Then
I lunge for the boarding ladder, gripping the rail, hauling myself out of the water. I scramble up the stairs, pulling my feet up, darting glances over my shoulder as a fin ducks below the surface.
“Luke?” I croak out.
He’s slumped in his skipper’s chair, spitting blood, my knife stuck in his chest. I stand over him and wrench the knife out. The blood roars, gushing and gushing, its coppery scent filling the air. Even if I gun the engine and get him to the Pine Bay hospital, I doubt he’ll make it.
And I’m not going to gun the engine. I’m going to wait here until he bleeds out.
Knife gripped in my palm I watch him die. His eyes are cloudy, unfocused. His hand flat against his chest, blood thick and heavy, seeping through the cracks in his fingers.
He speaks in a faint whisper, pausing between each word.
“…Did…you…love…it,” he pants, grimacing. “The…woods, Min?”
The violence. That pulse in the cabin. Hot and maddening. Blood boys and one blood girl.
His eyelids flutter, each breath a labored effort. I stare at the knife, thinking. I’m back in that A-frame cabin in the woods, the hot wind winding through, smelling like gore and new meat. Trav and I stand side by side, shoulders bumping.
I pull away the rabbit fur, the skin beneath pink and tender. I work my way down its body, careful not to tear. It’s calming, intimate. Maybe this is what my father feels when he’s sharpening his knife.
My father…Heath and I have been sleeping at the cabin on the weekends. Out of his hateful sight. But lately, Dad has been following us here to the Wicked Woods. Our woods. Our only refuge from him. He doesn’t belong here. Amy didn’t belong here, either.
Then I stop. And I decide. I know what I’m going to do. At home. Tonight.
And I promise myself that this time, I won’t stop. I promise myself that if I succeed, I will never tell a soul what I did. That I will be the only one who knows.
I hand the peeled rabbit to Trav, and he calmly hacks the legs off with a cleaver. I want to pull his school collar down and kiss his neck, but Heath is watching.
Later, I lie on the creek bank with Trav, our hands entwined, blood under our fingernails. He asks me to marry him. I say yes.
Luke’s labored breathing pulls me back to the present. The boat rocks gently beneath us as the wind stirs, salty and cold.
“I loved it, Luke.”
“I know.”
He reaches out in his final moments, his hand cold and unsteady. I let him. There’s no urgency now. Just the fading rhythm of his heartbeat, the labored effort of his breathing.
His eyes flicker to my knife. He breathes in, lips moving silently. His voice is faint, almost lost. There’s something he has to say. One final thing that he has to express before it’s too late. I know what it is.
He squeezes my hand, eyes alight.
Luke Newton dies smiling.
The last thing he ever says is “I…know…that…blade.”