Page 16 of 10 Days to Surrender

The sand is cool between my toes. Midnight tides hiss and retreat, hiss and retreat, like the ocean is trying to scrub the shore clean. My flip-flops dangle from one hand, a half-melted Snickers bar from the other. The twins have been demanding chocolate all day, and I’m nothing if not their humble servant.

I press a palm to the side of my belly where a tiny heel juts. “Easy, slugger. Mama’s walking.”

The kick softens.

I take another bite of Snickers and stare at the black water. Back in New York, the Hudson never looked like this—all hungry and endless. Here, the Atlantic is a living thing. It breathes. It watches. It knows.

Just like him.

Stop it.

I crush the candy wrapper in my fist. Six months. Six months of pretending the ache in my chest is heartburn, that the hollow behind my ribs is just the twins stealing all my organs for legroom. Six months of biting my tongue every time Jas says,He deserves to know,like it’s a fucking Hallmark card I’d be sending him and not a live grenade.

Another kick, harder this time. “You, too, huh?” I mutter. “Taking her side already?”

I keep walking, but when I reach the pier, I decide that’s far enough and I turn back toward home. I see my first creature—a ghost crab—but it scuttles away across the white sand as soon as it hears me coming.

He’d hate this place,I think, crunching a seashell underfoot.Too quiet. No shadows to own.

My cell phone vibrates in my pocket. I pull it out to see Jasmine’s name lighting up the screen.

JAS:Where’d u go?

ARI:walking on the beach. be back soon.

JAS:You scared me. Woke up and you weren’t here.

ARI:I’m fine. go back to sleep, worrywart.

JAS:Mkay. Love you.

It’s another few minutes of quiet walking, my bare feet skimming across the sand, before I make the turn inland, crest the dunes, and go down our street. The moon is behind me now, casting a silhouette that somehow manages to make my belly seem even bigger than it is in real life.

I laugh, rub it, and ask the night, “Does this shadow make me look fat?”

I’m still chuckling as I round the corner of our block—when a double flicker of orange snags my eye.

I freeze.

Cigarettes glow. Three of them. Three orange pinpricks, floating in the dark at the foot of the building’s stairs.

For a second, I’m fifteen again—standing in the cathedral, looking at a casket that didn’t hold my sister’s body. It’s the same icy trickle down my spine. The same copper stink ofwrongnessin my nose.

The twins roll, a slow, tectonic shift that leaves me breathless. “You’re being paranoid,” I tell them.

Their silence isn’t reassuring.

I peek out again. I don’t see anything at first. Are they gone? Were they ever even there in the first place? Am I hallucinating, dreaming, or?—?

There.

I lunge back behind the corner of the building, out of sight. This time, I’m sure I saw them. A trio of shadows too tall for the squat French buildings. Parked motorcycles glinting under the moon.

I pick up a broken bottle lying in the gutter and use it as a reflection so I can peer around the corner without sticking my head out. It’s shoddy, but good enough to confirm everything.

My blood turns to slush. The Snickers wrapper slips from my fingers.

Serbian license plates. Black leather jackets. The glint of a gold chain?—

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