension of herself: wild and free, scarred and ruined, beautiful, sharp. Hawthorne Island was full of rocky shores and steep drops, native grass and soaring trees, cliffs upon cliffs, the occasional narrow slice of beach, all of it surrounded by ocean.
The day before, Lyra had been drawn again and again to the burned forest. Today, she stuck to the southern and eastern shores—the roughest terrain on the island by far.
Uneven ground. Thorns. And very little else.
Objectively, it didn’t resemble the place where Lyra had grown up, but somehow, Mile’s End and the most untouched parts of Hawthorne Island felt the same to her: unchanging, real in a way that nothing more developed ever was.
Lyra let that feeling fill her as she ran, her sense of purpose crystalizing. She’d entered the Grandest Game to save Mile’s End. Everything—and everyone —else could wait.
When Lyra finally reached the point where she could risk not running, where she could let herself stop, she stared up at the lone, breathtaking structure on the southeastern shore.
Out on the water, massive stone arches that looked like they’d been lifted straight from ancient Rome cast outsized shadows on blue-green waters. Beneath those arches, there was a dock.
Breathing heavily, Lyra made her way onto a large boat slip that stood perpendicular to two smaller ones, a platform in between.
Her body very nearly spent, she walked to the end of the dock, and as she stared out at the water, an odd feeling hit her, like calloused fingers skimming her shoulder blades.
Lyra turned, casting her gaze back toward the island.
Nothing. She was alone.
Exhaling, Lyra turned to face the ocean. She tried to make out the mainland in the distance and couldn’t. The real world was out there somewhere, but Lyra couldn’t see it. She couldn’t see anything other than water and shadows and a light fog on the ocean.
And still…
Still. As Lyra stood there, staring out at the Pacific, she had the strangest sense that she was being watched.