Surfacing - Book One in the Swans Landing Series

Chapter 33

Chapter Thirty-Three

The three of us stared at the trees where he had vanished for several long moments in silence. The wind whipped my hair into my face, wiping away the tears that fell down my cheeks.

Then Sailor rounded on me, charging across the sand.

“This is all your fault!” She crashed into me before I had a chance to brace myself for the impact, knocking me backward onto the beach. She straddled my stomach, pulling at my hair and pushing my head down into the earth.

I tried to fight back, but Sailor was a dizzying tornado of limbs and claws. Just as I started to get my bearings, she was lifted from my body, kicking and punching into the air.

Josh held her against him, squeezing as she fought to break free. “Sailor, stop!” he shouted in her ear.

Sailor stopped squirming, but her gaze was locked on me. Her chest rose and fell rapidly as she panted through her bared teeth. “It’s not fair,” she said, her voice thick with a sob. “Ever since she got here, she’s messed everything up. First she took Dylan from me and then you and then Grandma.”

I stood, rubbing at the scratch across my cheek from her nails. “You drove everyone away,” I told her.

Her body went limp in Josh’s arms, her head falling forward. I didn’t realize she was crying until I heard her sniffle. “I want to go back,” she said. “I want my mama back. I want everything to be like it was in Grandma’s pictures, before all of this happened.”

I choked down the lump that Sailor’s words caused in my own throat. I wanted that too, more than anything else. The one person of our group unaffected by death, the one person who could maybe be strong enough to hold us all together, was the one person we had all managed to drive away.

“Come on, Sailor,” Josh said to her in a soft voice. “Let’s go home, okay?”

She nodded, keeping her head hung low.

I led the way back through the forest while Josh walked with Sailor at his side. I couldn’t wrap my mind around the idea that Sailor was Josh’s sister. Half-sister. It seemed that I would be forever destined to have my life entwined with Sailor’s, as long as both of us held a connection to Josh.

I saw the group sitting outside Moody’s Variety Store about a second before they spotted us. My feet shuffled along the ground when I hesitated, uncertain whether to turn back or keep going. But I had Josh with me and his presence gave me strength, so I held my shoulders back and continued walking, bridging the distance between us.

“Hey look,” Elizabeth said to her friends, “I think the new girl is in need of another Diet Coke shower.”

Jackie and the other two giggled behind her, taking loud slurps from their own drinks. Jim, the old man from the store, sat nearby in his wooden chair, polishing his harmonica on his shirt as he looked at us over the fire blazing in the old metal barrel. Mr. Connors sat next to him, scratching his beard and watching our approach.

“It’s a public street,” I snapped. “So move aside unless you want another fat lip to match the one you’ve already got.”

Elizabeth’s face twisted into an ugly sneer at me. “Hit me again and I’ll see to it that you’re never welcome back into school,” she threatened. She looked over my shoulder at Josh and Sailor, and her expression tightened. “What are you doing with them, Josh?”

“We’re just passing through,” Josh told her. “Let us by and we’ll leave you alone.”

She stared incredulously at him. “Have you forgotten what we’re fighting for? They killed your father.”