GALES
Harper
“CORPSIE THE COPILOT, REPORTING FOR duty,” I say as I shove my crafted corpse into the rear seat of the Pocket Rocket. My refurbished soapbox racer might not be the most elaborate contraption, but Corpsie looks pretty badass with her goggles and pigtails and the bloody slash across her throat.
I release the elastic bands around the long ribbons attached to the wands that I stitched to her palms, unfurling the colorful strips of fabric to rest them on the back of the car so they can trail in our wake when we hurtle down the hill.
“It’s very … lifelike. Or deathlike, I guess …” Nolan says, his brow furrowed as he pokes a finger into her silicone cheek. His eyes slide to mine, but the crease between his brows remains, an echo of worry etched in his skin.
“But you wouldn’t know anything about that, right?” I wink, and regret it immediately. I probably look deranged, some unhinged winking murder woman with a corpse mannequin copilot stuffed into the back seat of her soapbox racer. I resist the urge to look down at my retro aeronaut outfit, a white button-up shirt complemented with an old pair of Arthur’s pleated
pants and suspenders. I look super hot. … I don’t look super hot. At all.
Nolan’s frown deepens as he scrutinizes my soapbox racer before his gaze pans across the competitors ahead of me in line. “Are you sure this is safe?”
“I tested it on Arthur’s driveway. It seemed fine.”
“The driveway?” His glare becomes brutally cold. “That’s not really the same as the course. I’m not sure this is a good idea.”
I scoff, looking down the twisting road that leads toward the glittering sea in the distance, the sidewalk flanked by onlookers. A prickle of unease dances along my ribs as I take in the steep hill before me, the angle of which seems so much worse when I lower myself into the cockpit. My bravado is entirely forced when I shrug and say, “No one has died yet.”
“That doesn’t inspire much confidence in me.”
“There are straw bales at the sharper bends and at the finish line. I’m sure tourists will buffer me if anything else goes awry. You can stand at the second curve and we can test it out, if you like?”
“Just … be careful,” Nolan says, leveling me with a hard stare, the kind of look that leaves you with no room to move. Even when I peel my focus away, I feel him. Somehow, his shadow is warmer than the sun. There’s a
heat in it that pulls me back.
“Why are you so worried?” I ask.
“I’m not.”
“You sure about that?”
He doesn’t answer. I square my shoulders and grip the steering wheel, even though there are five competitors left to go before me. When I dart a swift glance in his direction, I glean nothing from the stoic expression painted across his face. I can’t decipher his emotions from his hardened features. It could be apprehension I see, or it could be anger. It could be regret. Whatever it is, it’s enormously frustrating. Maybe it would be easier if I threw my own insecurities out into the open. Like, What if I’m making the wrong decision to trust you? Or, I don’t understand your motivations, and that scares me. But it’s not so easy to step into the light when you’ve been hiding in a sanctuary of shadows.
The silence stretches so long that I land on the only viable interpretation of Nolan’s inscrutable expression, that maybe he’s worried about what might happen to his book and weapons if I’m injured on the course. I’m tempted to say something sharp, something meant to wound. Maybe I just want a reaction. To cut beneath the flesh and see if he bleeds. But in the
end, I just say, “Everything will be fine. Just go and get a beer and chill, or something. You’re freaking me out.”
He glances around us. Swallows. “We need to talk later. About Sam. I
—”
“You ready, Harp?”
Lukas strides past the nearby competitors, a wide smile plastered to his face. He’s wearing a matching outfit with suspenders over a white button- up shirt and old-fashioned, pleated brown pants, a set of goggles dangling from his neck. He turns enough that we can read the words Pocket Rocket Corpse Crew embroidered on his back.
I force an untroubled smile. “I hope you’re ready to see Sarah Winkle’s face when we win that fucking cake. She’s going to be so pissed.”
“That’s the spirit. Nothing’s a better motivator than spite.” Lukas comes to a stop next to Nolan, offering a handshake that he accepts. “You helping to crew for the Pocket Rocket?”
“Nah, he’s going to grab a beer and cheer from the sidelines,” I say before he can answer. “I think we’re covered.”
Nolan seems to hesitate, leaning away while his feet stay rooted to the ground. He looks at Lukas before he wishes me luck and walks away. I watch as he slips into the crowd, and it isn’t until he disappears that I feel like I’m able to take a full breath.
“Everything okay?” Lukas asks as he comes up beside me, readying to move the wooden block wedged beneath my front tires. My cheeks heat as
he scrutinizes my face.
“Yeah. All good.”
“That Nolan guy seems … intense.”
I look in Nolan’s direction, though I can’t see him through the crowd.
Lukas’s words seem to hang in my thoughts like barbed hooks. Intense. I wonder if that’s what other people see too when Nolan looks at me.
Someone intense. Maybe dangerous. And even without his belongings in my possession, maybe they’d look to him if something happened to me.
Maya saw our interaction in her shop. She could raise questions. Lukas has seen his dark edge, even if he doesn’t understand it. Nolan can be charming, sure, but only when he wants to be. And it’s the first time I really realize
that the damning evidence I have against Nolan doesn’t just keep me safe in case he suddenly decides to change course and make good on his plans to kill me. It also puts him in danger.
