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In the end they decided they had to leave, and they got up to make their way back to Angel, check she was okay.
The wind had picked up over the course of the evening and when they got to the jetty, Santana hesitated.
“Is this thing safe?” she asked, and I could see why. The waves were buffeting it in a way that made the planks shudder and creak. Conor shrugged. It was as safe as he could make it, but nothing on this island is safe—the deaths of our friends have proven that.
“I don’t know,” he said. “Do you want to wait until it calms down?”
But Santana shook her head.
“We need to get back to Angel, make sure she’s okay.”
Conor and I nodded, and they began walking across the jetty.
They were only about halfway across when something happened. I still don’t know what—maybe a plank tilted, or maybe a wave hit them when they weren’t expecting it, but suddenly Santana’s feet went out from under her and she fell, hitting her head hard against one of the posts.
She grabbed at Lyla as she fell, more by instinct, I think, than deliberately, and the two of them went over—and were in the water before Conor or I could react.
For a second I wasn’t sure what to do. They’re both strong swimmers, and they weren’t far from the veranda. I knelt by the edge, holding out my arms to try to pull them to safety, but then I saw the blood in the water, and I realized what had happened—Santana must have cracked her head when she fell, and was barely conscious. Lyla was struggling to hold her up in the water, struggling against the pull of the current, which kept trying to suck them out to sea with every wave. And before I could protest, Conor dived into the water.
He got to Santana fast and managed to tow her out of the pull of the current and get her to me, and somehow—I still don’t know how—I dragged her up onto the veranda. But then he went back for Lyla—and I saw that they were both in the pull of the riptide.
Beside me, Santana was choking out seawater. She was conscious at least. But Lyla was struggling. She was far out to sea, and Conor was going after her. I saw them swimming, swimming—and then, and I still don’t know what happened—Conor was gone.
Was it a shark? Baz told us ages ago that they couldn’t get inside the reef, but I don’t know if that’s true. He was wrong about so much, poor Baz. All I know is that one minute Conor was there, cutting through the water towards Lyla with his powerful crawl, and the next minute he was gone. And Lyla was still being pulled out to sea.
It was probably the worst moment of my life. Conor was gone, Santana was choking on the deck—perhaps dying, for all I knew—and Lyla was being swept out to sea. I didn’t know if I could save her. I didn’t know what to do. I wanted to fall on my knees and cry out to God, ask him why he kept punishing us like this.
I couldn’t save Conor. I couldn’t even tell where he had gone under anymore.
But I saved Lyla. I saved Lyla, and Santana lived. And Angel woke up today and she’s okay. But oh God, Conor is gone. Conor—my rock, my love, my life—he is gone. He is gone. Perhaps if I keep saying it, I can make it feel real.
Conor is gone, and I don’t know how I can carry on.
CHAPTER 36
ZANA WAS CRYING when she finished the final diary entry. She closed the notebook, and I wondered if she was going to let us see what she’d written.
I would have understood. What we were asking her to do—mine her own fears and feelings to save us all—it was a lot for anyone. But we had to know what she had said, we had to be able to back up her story if we were questioned on it.
I opened my mouth to say something—ask if she was okay, perhaps—but before I could speak, she shoved the book towards me, across the floor of the villa, and then stood and walked outside, her back to the door, facing the forest as if she couldn’t look at us while we read it.
I picked it up, glanced at Angel and Santana, and then began to read.
Bayer’s death… our growing thirst and desperation… Dan’s drowning… the water rationing… Joel’s disappearance… and then finally Conor’s own death. Seeing them all laid out like that, one after the other, was a visceral reminder of all we’d been through. But there was a strange distortion to it, reading them through the lens of what Zana was trying to do. It was like picking up the wrong glasses—everything was familiar, but wrong. The perspective was wonky, the distances false. Everything she wrote about had happened… but not quite as she had explained. In her version, Bayer had had some kind of fit. Dan’s death was an accidental drowning. Joel had committed suicide, survivor’s guilt, with no reference to what he’d done. Somehow, Zana had shifted the narrative to one where Conor was the hero, the person keeping it all together.
It was the last entry that had the greatest ring of honesty to it—in spite of it being the most false. But perhaps that was because the lies were stitched together with painful truths. Zana’s love for Conor, her grief, her guilt… all of that was real.
Conor is gone, and I don’t know how I can carry on.
I could hear the truth in those words, and the agony too.
When I had finished, I found there were tears in my eyes, and I pushed the book to Santana, wiping my eyes with my sleeve and swallowing hard.
Santana read it silently through, and then handed it to Angel, who read it in turn, and then nodded.
“Yes,” she said. There was a catch in her voice as if she too were fighting tears. “Yes. That is good.” She cleared her throat. “It was hard to read. It must have been hard—hard to write.”
“She’s bloody clever,” Santana said. “I mean… it’s all there, isn’t it. If the cameras turn out to be working, it’s all explained. The water rationing, Dan standing up to Conor—there’s an explanation for everything. It’s just…”
