Page 95 of Half the Summer's Night
“That doesn’t matter.” Charlotte comes up behind me and crouches down in the grass, her nose wrinkling up. “We can track him. You smell that?” She looks over at me. “The exhaust. He was in a pickup truck.”
All I can smell is Abi’s blood. Her terror. How could something that smelled so sweet when we were in her office together fill me with such a sick, terrible worry right now?
“Rowan,” Charlotte says sharply. “You’ve got to focus.”
“I smell her,” I whisper, blinking back tears. God, I don’t want Charlotte to see me cry. I can only imagine she’ll react theway Uncle Nash did: mock me, beat me. I’m supposed to be a killer, after all. I’m supposed to be a Hunter.
“I know you do.” Charlotte stands and moves toward me. “But the exhaust will be easier.”
I wipe the back of my hand over my eyes before I look over her. If she notices, she doesn’t acknowledge it. Instead, she says, “Focus. I want both of us to have the scent in case the other loses it.”
“Why are you helping me?” I say darkly.
“Because this is my fault.” Charlotte’s face is shadowed in the darkness. “And you’re my little brother. I was hoping we could be friends. But I need you to fucking focus right now, okay?”
I believe her, mostly because I have to. There’s only one thing that matters right now, and that’s finding Abi. So I close my eyes, and I breathe in deep, sifting through the scents?—
And I catch it. The exhaust. It’s pungent and sharper than the other mechanical scents on the air, and it seems to take off on a trail heading toward the shoreline.
“It’s going that way,” I say, opening my eyes. I point to the right. “I think it’s heading toward the beach.”
“I think you’re right.” Charlotte beeps the lock on her car, making the headlights flash. “Get in. I’ll drive, you track.”
It feels a little like what we did earlier, tracking our victims along the highway. Two predators working in tandem. But this time, our prey is precious.
Charlotte rolls down the windows as we drive along the dark road and into the little park that runs up alongside the graveyard. I stick my head out the window like a dog, breathing in the air. Following the trail.
It’s bright. As bright as the moon hanging heavy and full in the sky, casting everything in thin, silvery light.
“Turn left,” I say. “Toward the beach.”
Charlotte’s already turning, though, like she sensed it, too. She takes us down a narrow residential street, and my skin prickles, because there’s too much conflicting noise out here. Not just the scents of all the people in the houses, but other things. Their voices. Their presence. Their humanity.
“Fuck, I lost it,” Charlotte says, her eyes fixed on the road, her hands gripping the wheel tight. “Tell me you didn’t.”
She sounds genuinely concerned, which I appreciate. It’s the least she could do.
“No,” I say, although the trail is definitely fainter now. Drowned out by all the fucking humans that aren’t Abi. “Keep going. Toward the beach. They went to the beach.”
I don’t like that, them being on the beach. Images keep flashing through my head: Abi’s blood turning black on the moonlit sand. Abi’s pale body drifting in the waves, her lungs flooded with seawater. Abi’s screams being torn away by the wind.
We drive until we come to the road that runs parallel to the strand, although this is the empty part, away from hotels and tourist spots. Beach houses rise against the horizon, although they’re dark. They look empty.
The trail seems to strengthen.
“Got it again,” Charlotte says, pressing down hard on the gas. The car’s engine roars as we fly down the road. “Seems stronger. I think we’re close.”
I don’t say anything, though, because I’ve got something else. A faint whiff of Abi’s fear, like a distant shout. I push my head further out the window, trying to listen past the rush of the sea wind.
I swear, just for a second, I hear her scream. Maybe it’s my imagination, but terror burns hot in my chest anyway.
“Hurry,” I murmur, clutching at the car door. “Before she?—”
And then it all hits me at once: a racing heartbeat, a rush of blood. A music I’ve been memorizing since I was eighteen years old.
“Here! Here!” I scream, dragging myself back in the car. “Turn left!”
Charlotte jerks the steering wheel, making the tires squeal. We slam into a narrow side street marked by a big painted sign:Future site of the La Playa Del Sol subdivision!Half-built beach houses rise out of the sand like storks.
