CHAPTER FOURTEEN ✹
The Killer In You.

  𝕿HE sky was smeared with the ripe blood of apricots and clementines, and Iris Mariano was definitely narcissistic enough to think this was for her—the sun so orange and tangible, kissing the back of her legs. Greedily, the golden rays lapped at the salt-water still ribboning from her skin after testing the drone in the marsh. The sun's hungry and so was Iris. It was never any wonder why she was named after it.

  "You three get these groceries straight over to Figure Eight," Heyward instructed, the sudden weight of two grocery bags bracketing her wrists tearing Iris out of her sunbathing, "and come straight back—no fishin'."

  Her mouth curled in a slanted smile. "Aye, captain."

  Pope's old man squinted at her, high-strung and judging. "Remind me how you got the short end of the stick—helping out these two sorry bastards?"

  "Oh, well—" Teeth bared impishly, Iris glanced back at JJ and Pope at the stern of the boat, unceremoniously balancing groceries of their own, and it's not mischief that was in her eyes when she turned back to face Heyward—but something far more wretched and terrifying altogether, "you know me. I like to do my bit for the community. Love thy neighbour—"

  "All right," Heyward interjected drolly with a sideways look of mock-reproach, "that's enough, kid."

  Just then, her boys were sweeping back over, squishing Iris between their shoulders as Pope scooped the groceries out of her hands as JJ extended out his own to take the two more bags from Heyward. She grumbled peevishly as he brushed past her again, almost knocking her right into Pope and inadvertently sinking her funny-bone right into his ribs.

  "—I promised delivery by this afternoon," Pope's old man was telling them markedly. "And rich folks don't wanna wait for you lazy sons of—" he ambled round, grappling with more of the groceries, and rolled his eyes fondly when JJ's already waiting with his hands stretched out again. "Oh, JJ, thank you," he drawled, "—sons of bitches."

  Pope, the dutiful son, nodded servilely. "Right."

  "And you, Isla—" Heyward started, wagging a pointed finger at Iris, whose mouth bubbled with laughter.

  "Dad," said his son squeamishly, "it's Iris, you know it's Iris, you do this every time."

  "She knows who I'm talking to." Heyward looked at her indiscernibly. Iris almost shrank under the meaning of it, but she was astute enough to catch that vague twitch of his mouth. "Take care of these idiots."

  "Oh, I will, Sir," Iris promised, a crooked grin softening the blow of how earnestly she meant it—she'd always take care of them, "I'm, like, a professional at this now."

  "I'm sure you are," he muttered. Then, he was beckoning them off the marina, clicking his tongue impatiently, "Away with ya—get this shit delivered. And be polite, yeah? Remember, the tips are all you're getting, so make it count."

  They set off from the marina, the still waters of the marsh glittering with sunlight around them. Pope manned the wheel, and JJ had perched himself on the instrument panel of the helm station, his legs dangling from it at just enough of an angle for Iris to stand between them as they all glared out of the cabin's windows to the grotesquely enormous estates right on the doorstep of the morasses. It was enough to leave a bad taste in all three of their mouths, and the hot rage of it was a long shot off the trickling warmth of swallowing sunshine as if it was manuka honey.

  "It doesn't even look like the storm hit there," spat Pope, onyx eyes indignant under the shade of his baseball cap.

  "That's because they got generators, bro," JJ told him bitterly, "get used to it."

  A sting delivered tiny, snake-scuttling sensations of guilt through Iris's blood. As if they might misplace all of this anger and envy of theirs into her—because of Tannyhill, because of Ward. It was this constant fear that she lived with, digesting the soft skin of her until there was nothing but an emaciated, nervous wreck.

  "—And then they'll say the juice will be out all summer at the Cut," he ranted on, the unfairness roughening his voice. She could practically feel the rage vibrating in his chest behind her, but their skin wasn't even touching.

  Pope had that unnerving, dark look of silent wrath in his eyes as he raked them back to the dock ahead. "It's nice to be a kook."

  JJ whistled in agreement. "Lucky bastards."

