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“Cut it out,” I say with finality.

There is no coming back from what I’m about to do, but I don’t care. He tried to take what’s mine. Lessons will be learned.

Chapter Two

Kayla

The first thing I’m aware of is the bitter cold, inching through my back and shoulders. Something hard is underneath me, and I try to make sense of it as I open my eyes. I’m surrounded by darkness, and I hear muffled voices, then suddenly everything rushes back to me.

Dirt drops on me as someone removes the coffin’s lid, and I panic, feigning unconsciousness. But when I hear Brawley, his voice calms me a little. His face is the first I see, and I focus on it as tears burn my eyes, mixing with the dirt.

“I’ve got you,” he says. “Look at me.”

He looks terrible; I hate that I made him look like that. He reaches down and pushes an arm under my back, and though I try to help, my body doesn’t cooperate.

“I can’t,” I try to say, but what comes out is slurred.

“It’s okay,” he murmurs. “Ares.” Then between the two of them they drag me out of the hole and lie me on the ground nearby. As more comes back to me, I tremble with the realization that I was buried alive. And Aaron . . . he is here. My entire body shakes harder, and Brawley’s arms tighten around me.

“She needs to be warmer,” Ares says from somewhere behind me.

“I know that,” Brawley grumbles.

“I’m okay,” I whisper, and it comes out hoarse.

“You’re not okay,” Brawley says flatly.

“I’m sitting up.”

Brawley doesn’t let me go. “You were buried in a box in the ground.”

I glance around the cemetery, finding Clay a few feet away with his phone pressed to his ear, his back half turned. Whatever the person on the other end is saying, Clay isn’t happy.

Ares is crouching down near me, checking me over.

“How’s your head?”

“Full of dirt, but it feels fine now.”

He doesn’t react. “Can you feel your feet?”

I wiggle my toes inside my boots. “Yes.”

“Good,” he says, relaxing a little.

I look around again. “Where’s Vero?” They all look away, even Clay, and no one answers me. “Where is he?”

“He’s okay, he just needed a minute,” Brawley says, and I close my eyes. Vero is struggling because of me. He would have seen me in the grave, and my chest aches knowing what that would have done to him.

Aaron did this. He planned it and came here. Now he is somewhere on the island, walking around, still breathing while I was running out of air.

“I need to stand up.”

“In a minute,” Brawley insists.

“Now!”

He must be able to tell by my tone that I mean it, so he shifts to his feet and takes my hand to pull me up slowly. My legs feel like lead, but with sheer stubbornness I refuse to fall over. The cemetery tilts for a moment, and I wait for it to steady.