Sanctuary Bay (30 page)

“Holy fuck,” David burst out.

Kayla screamed.

Nate threw back his head, knocking his hood completely off, and howled, the chilling sound turning into a hysterical, coughing laugh halfway through. He twisted his fingers into his hair again, ready to pull.

“Oh my god. Nate—” Sarah rushed toward him, but he danced away from her, screaming. No words, just blood-curdling shrieks. The others were screaming now too, or crying. Kayla shook with sobs.

“Stopstopstopstop,” Nate began to chant. It was quieter than the shrieking, but freakier.

“Nate?”

He looked at her, his eyes fixed on hers. There was no sign of gorgeous, intense Nate in those eyes. They were the eyes of a panicked animal.

He stepped over the cliff.

“No!” Sarah screamed.

But it was too late. Nate was falling, his black velvet Jager robe flapping wildly as he plummeted. She rushed to the cliff, throwing herself down on her belly so she could hang over the edge.

Far below, on the jagged black rocks in the water, lay Nate. Blood poured from his head. His body was shattered, limbs protruding from the robe at horrifying angles. He was dead.

“Wow,” said Izzy, peering over the bluff. “Just like that German soldier.”

 

16

Everybody ran.

Sarah heard them, their panicked sobs, their fearful hushed voices, and finally their pounding footsteps. She heard it all, but saw nothing—her eyes were glued to the horrific image below her, to Nate.

Tears streamed down her cheeks. They blurred her view of his poor, broken body splayed on the rocks, the dark ocean lapping at him.

“He was right about one thing, there
is
a storm coming,” Izzy said, casually sitting down next to Sarah. “If they don't get him out of the water soon, he'll be pulled in and be gone for good.”

Of course Izzy would stay. Just like last time,
Sarah thought.
Izzy's the only one with the balls to stick around after a violent death. And the only one psychotic enough to not be crying or freaking out.

“We need to tell the school. Can you call for help on your cell?” Sarah asked, her eyes on Nate.

“I can't. I left it … somewhere.” Izzy sounded confused. Her cell must have been lost in the treatment room during her rampage. But Izzy wouldn't remember that.

Sarah rolled onto her side so she could get her hand into the pocket of her jeans. She pulled out the cell and said, “Emergency on the bluffs.”

“System offline,” the cell announced.

“That's been happening a lot lately,” Izzy commented. “They need to upgrade.”

“Can you go get help?” Sarah asked. “I'm going to stay here with Nate.”

“Why?” Izzy's voice dripped disdain. “He's not very nice to look at. And he doesn't even know you're here, Sarah. He's dead.”

“I'm not letting his body out of my sight,” Sarah said. “I refuse to let somebody else just disappear. They didn't find Karina, but they are going to find Nate.”

The ocean rose higher than before, sending a wave over Nate's entire body.

“Go now. Go
fast
,” Sarah said.

“Okay, okay, I'm going.” Izzy got up and took off across the lawn. Sarah was relieved to hear that she was running instead of ambling the whole way.

Alone, she stared at Nate's body, willing the water to stay calm until help arrived. Not so long ago, he'd been kissing her. His lips were warm and alive, his eyes were filled with that intensity that only he had … and now he was a corpse on a pile of rocks.

“Nate,” she whispered. “How could you do this? What went wrong?”

But Nate would never answer her again.

The water had pulled him halfway off the rocks by the time Sarah heard footsteps returning. She didn't move, keeping her eyes on Nate.

“Holy shit.” It was Ethan's voice. “What happened? I saw Izzy running by and she said you needed me out here.”

“Nate killed himself. I think.” Sarah could barely hear herself over the pounding surf, so she raised her voice. “He had some kind of breakdown. He was rambling, speaking nonsense, and it got him started on Karina. He noticed that she wasn't there, and it really upset him, and then he just…”

“Oh, god. Poor guy.” Ethan sat down next to Sarah and rubbed her back. “I'm sorry.”

“I won't look away from him. I can't let him disappear like Karina, or Philip. But the water's really rough.” Her voice broke.

“Sit up, Sarah,” Ethan said. “Come on. You can't be comfortable lying half over the edge like that.”