  Then, he did something very strange indeed. The buckknife he had been fidgeting with to keep his hands busy was absently set aside, so imperceptibly that Iris didn't even hear it. Then, his thumb swept over her neck, first where the tufts of her hair were still gently damp and curled from swimming in the marsh that morning, and then to where the dainty clasp of her necklace sat loose against her skin. Iris stiffened under his touch, but he didn't take it away. It lingered, rough with hardened skin but uncommonly tender as it traced intuitively down to where the material of her tank top grazed her shoulder-blades. He felt along the halter-neck straps, even untwisted one of them where it got a bit snared in her heedless process of throwing it back on after traipsing up to the Chateau. And finally, JJ stole it all back, burying his hands in his lap.

  Iris was suddenly letting go of this scared breath that she didn't even realise she was keeping in, and swaying back until her coccyx hit the hard edge of the dash. She hungered for him to pick that buckknife back up and use it to slash her up into ribbons. A helpless and tormented girl, a fawn in the woodland—she likens butchery to love, and loses all sense of sensibility at the first ghost of a touch.

  It feels like teeth.

  JJ split when they docked. A wolfish grin and a wink of sin, he told them he knew exactly where he'd luck out with his tips, and splintered away from the wharf with armfuls of groceries and a swagger that left a sourness in Iris's mouth.

  "C'mon," she mumbled to Pope, snatching as many bags as she could manage without leaving circles of indents into the flesh of her arms, "I know a shortcut."

  Pope hesitated, standing there catatonically with his own hauls as Iris frogmarched for a sandy path alongside the country club's golf links. "Iris, we can't—I'm not a member," he stammered, feet entrenched on the dock. As Iris blinked at him in confusion, he felt shame thicken in his throat. When he next spoke, his voice came out mangled and pitchy, "Erm, what if someone sees, and they kick me out—"

  "Then, chances are you, you're delivering one of those assholes' groceries," said Iris laconically. When she noticed this did nothing for his nerves, Iris settled her bags down at her feet and stalked over to him. Affectionately, she dipped the bill of his cap down then crouched to peek at his eyes and the lopsided grin she managed to earn. "Hey, you're with me, remember? Ward Cameron's daughter. I'm a member—and you're my guest of honour. Yeah?"

  "Yeah," Pope caved, his cheeks feeling warmer now than they did lounging in the sun earlier, "okay, fine—after you then, ma'am."

  Iris smiled at him prettily and bent her knees even further to duck herself under his cap, smacking a tart kiss to his cheekbone. The grin she left behind on his face was almost shit-eating, and her eyes rolled at him lovingly as she trudged back to her load of the groceries.

  "C'mon then, Pius. Remember what your old man said—rich folk don't wanna wait for lazy sons of bitches!"

  Summer left its mark on Iris as she and Pope jostled with their bags, shoulders brushing, the briny sea-breeze tickling the hairs on the napes of their necks. Sweat glistened on her browbone and beaded along the curve of her clavicle. The air smelt like laburnums and honeysuckle. She prayed that Pope couldn't hear the slight rasp in her breaths from the heat. She prayed that he'd always think nothing but the best of her. That he thought Iris Mariano belonged to the summertime, rather than always being rejected by it; the sore tanlines on her shoulders tacky with aloe vera aftersun and her hair piled on top of her head with a tortoiseshell claw-clip, because she never really could tolerate how it stuck to her skin when it was this sweltering.

  She hoped he'd think of her as Iris Soleil, and not Iris Cameron, or Iris Mariano. Insecurities sit heavy on her tongue.

  "So, erm..." Pope bumped their shoulders pertinently, "what's, uh—what's going on with you and JJ?"

  Iris's brows pinched into a frown. "What?"

  "Oh, you know, it's just—last night, at the Wreck, and just now, on the boat." Oh, Pope. Lovely and observant Pope. He let out a feeble laugh and said, "I know, I know, that's just how you are—"

  "It is," Iris told him defensively.

  "Well," mused Pope, looking at his feet as they trudged through the sands, "have you ever wondered why?"

