The water was different here.

  In Norchester, the ocean had a rhythm. It rolled. It breathed. It was a familiar, gray blanket wrapped around Frankie Rivera since she was five years old.

  Cape Fear was angry.

  The current here dragged at her ankles like a frantic hand. The waves didn’t roll; they chopped. They stood up in jagged, unpredictable peaks, slapping against the fiberglass of her board like a wet towel snapping against stone.

  Frankie sat up, straddling her board.

  Her hands were pale. Even after a month in the southern sun, her skin refused to tan. It remained the color of polished marble, thin skin revealing the blue veins beneath.

  The water temperature was fifty-two degrees. A month ago, she would have been shivering. She would have been thinking about hot chocolate.

  Now, she just registered the data.

  Temperature: 52. Wind: Northeast, 15 knots. Heart rate: 30 beats per minute.

  On the shore, Cape Fear was a grit-toothed town.

  Cape Fear was a grit-toothed town. It lacked the tourist veneer of Norchester. Here, the houses were weathered shingles and peeling paint, hunkered down behind the dunes as if waiting for a hurricane.

  A short, stubby concrete pier jutted into the water. Nothing like the wooden, sprawling boardwalk of home.

  Home.

  The word echoed in her mind. It felt hollow. Like a coin dropped into an empty well.

  She closed her eyes. She tried to summon the feeling of missing it. She tried to find the ache in her chest that she knew should be there.

  The yellow bungalow on Seashell Avenue. The smell of Leilani’s orchids. The light hitting the dust motes in the living room.

  Pictures in her head. Flat. Colorless.

  But there was no heat.

  No sadness. No grief. Just facts.

  Destruction befell the house. Authorities quarantined the town. We are here.

  “Hey.”

  The voice cut through the sound of the wind.

  Damon was paddling toward her. He fought the chop, his muscles straining. His dreadlocks, wet and heavy, were tied back.

  He stopped his board a few feet away. He sat up.

  Dark circles that hadn’t faded since Valentine’s Day bruised the skin under his eyes.

  “You’ve been out here for two hours,” Damon said.

  “The tide is coming in,” Frankie replied, her voice a flat monotone.

  “Leilani is worried,” Damon said. “She’s watching from the car. She thinks you’re going to… drift.”

  In the parking lot, her mother’s shape sat rigid in the rusted station wagon.

  “I won’t drift,” Frankie said. “I have a leash.”

  She tugged the urethane cord attached to her ankle.

  Damon didn’t smile. He studied her face.

  “How is it?” he asked. “The water?”

  “Choppy,” Frankie said. “Messy.”

  “Like everything else,” Damon muttered.

  He looked out at the horizon. The sky was a bruised purple, heavy with rain.

  “Did you see the news?” he asked.

  “No.”

  “They called it a leak. Mass hallucination.”

  She snorted. A bitter sound.

  “Halogen,” she said.

  “Yeah. Apparently, the SS Borealis was carrying experimental lighting gas. It leaked. Caused hallucinations. Paranoia. Violent outbursts.”

  “And the dust?” Frankie asked. “The piles of ash?”

  “Chemical residue,” Damon said. “They’re scrubbing the town. Men in hazmat suits are power-washing Main Street right now.”

  Frankie looked down at the silver scar on her chest. It hummed faintly, reacting to the electrical charge in the storm clouds above.

  “And Tasia?”

  “They discredited her,” Damon said. “They said the video was edited. Deepfake technology. They’re painting her as a clout-chaser who capitalized on a tragedy.”

  “She is safe?”

  “Yeah. Her dad got her out. They’re in Florida.”

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  Frankie nodded.

  Objective complete. Tasia was alive. Although the town was empty, the infection did not spread further. The Queen was dust.

  “It worked,” Frankie said.

  “Did it?” Damon snapped.

  Frankie looked at him.

  Damon gripped the rails of his surfboard. His knuckles were white.

  “We lost everything, Frankie. Our home. Our school. Our lives. We’re living in a rental duplex that smells like mold. Ted sleeps with a nightlight. Dee Dee hasn’t touched a computer in weeks.”

  He looked at her. His eyes were wet.

  “And you.”

  “I am functioning,” Frankie said.

  “Stop talking like a machine,” Damon snapped. “You’re not a toaster. You’re Frankie.”

  “Am I?”

  She raised her hand, flexing her fingers until the webbing strained against the pale, see-through disguise.

  “I feel the storm,” she whispered. “Before the radar sees it. I hear the heartbeat of a whale three miles out. I don’t need to breathe, Damon. I do it out of habit.”

  She lowered her hand.

  “The girl who wanted to go to Hawaii died in the basement. You felt her leave.”

  Damon flinched.

  His flinch confirmed he remembered the boiling water, the suction, the siphon of his soul jumpstarting hers.

  “I pulled you back,” Damon whispered.

  “You pulled something back,” Frankie said.

  She looked at him. She accessed the file labeled Love.