“It's the only way I can see his whole body,” she said. “If I sit up and lean over, I get scared of the height. Look at Nate—that's what happens if you fall.”

“But I'm here now. I'll watch him. You sit up.” Ethan pulled her into a sitting position, and she collapsed against him, crying. He wrapped his arm around her shoulders and held her, keeping his head turned toward the water the whole time.

“Can you see him?” Sarah asked hoarsely.

“Yeah.” He sighed. “Nate always seemed like such a happy guy—it really annoyed me. I can't believe he's dead.”

“Where were you going when you ran into Izzy?” Sarah asked, wiping the tears away with the back of her hand. Crying wouldn't help. Not now.

“I was looking for you to tell you what I found out.”

“What?” Sarah asked. Now that Ethan was here, his eyes on Nate, she felt like she could let herself think again. Someone else had seen Nate's body, someone she trusted. She wouldn't be surprised if later Izzy and the rest of the Wolfpack told her they had no memory of Nate dying. But Ethan wasn't like that. Ethan would remember, and he would keep her sane.

“I was working my way through the old medical records, trying to piece together the mentions of Bromcyan. But then it occurred to me to look for newer files, so I could figure out how it was working after they'd been using it for a few years.”

“That makes sense,” Sarah said.

“And I hit the mother lode. The bottom drawer had legal files.”

“I don't get it. Legal files about what?” Sarah pushed her messy hair out of her eyes, but it blew right back. The wind was picking up, and the howling seemed to hold an echo of Nate's voice.

“Seems Dr. Wissen wanted to patent Bromcyan—apparently he's the one who created it, right here at the Sanctuary Bay asylum. So he filed all kinds of paperwork.”

“That's fantastic. He would have had to describe its formula and all its uses. We can find out everything we need to know.” She fought to tune out the wind with her words.

“Yes and no.” Ethan's eyes widened and he leaned out a little farther. Sarah shuddered, knowing another wave had overtaken Nate's body. “He's still there, but they'd better get here soon,” he said.

Sarah nodded. There was nothing to say.

“Dr. Wissen wanted a patent, but then the drug was banned under the Food and Drug Act,” Ethan continued.

“Why?”

“No explanation. One minute the guy is claiming it's a miracle cure for several different forms of mania, and the next minute there's an official government ban.”

“There must've been damaging side effects.”

“Maybe. The only one he talked about was suggestibility, but that seemed more like a selling point to him—he used it to ‘suggest' healthy behavior. I don't know why the Feds would ban it. Either way, Wissen didn't fight it. The asylum closed after the big market crash in the twenties, and by 1930 Bromcyan vanished from the record.”

“No, it didn't,” Sarah said.

“I Googled it, and Diaz searched all the medical histories. Not a sign of Bromcyan,” Ethan said.

“But it was carved into a POW cell. And it was in Izzy's treatment,” Sarah insisted. “It absolutely did not disappear.”

“Well, not on this island, anyway,” he agreed.

Sarah shoved her curls out of her face again, her cheeks stinging from the cold wind. “You're saying that the school is giving Izzy an illegal drug then.”

“The Fortitude Corporation,” Ethan corrected her. “Who knows if Sanctuary Bay is even aware of it? Diaz hasn't been given any information about this so-called experimental treatment.”

“Hold on, are you
defending
the school?” Sarah asked.

“Maybe just this one time.” Ethan smiled, his eyes flicking momentarily from the water to Sarah's face. He glanced quickly back at Nate.

“They're not going to come for his body, are they?” Sarah whispered.

“I'm still not taking my eyes off him,” Ethan told her.

Silence stretched out between them, the only sound the waves lapping at the rocks. At Nate.

Finally, Sarah heard the roar of an engine.

An ambulance sped toward them, followed by two golf carts driven by security guards. Then a boat appeared in the choppy water—the same sleek black one that brought Sarah to the island—shining a searchlight on the rocks where Nate's body lay. Before she knew it, she and Ethan were being pushed out of the way by the rescue team.

“Are they going down the cliffs or sending divers from the boat?” Ethan asked.