  Relentlessly, sure. But why was Pope thinking about it? It wasn't his doll-like stitches rupturing with all this confusion and wanting and self-doubt.

  "I don't really have the time, to be honest," was all Iris returned.

  Pope's laugh was halfhearted, cut short by his mangling thoughts. "Yeah, I guess."

  But she did have the time—both of them did. Pope slipped out of the pull-out last night, tentatively as to not stir Kie, and tiptoed over the uneven floorboards to the bathroom. He knew he shouldn't, but on the way he heard voices, slithering out from under the gap beneath the spare bedroom's door—sinful and tempting, like the voice of a fork-tongued serpent on its underbelly in Eden. Pope waited, listening. At first, he couldn't really make out what either of them were saying. Guilt pulsed in his ears with hot, boiling blood, telling him to walk away, to leave them alone. Until he heard JJ say it—the first cohesive sentence that Pope managed to snatch with his greedy hands—"I'm here," he had told Iris, adoring and earnest in a way that he seldom ever was, "...And you can do whatever you want with that."

  Pope spent the rest of the night outside on the hammock, listening to the crawdads sing, and he woke up shivering from a cruel dream. Bitterly, it bothered him how ignorant they both were—he loved them; he loved the very bones of them. But they were stupid. Cruel, too. JJ Maybank was bloated by mistreated and shelved love that the rest of them could scarcely imagine. Pope knew that. JJ's been telling him that he loves him since the day they met, when Pope begrudgingly helped him with his trig homework. He always figured that Iris knew this too—in a Brontë kind of fashion, he assumed that whatever souls are made of, hers and JJ's were the same. That kind of devotion was wasted on the those two, when all they did with it was swallow their worst bits whole and spit them out again.

  Frankly, Pope was getting a bit sick of it. The physical kind—where all of his organs, all of his blood, didn't want to be in him anymore.

  "Listen, Iris—" It falls from him, clipped, belligerent; but he cared so, so much for her, "I really think that you should..."

  "Oh, look who we have here!"

  Iris wanted to sew her eyes shut. "Fuck. Great." Unmistakably, the voice calling from the crest of the course belonged to Rafe. "Let's just ignore him. C'mon—"

  "N'aw, that's no way to treat family, is it, Iris?" Rafe sneered, stalking over, golf club in hand and Topper, canine and steadfast, at his heel. Her brother bared his teeth viciously at Pope, sizing him up how an animal eyes does to fresh meat. "Who's your friend?"

  "Leave him alone," Iris snarled, slotting herself between them. Rafe's eyes were monstrous and glinting. That cruelty swelled in his dilated pupils when it's his sister he was glaring at, instead. "We're here on work. We don't wanna fight, Rafe."

  "On—on work, huh?" Rafe chuckled, scratching at the base of his throat. He glanced back at Topper, who was stood antsy on the sidelines. "How, uh—conscientious of you, little sister," he laughed maliciously. "Real, uh, you're a real samaritan, aren't you? Always thinking you're better than the rest of us..."

  "Hey, man," Pope interjected coolly, easing Iris behind him, "how about you leave her alone, yeah?"

  "Sorry, pogue," his lips curled contemptuously, "I didn't think this involved you?" Then, Rafe jutted the grip of his club against the crate of beers tucked under Pope's wing. "But, hey, how much for one of those beers?"

  Pope hardened his jaw. "They're not for sale."

  As he went to stalk off, Rafe pushed him back with the golf club, causing Iris to stumble herself. "Wait, wait," he drawled, "you can just give us one, yeah?"

  "Or you can order one," suggested Pope, splitting a surly glare between him and Topper, "like everyone else?"

  "Hah, listen—" This time when Pope went to leave, Rafe put his hands on him. That's when Iris decided to set her own set of groceries at her ankles. "You're not listening to me," he said aloofly, the smirk on his face sending chills along her spine, "erm—look, you've got so many, bro, and we've got nothing."

  Topper lifted his shoulders in a mocking shrug. "Nothing, man," he reinforced, obsequious and humiliating.

  "They're not even mine, they've already been paid for, okay?" Pope exclaimed.

