Rebel Island

“I’m sorry,” he lied, trying to save himself another beating.

Markie cursed. “You belong in the freezer with Chris, dude.”

“Don’t say that. I panicked, is all.”

“Enough,” Chase said. “This isn’t helping.”

Chase was still dressed in his dark clothes—his night run clothes. He paced at the foot of the bed, rubbing his knuckles.

Ty wished he had his target pistol, and not just because he wanted to shoot them. The gun calmed him down. He only felt truly at peace at the firing range, standing behind the cinder-block partition on a cold winter morning, pistol in his hands. When he fired at targets, he had no anxiety. His hands didn’t shake and his skin didn’t feel too heavy. He didn’t need pills. His fear and anger were compressed into the barrel of the gun and fired right out of him, at least for a while.

If he could just live on the firing range, life would be okay. But he always had to return to the narrow hallways and the cramped dorm rooms of Jester Hall. The crowds pressed in on him. Even the auditorium classes were too small. He couldn’t concentrate on lessons. He watched the ceiling, sure it was going to cave in and bury him alive. He would long for home—the ranch back in Del Rio, where he’d never had any problem with small places and crowds. But he couldn’t go back home. His father would never allow it. And so he’d found other ways to cope. And that had led him to Chase and Markie.

“What do we do now?” Markie asked.

Chase picked up an empty tequila bottle from the dresser. “We try again.”

“Gonna be hard,” Markie said.

“We’ve got no choice. Unless you want to end up like Chris.”

Markie’s face paled. “Bastard deserved it, after the shit he tried to pull.”

On that, at least, Ty agreed. Chris was better off dead. It was his fault they might not make it off the island alive. God, Ty wished he had taken the boat. He should’ve been faster. He shouldn’t have listened to Navarre.

“We’ll stay low for a while,” Chase decided. “But be ready. We see an opportunity, we go.”

Ty’s stomach churned. He resented Navarre for keeping him here. He wanted to kill the guy. But at the same time…he seemed smart. He wasn’t afraid of Markie or Chase. If there was a way to stop them, or make it so Ty didn’t have to share their fate, Navarre might know how.

“I’m gonna be sick,” Ty muttered.

Chase looked at him with disgust. “Not in my room, you’re not.”

“I got my medicine next door,” Ty said meekly. “I’ll go throw up there.”

“Not now,” Chase insisted. “We’re going downstairs. The fucking detective wants another group meeting. And you are gonna behave yourself.”

Ty nodded miserably. He slid off the bed and hobbled toward the door. He would have to wait. He would be looking for an opportunity, but not the kind Chase meant.

Out in the hallway, he took a deep breath, trying to gather his courage. The walls closed in on him, but he concentrated. He could make it down the hall. It was just like the barrel of a gun. He was aiming at his target. And his target was to get free of Chase and Markie, to get off this island in one piece. If other people died, that wasn’t his problem.

He took a tentative step, then another. Chase and Markie walked on either side of him, but Ty promised himself he’d be rid of them by tomorrow, one way or another.

23

On my way downstairs, I thought about Alex. I wondered how he would react to Chris Stowall’s death. The booming and groaning of the storm outside made me think of the last fireworks display I’d ever seen Alex do.

It had not exactly been a celebration.

That July fourth, my mother had asked Garrett to watch me, which was never a good sign. She wasn’t feeling well. She couldn’t handle the company of others that night. At sunset, Garrett took me down to the beach, where Alex was setting up his display.

His tubes and wires looked like a miniature power plant. He’d set everything up on a length of wooden flats and was busy running around, checking his fuses one more time.

The other hotel guests—there were never that many—brought picnic blankets and barbecue prepared by Alex’s dad. Even Delilah, the old maid, had come down to watch the show. Alex’s fireworks displays were some of the only times I ever saw her smile.

My brother was in an unusually good mood that night. New guests had arrived the day before, and they had a teenage daughter. Garrett had big plans to get to know her tonight. He’d combed his unruly hair, which made him look even geekier than usual, and put on fresh jeans and his Pat McGee’s Surf Shop T-shirt.

“You help Alex out, okay?” Garrett told me. “I’m just gonna, you know, get a soda or something.”

He went off in search of the new girl. I suppose I should’ve been relieved that he was preoccupied and happy, but I knew it just meant he’d be in a foul mood tomorrow or the next day—whenever his romantic prospects fell apart, as they inevitably would.

Alex was too busy working to pay attention to me. The sky was turning purple and the guests were starting to cheer and call for the show. Behind us, the hotel at sunset looked like a perfect haunted house.

I didn’t hear Mr. Eli come up behind us until he spoke. “Are you ready, Alex?”

It was the first time I’d ever seen Mr. Eli outside. He wore his maroon bathrobe as always. The cuffs of his pajama pants were neatly folded up to keep them out of the sand. His feet were bare, so pale they were almost luminous in the dusk. I wondered if the old man was a vampire, coming out only after dark, but I suspected that a real vampire wouldn’t look so sickly and weak.