“He’s just really worried I’m going to crash or something,” I finally say, buckling myself in and clipping the harness into my seat belt. “He’s fine.”
“Something going on there with you two?”
“Going on …?”
“You know. Going on.”
Maybe? I don’t know? Does swing sex count …? “No.”
Lukas smiles. “Okay. I just heard you had dinner at Nightfog, that’s all.”
I roll my eyes, blush creeping into my cheeks. I love this town, but the locals are nosy as hell. “So? It’s just food.”
“At Nightfog. You know as much as anyone else that’s the date place.”
“If you’re hoping to annoy me into rolling faster down the hill, it’s working.” I settle the retro aviator goggles over my eyes as Lukas puts his hands up in defeat, though his smile is one of teasing satisfaction. I let a few minutes pass. Lukas strikes up a conversation with a few nearby tourists who are also waiting for their turn, but I don’t join in, my attention consumed by my blossoming fears. It’s not until the next competitor heads down the hill and Lukas rolls me a space closer to the starting line that I finally say, “You know that bag that I gave you to put somewhere safe?”
A shadow falls across his features. “Yeah …?”
“Where is it?”
Lukas frowns at the crowd around us, as though he knows it’s important enough that he shouldn’t let anyone hear him. “It’s somewhere you would never look.”
He might not know everything about me. About how I keep this town safe. What that takes. What I’m capable of. But Lukas does know enough about my past to know where I would never, ever want to go.
“In the basement at the main house?” I whisper, my heart already climbing into my throat at the mere idea of searching it out.
He nods once. “In a box on the shelves next to the boiler.”
I nod and look at my hands, my fingers tensing and releasing from the steering wheel, the skin over my knuckles bleaching. Maybe I’m about to
make a big mistake. Or perhaps that risk is just the price of taking at least one step into the light. “If anything happens to me, destroy it. Make sure no
one ever finds it. Okay?”
Lukas’s brow furrows. “Are you sure?”
“Yeah,” I say. “Promise me?”
It takes him a long second to consider it. A Lancaster vow is never delivered lightly. But finally, he says, “I promise.”
“And our next contender coming down the pike is Harper Starling,” Bert booms over the speakers. Our connection breaks, both of us looking toward the makeshift tower where Bert and Bob are sitting. “She’s piloting the Pocket Rocket, in her interpretation of Amelia Earhart, with Corpsie the Copilot riding shotgun.” The crowd snickers and cheers. “Are you ready, Miss Starling?”
I give him the thumbs-up with one of Corpsie’s hands.
“Let’s count her down, folks,” he booms. “Five … Four …”
Lukas pulls the plank of wood from in front of my tires. The brakes groan against the weight of the wood and metal.
“Three … two …”
Lukas jogs to the back of my cart. The fuselage shifts as his hands land
on the back edge.
“One.”
There’s a bang as the starting pistol fires and I release the brake. Lukas gives the car a powerful shove. Onlookers cheer. My heart thunders. The wheels whir as I sail down the road, quickly gathering momentum on the thin bicycle tires. Bert’s announcer voice fades into the background as he narrates the race over the speakers mounted along the route. I’m so focused on making it around the first corner without tipping over that I almost forget about the smoke canisters Lukas installed beneath the wings, and I grin as I hit the button. Smoke hisses behind me and the crowd cheers. I look over my shoulder at the trail of blue fog in my wake and cackle at Corpsie, with her arms flailing in the wind and ribbons flapping behind her.
I round the second corner and head down a deliciously straight patch of Maple Street, gathering even more speed. My car is fast. I don’t catch my exact time as I pass the first of four milestone markers along the route, but I
can hear the excitement in Bert’s voice. Something about a record. I could win this thing. I wonder why the hell I haven’t done this before. Sailing down the road with the crowd cheering and a deranged copilot silently hyping me up in a soapbox airplane? This is fucking perfect. The screaming kids. The smell of barbecue. Bert’s enthusiastic commentary. The speed.
The wind roaring past my ears. I’m having the time of my life. This is freedom. It’s “no fucks given” fun. I laugh. It’s a laugh that comes from a deep place I forgot I had. I used to laugh like this a lot. And I like it. I missed this part of me.
I zip around the next turn, having so much fun I barely touch the brakes, nearly colliding with the straw bales set along the exterior edge of the curve. A collective ooh sounds from the crowd at the near miss and I howl
with delight.
But I’ve gathered too much speed.
I nearly crash again into the next section of the curve that directly follows, and I turn the wheel hard left to avoid the row of straw bales lining the sidewalk. Another rush of awe and excitement rises from the onlookers as I veer toward the inner side of the curve. I curse and slam my foot down
on the brake …
… but nothing happens.
“Oh shit.”
I pump the brakes. Nothing. I wrench the wheels back to the right so I can slow my descent along the wall of straw. And then there’s a snap. Panic
seizes my chest.
“Fuck—not good—”
The car veers hard left.