  "Already paid for?" Rafe mused, trifling through one of the plastic bags with the driver of his club. "I mean, dude, they're probably stolen, right?" He punctuated his nasty words by rupturing the bag, shattering a glass jar and sending the rest of the produce dispersed across the weedy sand.

  "I'll fucking kill you, Rafe!" seethed Iris, throwing herself forward.

  "Topper," was all Rafe had to say, nonchalantly flicking his hand, for Topper to grab both of Iris's arms, wrenching them so vehemently behind her back that the cavity of her shoulder-socket pulsated instantly in pain.

  "What the hell?" Pope demanded, eyes frantically blown as they ravaged between Rafe, predatory and advancing, and Iris swearing as she thrashed against Topper's hold. "You owe me for that!"

  Rafe thwacked the second bag midair, launching the contents of it into the tall sweetgrass. "I don't owe you shit, pogue."

  Iris kicked the heel of her foot back into Topper's calf. "Leave him alone, Rafe, or I swear to God—"

  "What, Iris?" he challenged, rounding on her, still restrained by Topper—years of malice and rejection in her eyes. "You'll run and tell Dad? Iris Soleil—Ward Cameron's favourite daughter, huh—well, go ahead! See if I fucking care."

  "You're a piece of shit, Rafe," she spat at him.

  "Yeah? You think so? See, that's real funny, Iris," he sneered, a hollow, mirthless laugh scratching at his throat, "'cause I think that your pogue friend is a piece of shit. Now," Rafe turned back to Pope, who was trembling with equal parts fury and fear, "just give us a beer man and I'll let you go. Yeah?"

  Pope cradled the crate protectively to his chest. "Let Iris go first," he muttered, jutting his jaw out to her. Her writhing stopped, and her eyes fall on him like snowfall, or confetti. "She's your sister. Let her go, then I'll—"

  "You think this is a negotiation, pogue?" Rafe yelled, feral-eyed as he launched himself at the crate, white-knuckling it as he tried relentlessly to wrench it from Pope's arms. "That's now what's happening here, man. Now, give us a fucking beer before I—" One particularly rough jostle sent Pope tumbling to the ground, scattering the cans of beers, and splaying out his aching limbs on the sand. "Oh, shit," Rafe chuckled, angling his head to watch him struggle, "my bad, man."

  "Rafe, stop!" Iris shouted, Topper's grip marking her wrists now. His own shins must be covered in reddening marks from how brutally she kept driving her shoes into them, but his knees didn't once buckle. The hummingbird of her heart was flapping incessantly against the ivory confines of her ribs as Pope staggered determinedly back to his feet, shaky hands and frenzied eyes. "Rafe, leave him alone!"

  Pope blindly threw his fist at him, but Rafe was quicker—meaner, and more of a killer. He swung his club down savagely, the titanium drive of it crunching against Pope's knuckles. Pope's grunt of agony intermingled with a rattling scream from Iris's lungs, and just as he doubled over, clutching the bleeding skin to his stomach, Rafe struck again. Even more violent than before and right against Pope's spine. Exclaiming in pain, he fell into a crumpled heap of contused limbs on the floor, teeth catching the sensitive muscle of his tongue as he flattened out on the sand.

  Topper must've not thought Rafe had that kind of fury in him, because his white-knuckled grip on Iris slackened just enough for her to pry herself free. Her nails bite at Rafe's shoulders as she shoved him away from Pope's contorting body, and tears blur her vision as she stared at him in horror.

  He wasn't always like this. He wasn't always a killer. Her brother wasn't born with the taste of blood in his mouth—but his mother's grief and the grief for his mother, soured on his tongue over time. This wasn't a boy she recognised. Cruel and hungry for something that he didn't even know. He's panting, avoiding her stare—hurt and frightened and so fucking angry—and this was not her brother. It's hard to believe that they loved each other, once. That Rafe told her, when they were little, that Iris was the only one out of their soft-hearted brood of mismatched siblings that he felt could ever understand him. Iris didn't get him now. She was born with a monstrous thing inside of her too, clawing desperately at the wounded skin  to worm its way out, but Iris didn't let it. Maybe living at Tannyhill made Rafe more susceptible to Ward's carvings. Maybe filth does teach filth, and she shouldn't hate him this much, shouldn't blame him as resentfully as she did now.