Alex brushed his hands on his pants and stood up. “Ready, sir. About ten minutes until full dark.”

“Wonderful.” Mr. Eli smiled. “Your mother would be proud, you know. She loved fireworks.”

Alex looked down at the mortars. The aluminum foil had been peeled away. Shreds of it blew across the sand, glinting in the last light like pieces of metallic eggshell.

“You all better get clear, okay?” Alex said. “Show’s gonna start.”

I watched from the sand dunes. I suppose, compared to professional shows, Alex’s display was pretty paltry, but I thought it was fabulous. Maybe that’s because I’d watched him put the whole thing together. Maybe I was just amazed that something so loud, bright and colorful could come from a dour kid like Alex Huff. The fact that I didn’t like Alex, that I feared him, in fact, made the show all the more fascinating.

The wind was warm blowing through the sea grass. Sand fleas started a seven-course meal on my legs, but I didn’t want to move. The smoke was almost as interesting as the starbursts and fireballs. It made ghostly faces in the night sky, swiftly stretched by the breeze and blown to shreds.

“He gets better every year,” a voice said at my shoulder.

I jumped in surprise. It was Mr. Eli, but he wasn’t talking to me. He stood in the dunes with another man. Both of them were only shadowy silhouettes, the tops of their heads illuminated by bursts of fireworks.

“Know what he told me today?” the other man asked. It was Alex’s father. His voice sounded deep and sad. “He said he wants to join the army.”

Mr. Eli was silent as a triple burst of silver lit up the water over the boat dock.

“He wants to get away from here,” Mr. Huff said. “I can’t blame him. Nothing but bad memories.”

“Do you really believe that?” Mr. Eli asked.

Alex’s father sniffed. I couldn’t see his face, but I could almost feel the grieving radiating from him, like the heat of a sun lamp.

“I don’t know, sir. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful.”

“It’s all right,” Mr. Eli said. “Let him go, if he wants to. He’s got his mother’s spirit. Hard to tie that down.”

“Yes.” Mr. Huff’s voice sounded ragged. “Suppose it is.”

Down at the beach, I caught a glimpse of Garrett and his new potential girlfriend. Garrett’s crooked smile lit up blue in a burst of copper chloride light. The girl was too pretty for him. I could tell just by looking, the way she held herself apart from him. She would never fall for him.

“Alex will come back,” Mr. Eli said. “Mark my words; he appreciates this place more than he lets on. If I had a son…well, I wish I had someone as good as Alex to inherit this place. He has a good heart.”

I wanted to tell Mr. Eli that he was wrong. People with good hearts didn’t treat younger kids the way Alex treated me. But I bit my lip and said nothing.

“Suppose he got that from his mother, too,” Mr. Huff said gruffly. “Sure didn’t get a sense of forgiveness from me.”

A series of fireballs shot in the air—yellow, green, red. They began to die and fall, only to explode into interlocking spheres, like the Venn diagrams we did in class. My English teacher’s lessons, forcing me to think inside the curves: How are these things alike? Where do they overlap?

“Are you sure…” Mr. Eli began to say. “Do you think you ever will tell him?”

“No,” Mr. Huff said. His tone was absolutely firm.

“He’s bound to find out someday. South Texas is just too small a place. Everyone is connected somehow.”

“They never found us,” Mr. Huff said.

“No,” Mr. Eli said. “That’s true. This place is separate. But if he leaves—”

The old man never finished his sentence. The fireworks finale filled the sky, so bright that I could suddenly see the men’s faces, and they looked down and saw me.

Perhaps I should’ve played it cool. But in that moment I felt too much like a trespasser. I ran down the sand dune and along the beach into the dark until the fireworks were far behind me, echoing against the side of the hotel like cannon fire.

The others were gathering in the parlor.

Benjamin Lindy stood by the fireplace. Maia had come downstairs, ignoring my objections. She looked a little better. She sat on the sofa now, comforting Imelda, who was crying into her apron. Chase and Markie were arguing with Ty, who seemed to have calmed down a little, or perhaps Markie had simply threatened to sap him over the head again.

Lane took a deep breath and walked into the room. I started to follow, but Garrett pulled me aside. “Now would be a good time, little bro, if you got something to say.”

It took me a moment to realize what he was asking. “About Lane.”

“Yeah, of course about Lane.”

I shook my head. “Not really. Maybe there are some things I shouldn’t have to say. But it wouldn’t make much difference, would it?”

“You think I’m taking advantage of her.”

“I think she’s fragile. I think you’re both emotionally strung out.”

“You have any idea what she’s been through? You realize who her husband is?”

“That’s not the point.”

“I like her, Tres.”

He rarely called me Tres. He tended to save my name for times when he was seriously pissed off or needed money.