“Honestly, I don't care,” Sarah replied. “As long as they get him out of the water.” Tears filled her eyes again at the thought of Nate's wild expression right before he stepped off the edge. “He said there was a storm coming. I hate the idea of him being swept away in it now.”

“Don't worry, they'll pull him out.” Ethan held out his hand. “Let's get you back to your room, Sarah. You're freezing.”

Sarah took his hand and let him lead her toward the school, leaving Nate behind.

*   *   *

The next morning, Sarah got up at the normal time, put on her normal clothes, and went off to a normal breakfast with Izzy. The most normal thing about all of it was that everybody—teachers, students, even the groundskeepers—was upset about Nate's suicide.

This is normal. People react this way,
she thought.
When someone young dies tragically, everyone mourns. They don't just shrug and say they don't remember, like with Karina.

Sitting across the dining table from Izzy and Tif, Sarah found herself unable to think of a thing to say. Tif's eyes were red from crying, Izzy's nose looked swollen, and Sarah knew she looked just as bad.

Taylor shuffled over with a tray heaped with melon balls. Nobody even had the energy to tease her about her weird new diet, or ask her why she was back at their table.

“I just can't understand how anyone could do that,” Tif finally said. “Especially Nate. He was so popular.”

“That doesn't mean he was happy,” Matthias pointed out.

“Did he say anything before he jumped?” Tif asked Izzy.

Izzy shook her head. “I don't know, I was too far away from him.” She didn't meet Sarah's eyes as she spoke. They couldn't tell anyone what had really happened without outing the Wolfpack. Sarah was glad Izzy had decided to take the lead in coming up with a cover story. By the time she'd gotten back to the dorm last night, everyone knew that Izzy had seen Nate jump off the bluffs. Izzy had been the one to report it and the one questioned by Dean Farrell. Clearly Izzy didn't remember anything about her treatment or she wouldn't have been able to do any of that.

Sarah picked at her omelet, wondering what to do now. She knew all this “normal” wouldn't last. Under the surface of it all, Karina was still missing, and she, Nate, and Dr. Diaz were the only ones who cared, the only ones who noticed.

“I heard they're going to do an autopsy,” Tif said.

“Untrue. What would be the point? We all know how he died,” Izzy said. “They'll just send his body home to his parents.”

“I don't think he even lived with his parents,” Sarah replied sadly. “He never really felt at home anywhere but here.” A morbid thought flashed through her mind—what would happen to her own body if she died out here? Would her social worker have to make arrangements for her one last time?

“Maybe Nate was failing a class or something,” Matthias said. “You two didn't have a fight, did you, Sarah?”

Tif smacked him. “It's not her fault!”

“I didn't say it was. I just meant maybe he overreacted,” Matthias said.

Sarah froze, shocked. It couldn't be her fault, could it? She'd pressed him pretty hard on the Karina incident, and it had freaked him out.

“It's nobody's fault. For whatever reason, Nate did this himself. We'll never understand it.” Tif broke into quiet sobs.

Sarah closed her eyes briefly, letting everyone's sadness wash over her. This was how it should have been when Karina disappeared.

“Anyone know where Karina is?” she asked for the hundredth time.

Blank faces stared back at her, even from those who weren't in the Wolfpack. Sarah sighed. The others kept talking about Nate, but Sarah tuned them out because they didn't have all the information.

I have the information, at least more of it,
Sarah thought.
And I still have no clue what drove Nate to do it.

“Stopstopstopstop.”

That's what he'd said. Clawing at his head, pulling his hair out of his scalp … and yelling “stop.”

Sarah felt a chill run down her spine. Stop what? Why was Nate pulling at his head? What did he want to stop? Had Nate been hearing voices?

“Like angels talking to that poor girl at the asylum,” she murmured. Nate had never said anything about mental illness, but that would've been something he would want to keep to himself.

“Did you say something?” Izzy asked, her eyes fixed on Sarah.

“No. I'll see you guys later.” Sarah stood up and headed for the exit. It was raining out, and the wind was still strong, but she needed the cold air to clear her head. As soon as she was alone, she pulled out her cell.