  But there wasn't softness anymore. There's not the trembly, fragile hope nursed by the hands of a girl outside of her big brother's bedroom door, begging him to come outside and climb trees with her again—to be her friend, to be better. He's waspish and cruel, and childhood's a scar that Iris now figured was best left untouched. She wouldn't pick at the scab of Rafe any longer. She wouldn't hold out a mad, doglike longing that they'd understand each other again.

  This wasn't something she wanted to understand.

  This was Pope. All good bones and better blood. Not a killer. Not anything bad at all.

  "Just leave!" Iris screamed. It's pathetic, and childlike, and perhaps the weakest thing she could've said. But she was ravaged with exhaustion from fighting against Topper—all she wanted to do was tend to Pope, groaning and buckled on the sand. Her arms stayed numbly at her sides as Rafe finally tore his eyes onto her. "Go, Rafe," she said scathingly. "You've had enough."

  "Man, just—" Topper stammered, nervously letting his hand graze Rafe's tense shoulder, recoiling into his wretched self when he ruthlessly shrugged him off, "man, let's just go. Leave it."

  "Stay the hell," said Rafe, a lethal finger coming to point between Iris's eyes, "off of Figure Eight."

  Iris stood her ground until they left, heart somewhere mutilated in her throat as her brother stormed his way up the slope of the golf sequence. Topper's eyes fell on her before following after him—there was so much there that she did not want to sink her teeth into. It didn't matter. She didn't care if he felt bad. If he thought that this went too far. Her wrists ached from how adamantly he kept her back, how desperately he wanted to listen to Rafe's barked orders. It didn't matter that the silent plea in his eyes was so easily translated to her—in the raw language of a boy who did not want this getting back to the girl he loved.

  She watched him leave.

  "Pope," Iris sobbed, finally turning to him. Her knees bruised against the hard, blood-splattered sand as her hands instantly went for Pope's jawbone, cradling it as gently as she could—not wanting to hurt him any more. Still, the tenderest touch to his swollen cheekbone and Pope moaned at the hurt of it, inverting himself into the foetal position. But he didn't shove her away. A tear pearled down the curve of her cheek, blotting onto the cotton of his button-up, and she shakily readjusted her hold on his face to properly check his wounds. Blood glistened around his teeth, making them look like rubies, and more of it beaded down from his browbone, where the jaggedly-cut aluminium of a beer can had nicked his skin. Iris sniffled pathetically, angling her head to rub her dewy nose against her bare shoulder before forlornly turning back to Pope. "Hey, I'm sorry—are you all right—I'm so, so—"

  "It's fine, Iris," Pope spared through his bloodied teeth, sitting up brusquely enough to startle her hands into her lap. His gaze fell over her like shattered glass, they were blown and feral and still scared. He spat out a mouthful of blood onto the sand, some of it speckling her naked thigh. The enormity of his shame settled in his stomach with the cramping bloat of a nasty bug, and Pope scrambled to his feet so quickly it gave him a head-rush.

  "Pope, please—" Iris's voice wobbled just the same as her knees did as she shakily followed him to her feet, hands moving to cup his jaw again in the most loving of ministrations, but it just felt like torture to him.

  He jammed his tongue into the torn flesh of his cheek, grimaced at the metallic taste of his humiliation, and flinched away from her.

  "Nah, it's cool. It's fine. Leave it, Iris." Not wanting to look at her teary eyes anymore, nor the way she nibbled pityingly at the worried skin of her bottom lip and stared at him as if he was this frightened animal, Pope cast his stare regretfully to the tattered groceries splayed across the sun-scorched sand. "Let's just go—these are ruined, we can't deliver 'em now."

  "I'll—I will pay for them," Iris offered softly, stumbling after him as he trudged back the way they came.