  The data loaded: Damon Rudd. 18. Surfer. Protector. The Anchor.

  She knew that she loved him. It was a fact, fixed as the tide. But she couldn’t feel the butterflies. She couldn’t feel the warmth. It was like looking at a photograph of a fire.

  “I’m trying,” she said.

  It was the most honest thing she had said in a month.

  His shoulders slumped, exhaustion replacing the sharp lines of anger.

  “I know,” he said.

  He reached out. He rested his hand on hers.

  His skin was warm.

  Frankie focused on the sensation. Heat. Friction. Connection.

  She didn’t pull away.

  “We have to go to school tomorrow,” Damon said. “Cape Fear High. Go Sharks.”

  “Sharks,” Frankie repeated. “Appropriate.”

  “Ted is freaking out,” Damon said.

  “Tell him to stick to the salad bar,” Frankie said. “Cellulose is safe.”

  Damon cracked a smile. A small, fleeting smile cracked his exhaustion.

  “Dee Dee is taking Art,” he said. “She says she’s done with coding. She wants to paint and skateboard with her girlfriend.”

  “Good,” Frankie said. “Less reading. More creating with her lover.”

  “And your mom?”

  Frankie looked back at the shore.

  Leilani had stepped out of the car. She stood by the sea wall, the wind whipping her long black hair. She wore her diner apron—she had a shift at The Crabbyshack in an hour.

  Bandages still covered her arm. The cut Leilani had made to feed the ritual was deep. It would scar. A trench of raised flesh that matched the lightning bolt on Frankie’s chest.

  “She survives,” Frankie said.

  “She misses you,” Damon said.

  “I am right here.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  Frankie looked down at the dark water.

  Leilani missed the daughter who laughed. The daughter who complained about homework. The daughter who was soft.

  Frankie touched her chest. The silver scar felt hard under the neoprene.

  “I can’t go back,” Frankie whispered. “The darkness… it’s quiet… and cold.”

  Damon squeezed her hand.

  “Then we get you a coat,” he said.

  Frankie looked up.

  “What?”

  “We adapt,” Damon said. “That’s what surfers do, right? The break changes. The sandbar shifts. You don’t stop surfing. You change your line.”

  He didn’t look away. His jaw set.

  “You’re not the same. Okay. Neither am I. I watched my girlfriend die and come back as a superhero. That changes a guy.”

  He moved his hand from hers to her face. He cupped her cheek.

  “But you’re here, Frankie. You’re solid. You’re not dust.”

  He leaned in.

  “And as long as you’re here, we have a chance.”

  Frankie looked into his eyes. Brown. Warm. Human.

  She felt a twitch in her chest.

  Not a heartbeat. A spark.

  A microscopic firing of a synapse that hadn’t fired in weeks.

  Not a grand explosion of emotion, nor the return of her soul, just a quiet realization.

  He stayed.

  He knew what she was. He had seen the monster in the basement. He had seen the Werebat on the bridge. And he was still sitting here, in the freezing water, holding her hand.

  Logic: He is irrational.

  Conclusion: That is good.

  Frankie’s mouth twitched.

  The muscles felt stiff. Unused.

  But she forced them to move. She pulled the corners of her lips up.

  A jagged, slightly broken, but genuine smile formed.

  “We’re alive,” she whispered.

  Damon’s eyes widened. He saw the change.

  He smiled back. A real grin this time.

  “Yeah,” he said. “We are.”

  He looked at the horizon.

  A set was coming.

  Dark lines stacking up against the gray sky. Bigger than the rest. Ugly, powerful waves.

  “Outside,” Damon said. “Incoming.”

  Frankie turned her board.

  She felt the energy of the ocean beneath her. The surge. The lift.

  It wasn’t the friendly swell of Norchester. It was a fight.

  A thrill hummed through her deadened nerves.

  “Let’s go,” Frankie said.

  She dug her arms into the water.

  She paddled. Hard. Her enhanced muscles fired, propelling the board forward with unnatural speed. She cut through the chop, aiming for the impact zone.

  Damon paddled beside her. He was breathing hard, working to keep up.

  The wave loomed.

  A wall of dark water, six feet high, capping with white foam. It was going to break right on top of them.

  “Duck dive!” Damon yelled.

  Frankie didn’t slow down.

  She grabbed the rails of her board.

  She looked at Damon.

  “See you on the other side,” she said.

  She pushed the nose of the board down.

  She dove.

  The cold water rushed over her head. The silence of the deep enveloped her. The noise of the wind, the town, and the memories vanished.

  Under the surface, it was peaceful.

  She opened her eyes.

  The water was murky, churning with sand and salt.

  But ahead of her, Damon was a dark shape cutting through the water.

  And ahead of him, a shaft of sunlight pierced the clouds, cutting through the surface, lighting the dark.

  She stayed under a moment longer, letting the ocean hold her.

  She kicked. She surfaced. She took a breath she didn’t need.