Her smile widened. “Can’t tell you all of it, but I can tell you some. I can tell you that the lights drew me back here so’s I could find out who I was.”

“Really. And who would that be?”

“Oh, I can’t tell you that. Leastways not yet. Only someone real close to me can know that.”

“Well, I’m only a foot or two away.”

“Notthat kind of close. The other kind of close…the way you’re gonna be with me real soon.”

Oooooh, lady, I wouldn’t count on that, Jack thought.

“Really.”

“Yeah. Which brings me to another part of the big picture: the sacrifices. They was done for a purpose.”

“Like what?”

“To get you down here.”

Jack’s mouth went dry. All along he’d had a niggling suspicion, a creeping fear that his father hadn’t been a random victim; but having it laid out before him like this was unnerving.

I’m responsible.

But he saw a problem.

He licked his lips. “Wait. That doesn’t make sense. You say your lights figured if they killed my father I’d come down here. But I mightnot have come. My brother might have come instead. And why the other three deaths before him?”

Semelee shrugged. “Who can explain how the lights think? Maybe they liked the sacrifices, maybe they knew Mr. Weldon would get to your daddy sooner or later and so they just let things happen. Maybe your daddy’s name came up when only you could come. Don’t much matter none. You’re here, ain’t you.”

Yeah, he thought. I’m here all right.

“Why would your lights want me here?”

Semelee smiled. “For me.”

“For you? What do you want with me? What do you even know about me?”

“I know you’re special. And I know we was meant to be together.”

“Yeah? Well, sorry. You and your lights are a little late. I’m taken.”

“Don’t matter. It’s gonna be you and me. Can’t stop it. It’s like…like…”

“Kismet?”

“Kiss what?”

“Destiny?”

“Yeah, that’s it. Destiny. You and me’s destined to be together. You’re gonna bring me in, take me back with you, make me belong, and then together we’re gonna rule the roost.”

Make you belong? he thought. Boy, sister, have you picked the wrong guy. “Listen, if you’re an outsider, the last guy you want to hook up with is me.”

“Lemme be the judge of that.” She stepped closer until her lips were barely an inch from his. “I’ll meet you tonight at—”

“Sorry,” Jack said, backing away. “Game over. Hangout with your lights and your buddies here, do whatever floats your boat, but stay away from Gateways, especially from my father.” He raised the Glock and held it beside his head, muzzle skyward. “I see you or any of your clan within a hundred yards of my father, you’re dead. Not figuratively dead, not virtually dead, not merely dead, but clearly and sincerely dead. Got it?”

She stared at him with her big, suddenly sad eyes. Her lower lip trembled.

“No…you can’t…”

“Got it?”

Jack turned and sloshed over toward where Carl waited with the boat in the deeper water.

“You can’t!”she screamed behind him.

Watch me.

9

“He needs killin, Semelee,” Luke said. “He needs killin real bad.”

They had the deck of theHorse-ship all to theirselfs. Semelee sat with her legs danglin over the side, starin at her reflection in the water. Luke crouched next to her.

His head had stopped bleedin. Finally. For a while there she’d thought he was gonna lose every drop of blood in his body. He’d refused to go to the hospital, sayin he’d heal up just fine without no damn fool doctors stickin him with needles. Maybe he was right, but he sure looked stupid with that red bandanna tied across his head and under his chin.

“You’re right,” Semelee told him. “For once, I ain’t got no argument with you.”

Luke stared at her with shocked eyes. “You mean it?”

“Damn right I do.”

“But I thought you was sweet on him.”

“Wasn’t never sweet on him. I thought he was special but that don’t matter none now. He hurt you and—”

“His daddy did the shootin.”

“I know that. But his daddy only pulled the trigger. It was him, it was Jack who put him up to it. Probably told his daddy to blow your head off but the old boy only creased you. Can’t have that, Luke. Can’t have nobody, no matter how special they are, hurt in someone in the clan.”

“So then it’s okay with you if I take Corley and a couple—”

Semelee shook her head. “Uh-uh. I’m gonna handle this my own self. For you, Luke. It’ll be a present from me to you.”

The shock in Luke’s eyes melted into something like love.

Don’t be gettin no ideas, she thought.

Because this had nothin to do with Luke. She was just lettin him think that. He’d been too far away and too busy with his bleedin head to pay any attention to what had gone on between her and Jack in the shallows. Didn’t hurt none though to let him think he was the reason she was gonna go after Jack.

But this was gonna be all for her.

She’d wanted to cry all the way back from the shallows. Her heart still felt like it’d been tore right out of her chest. He’d turned her down, turned his back and walked away. He said it was because he was taken, but that was a lie. Semelee had seen it all through her life and she knew the real truth: Jack thought he was too good for her.

But as she’d returned to the lagoon she realized it was the other way around.

Jack…how could she’ve thought he was special and meant for her? What was she thinking? He obviously wasn’t so special and definitely not for her. She saw that now. Her visit to the lights in the sinkhole had changed everything. She knew her True Name now, knew that she’d been brought here for a purpose. She wasn’t sure what that was yet, but she would. She just knew she would.

She’d been special before—her powers proved that—but now she was even more special. Much too special for Jack.

Yeah, but if that was true, why was she still hurt in? Why this cold hard lump where her stomach used to be?

She knew of only one way to make it better.

“Leave me be for now,” she told Luke. “I gotta work on this. I’m gonna fix a big fat surprise for our friend Jack.”

He got up and backed away. “Okay, Semelee. Sure. Sure. Maybe I’ll go check on Devil. See how he’s doin.”

Despite how bad she was feeling, Semelee had to smile. Luke’d always been sorta like her puppy dog, but now he was actin like her slave.

But she was okay with that. Every girl should have a slave.

10

“I think this calls for a drink,” Dad said as they stepped into the house.

They’d dropped Carl—with his thousand dollars—off at the trailer park. All the way home he’d been so effusive in his thanks for rescuing him from the clan and the lights that Jack had had to shut him up by getting him to describe what he’d seen last night. He’d found Carl’s description of Semelee being lowered into the hole particularly unsettling. If the lights, filtered through sand and water, had caused the clan’s deformities, what would direct exposure do? Make you crazy? The cenote must have been where she’d learned—how had she put it?Who I am . Who was she if not Semelee?

“That was one hell of a shot, Dad. Onehell of a shot.”

Jack kept reliving the emotional swings of that moment.

“Wasn’t it? Wasn’t it, though?”

Dad had darted into the kitchen and was searching through the bottles in a cabinet above the sink. His speech came in staccato bursts, his movements were quick, jittery, as if he’d mainlined caffeine.

He’s higher than the proverbial kite, Jack thought.

“I wasn’t looking to kill him, you know, and prayed I wouldn’t, but I was also thinking, if it’s his life or Jack’s, then I can live just fine with a kill shot. All the skills came back as I was sitting in that tree, Jack. Suddenly I was back at the Chosin Reservoir, and I was on autopilot and really, really relaxed because no one was shooting at me out in the Glades. It was just me and the rifle, and control of the situation was mine for the taking. I—here it is.” He pulled a dark green bottle from the cabinet and held it aloft. “Wait till you taste this.”