  Mistaking his shame for anger—anger at Rafe that translated into her, just how she thought JJ's rage for the kooks might manifest into a brutishness against her—Iris desperately tried to suture this haemorrhage between them. The bleeding wasn't hers, though. It was Pope's. He needed to nurse it himself with the lapping, rough tongue of a kicked dog—he didn't need Iris's doe eyes looking at him as though he was worthy of nothing but the splintery ache of sympathy.

  Iris was just never really good at understanding when people were upset with her.

  "Pope, I'm sorry...you said we shouldn't come this way, and I forced you—I'll pay for all of it. I'll explain it to your dad, and—"

  "Don't," Pope seethed, turning around furiously, staggering Iris, "tell my dad." He rubbed at the ache in his jaw, blinking back a sting in his eyes when Iris's head dipped hollowly between her crumpled shoulders. "All right? Or Magda—or Alex either, because he'll just tell her, anyway. Matter of fact, Iris," he sighed, resuming his indignant, stomping walk, "don't tell anybody."

  Iris wavered, pathetic and incessant. "But...what about JJ? Pope, when he finds out what he did to you—"

  "He'll go after 'em." Pope's voice was level again, eerily so. "And I don't want that. I don't want JJ getting into trouble for this...or you. So, just drop it, Iris."

  When they got back to the boat, Pope stormed right into the cabin to lick his wounds and sulk as they waited for JJ. Iris, practically charged with nerves, stayed on the deck, pacing the length of it as she bit her nails down to the brittle quick.

  "Guys!" JJ's voice split through the ugly tension on the boat as if a knife had been taken to the sun. Iris perked up right away, eyes jumping between Pope's sullen form in the cabin and JJ jogging the length of the dock towards them, flashing Iris a radiant grin and a wad of cash as he leapt on board. "You are not gonna believe what just happened to me, sunshine," he said obnoxiously, lazying an arm over her shoulder and dragging her under the wing of it. "Best one hundred bucks I've ever made."

  "That's," Iris smiled at him nervously, puffing out a shaky breath, "great, J."

  "Mhm. Damn straight, Irie. Pope," he hollered to the cabin as the boat split from the wharf and started along the drift, "when I say count me on all of these grocery deliveries, I mean it!" Warm laughter wracked through him and against Iris, but she just craned her wince of a smile to her sandals. A frown plunged JJ's brows inwards when neither of them entertained his little story, his arm slowly slipping from Iris's shoulder. He swept his thumb over her hipbone, just above the low-rise waistline of her denim skirt. "Hey, what's going on? You both good?"

  Iris grimaced. "Yeah. Yeah, all good, let's just—"

  "Pope?" JJ demanded, stalking into the helm. Iris pitched after him, stilling in the doorway as JJ angled his head to get a better look of Pope under his cap. "What's up with the two of ya? Bro," he pressed, Pope tonguing his cheek and ignoring him, "you good? Pope, what happened to your face, dude?"

  Softening, JJ lifted the bill of his hat and balked at the wounds.

  "Jesus!"

  Iris buried the heels of her palms into her sunken eyes, scrubbing until they felt like sandpaper.

  "And you?" JJ sneered, rounding on her. She scrambled for purchase of her own wrists to cover the tender, fingerprinted swells. He clicked his tongue and turned to Pope, breathing unsteady. "What happened, Pope?"

  Biting the bullet, "Rafe and Topper jumped me. They said," Pope reiterated, voice thready with thick hatred, "no pogues on their side of the island."

  JJ's teeth gritted impossibly tight. He stared menacingly over Pope's head, out to the scintillating waters. And finally, at Iris. She shrank under the weight of it—she couldn't emulate that sweetness he granted her earlier, like charity; his touch so undeserving now. JJ was seething and Pope wouldn't look at her—it's not her fault, Iris knew that, but still, she had never felt so unlovable.

  "What are you gonna do about it?" JJ levelled.

  Pope steered them deeper into the marsh, further along the golden, unmarred shores of Figure Eight. Iris migrated herself to the end of the boat, where she wouldn't be so hard to stomach or look at. She felt starved of absolution, craving mercy to shower over her in the form of reassurances that she didn't really deserve. Her filthy blood pollutes that of the apricots and clementines in the sky around her, darkening it with the slow pitch of the sun.