“Look out—”
People on the left side of the road scream. They pick up their kids. Spill their beer. Toss their popcorn and grip their turkey legs. They gasp and shout and jump out of the path as I careen toward the sidewalk. There are no straw bales on this side of the curve. Nothing to stop me.
Not even Nolan.
He’s the one person I recognize among the tourists scrambling to get out of my way. He’s the only one standing nearly still, moving only enough to
follow the motion of my car as I pass him in a moment that seems like it’s been stretched so thin that time and all the world have disappeared. It’s long enough to freeze the panic on his face. Despite his stillness, his expression seems frantic, as though his energy has been funneled into the fear that paints his face and haunts his eyes.
And that moment is ripped apart in a single heartbeat as I hit the curb with a jarring thud and then jump onto the sidewalk.
“Harper—” I hear him yell after me.
“Not safe!” is all I have time to reply.
And then I’m crossing the lawn to join Piper Boulevard, an even steeper road.
“Shit, totally not safe,” I say to myself between tight breaths that pull my chest taut. I jerk the steering wheel from one side to the next, but it has no effect. I pump the brakes, but nothing happens. My car barrels straight down the steep road. Bert’s worried commentary fades into the distance.
The only thing I hear is the rattle of my wheels and the clatter of Corpsie behind me and the occasional shout of startled passersby on the sidewalk as I rocket down Piper Boulevard, gathering speed.
That is, until I hear Nolan shouting my name, his voice growing impossibly closer.
“Harper,” he calls, dinging a bicycle bell to get my attention. I turn to see him pedaling furiously on a kid’s pink bike with multicolored tassels fluttering from the ends of the handlebars. “Aim for a hedge and cover your face!”
“No steering,” I call back, jostling the steering wheel with no effect. “No brakes!”
He gets closer, only a few feet behind me. Corpsie’s ribbons whip him in the face and he manages to grab a fistful and tug, pulling hard enough to detach the mannequin’s arm, which he discards on the road. When he refocuses on me, the panic is still etched into his features, his eyes not leaving mine. Not until they look past me and widen.
I turn and face ahead. I’m closer to the end of the cul-de-sac than I thought I was. Closer to the path that leads to Widow’s Point. To the cliff that drops into the sea.
Fuck.
“Nolan—”
“Undo your harness!”
I press the first button. The buckle sticks in the mechanism.
I’m picking up speed. The end of the road is only a block ahead.
“Your harness—”
“It’s stuck—”
“I thought you said you’d checked this thing—”
“Now is not the time!” I frantically jam my thumb against the button and tug on the straps, but the harness only tightens across my body. The sound of the waves crashing against the cliff rises above the squeak of my wheels and Nolan’s furious pedaling and the heartbeat roaring in my ears. I can smell the water and my breath catches as though I’m already drowning. I’m rocketing straight for the short path that leads to the edge, getting closer with every ragged inhalation. No, no, no.
“Keep trying. Loosen the harness all the way and climb out—”
“Nolan,” he’s just behind me when I turn toward his voice, wrestling with the belt, trying and failing to loosen it with shaking hands. I choke down a panicked sob. “I can’t swim!”
There’s a flicker of pure panic in his eyes. And then, as quickly as it appears, it snuffs out, replaced with unflinching resolve. His legs pump. He doubles his efforts to catch up. He manages to come alongside my car, as his hand is outstretched, reaching for me. I reach back. His voice is trapped in a slow-motion haze. Take my hand. All the other details fade away. I just see the lines on his palm. The tattoo on his forearm, the snake’s mouth wrapped around its own scales. The fear in his eyes. And just as his fingers graze mine, I hit the curb.
I scream as the car lurches onto the path. Every bone in my body vibrates with the impact, but it hardly even slows me down. Nolan disappears from view. I hear him yell out in pain and frustration and glance behind me to see his body tangled with the bike on the rocks.
I bump over the uneven dirt and stone. The water shimmers in hues of gold on the horizon. It was silver on black water when I sent the real Harper
Starling over a cliff and into the sea. And now destiny is eating its tail, consuming itself. Taking me with it.
The car veers off the path. It jostles, careening onto two wheels just long enough to give me hope that it might tip over. But it rights itself. It straightens, landing on the smooth granite ledge at the edge of the cliff.
Four feet. Three. Two. One.
I grip my harness and close my eyes as the car rockets off the ledge.
Wind whips across my face. I’m weightless. The ocean crashes beneath me. I remember the sound of Harper Starling’s scream in the instant before her car hit the rocks and flipped, catapulting into the violent, churning surf.
And there’s only one word that escapes me when I hit the water. A name.
One that surprises me almost as much as the impact that steals my breath.
It’s the word I scream as the freezing water rushes into the cab and sinks my broken car faster than I thought possible. It’s still an echo in my mind as a wave folds over my head and roars into my ears, into my open mouth. It’s the one clear thought I have as I reach toward the surface even though there’s nothing to grab, the metal that encases me dragging me down, the last of the ribbons swirling in the current above me as I fall into the abyss.
Nolan.