  Pining and guilt-ridden, her eyes kept on the cabin. JJ over Pope's shoulder like an unspoken protector—there could only be one possible place they were going, but Iris felt as though she had no part in it. It might not've been her hands that marred Pope's skin, that made him bleed, but it was her blood. At least, half of it. She was insatiable and senseless—Pope would never blame her for this—but it's sewed into the capillaries of her person to feel guilt and shame.

  There was something gravely wrong with Iris Mariano. And whatever's wrong with her, was what's wrong with Rafe Cameron. Remember that ouroboros of punishment? It's here. It's in them, more than it's in the others. Maybe that's why they pushed them away. Maybe that's why they'll end up alone.

  Pope killed the engine in the middle of the marsh, lengths away from Topper's docked boat. Only then did he emerge from the cabin, flanked by JJ as they skirt to the starboard. Iris lingered at the stern.

  "2020 Malibu, 24-MXC," mumbled Pope determinedly, "the world's finest wakesetter. Number one in quality, luxury, and performance."

  JJ squared his shoulders. "This is war, Pope. They hit us, we hit them."

  Iris, apprehensive, finally crept her way over. "You're not," she said warily. "You're not seriously—"

  "This is war, Iris," Pope echoed gravely, unbuttoning his shirt and handing it to her. She felt the damp, fresh patch of his blood over the breast-pocket and that was all the absolution she needed. He slanted her a final glance—as if he's waiting for her to give him an out, to object, to inject him with rationality. But her own eyes swept mournfully over the graze on his brow and the contusion on his cheekbone, and all reason's gone. His head bobbed solemnly, understanding. "I'm doing it."

  JJ lifted a paisley bandana up and over his mouth and nose, then slammed on a pair of shades to cover his eyes as well. Pope nosedived into the water, and the regret hit Iris as soon as he broke off into a breaststroke.

  "What about his scholarship?" Iris rasped then, going to toe with JJ.

  He snatched his sunglasses off then, ignoring her as he slipped them up the bridge of her nose. "What's that, sunshine?"

  "His scholarship," she hissed, swatting away his hand as she glanced over her shoulder to watch as Pope mounted the side of Topper's boat. "If Topper finds out it was Pope...—"

  "He won't," insisted JJ, stoic.

  "J. Pope's got too much to lose to be doing this—"

  "He ain't losing shit, Iris," he said sharply. Iris swallowed. "It's about time he fought back. And don't think I didn't see those bruises, either," JJ seethed, "'cause I did."

  "JJ."

  "I'll deal with that later."

  When Iris looked back, the surfboat was submerging into the marsh and Pope was feverishly swimming back over. Misery floods her.

  He rested his arm on the ledge of Heyward's boat, mouth curling at the corners into a grin. Water beaded off him in ribbons as he flaunted the bilge plug.

  "You did it," JJ breathed, tugging the kerchief down to his neck. "I'm so proud of you right now. See, sunshine?" he taunted. "That's our boy—right there!"

  "Hey, Francis," chimed Iris, "can I see that?" she asked, pointing at the plug.

  "What? Oh, sure. Yeah—" Pope fumbled to place it in her palm as he climbed aboard, dripping wet onto the deck. "Listen, you two can't tell anybody."

  JJ nodded vehemently. "Oh, no, yeah. Totally dude."

  "No, I'm serious, dude," he said, frenzied. "Not Kie, not John B—nobody. Iris?"

  "Huh?" Iris blinked obliviously, slipping the plug into the pocket of her skirt as imperceptibly as she could. "Oh. For sure, Pope. We've got your back."

  "Yup," said JJ, grinning lopsidedly, "lips are sealed. Sunshine, did ya throw it?"

  Iris smiled brightly. "Yep. Let's go."

  Pope sprinted for the helm, almost slipping as his feet glided over the varnished deck.

  "What did I tell ya?" JJ's arm was around her shoulders again. Iris tried to make herself as small as possible, easier to digest. She twisted her neck, offering him a pretty smile. "There's nothing to worry 'bout, Iris. Pope's a big boy."

  "Yeah." Iris slumped against his side. "I know."

  She was fairly sure she'd do just about anything to get them to always treat her tenderly.

✹

  𝕿HE sky was smeared with the ripe blood of blueberries and plums, and Iris Mariano was so close to JJ that their ribs might as well have been fused at the marrow.

  It's nighttime—a cawing moorhen, beached in the sweet grass, lulled them. John B and Pope were lounging in a deck chair each, gangly legs stretched out in a tangle of limbs on an ice-cooler. In the hammock, there was an even messier twine of legs, Iris practically lying on JJ as Kie contorted herself embryonically to avoid getting kicked. His arms were around her, his nose was buried in her hair, cheek squished against her temple. It was good, with her friends, with the people she loved, that it made Iris's insides rot.

  He smelt like sea-foam and salt-water from catching waves earlier. He felt warm and like sunshine. JJ's lips brushed against a hairline in a kiss he probably didn't even think about. Iris's kept her eyes shut, the side of her own face flush against his sternum. The shark tooth charm of his necklace bit against her skin through the cheap cotton of his threadbare top. Absentmindedly, JJ moved the slipping strap of her babydoll top back up her shoulder, smoothing it down.

  "You really think it's out there?" Pope blurted. "Like, no bullshit?"

  John B hesitated, wetting his lips. "My father thought it was."

  "But...do you?"

  "After hearing his voice on that table," drifted John B, a brief interlude of thoughtful silence stretching until, "I think I do."

  "There's only one way to find out."

  The sound of a pogue's handshake sealed some kind of silent bargain, before Kie murmured, "Look, we're gonna find it, you know. Even JJ believes."

  "Oh my god, JJ," John B gasped, swooning, "do you really believe?"

  JJ voice rumbled through his chest under Iris's ear, "Totally. Wait—are we talking about four mil?"

  "Four hundred mil," the rest of them chorused.

  "Jinx," said Kie insolently. Iris extended her leg to kick her thigh.

  "I'm gonna dream about shipwrecks," lamented JJ, drawing Iris even tighter, as if she was some kind of personal stuffed animal. Not that she complained, of course. Then, shit-eating, "Good night, bird!"

  "Good night, bird shit," John B called back.

  JJ's laughter bloomed against Iris's ribs. "You hear that, sunshine? Ain't he cruel?"

  "Tryna sleep, J," Iris bellyached.

  "Oh, that's my bad." His thumb stroked the scruff of her neck, twirling a wispy curl around his finger and cursing when it got caught on his signet. The others were still whispering conspiratorially about heading out to the continental shift tomorrow to search for treasure. JJ's got his hands on her like he already had it. "I'm gonna beat the shit out of Topper when I next see him. Just so you know."

  His words sickened Iris.

  "It was Rafe, mostly. He was like—rabid." It felt hypocritical of her to call him that. She, too, was a stray. "The way he treated Pope..."

  "Yeah? And what was Topper doing, when Rafe was beating on Pope. Huh?" JJ didn't need her respond. He felt the way she stiffened when one of his hands snaked between them to ghost over the yellowing fingerprints around her wrists. When Iris stayed quiet, he moved his arm to her middle, hugging her again—it was more suffocating this time. More violent, too. "That's what I thought."

  "I'm sorry," Iris mumbled.

  "Sorry? Why are you sorry?" he asked, a little aggressively. When Iris didn't respond, pretending to have fallen asleep, JJ punctured her cheek with a teasing poke. "Sunshine. C'mon, talk to me—"

  A stray foot prodded at the tendon behind his knee. "Let the girl sleep, JJ," Kie scolded.

  JJ's frown deepened. He tried to melt into the hammock again and bury his nose into the comfort of her hair, but even the tea-tree of her shampoo did nothing for the unbearable feeling in his chest. She put it there so ruthlessly and then left him to sit with it.

  He wouldn't dream about shipwrecks at all.