EverHeart

The morning I found Marco, the sea was impossibly blue. Not beautiful. That would have been easier to forgive. Impossible. The kind of blue that made the horizon look painted on, sunlight scattered across the water in hard white sparks beneath a cloudless sky. Moira had been showing off since I arrived twenty-three days ago. Green hills falling into clear coves, white houses tucked beneath palms, bougainvillea growing wherever it pleased. It was very difficult to brood properly in a place like that. I had tried. That morning, I had given up in favor of breakfast. Mrs. Reyes at the bakery had wrapped two coconut pastries in brown paper and told me, with great seriousness, that the second was for later. A thumb-sized cooling charm was stamped into the paper in blue wax, more useful in Moira's heat than the bakery's unreliable refrigerator. We both knew it wasn't. I was carrying them home along the path above Cala Verde, sandals hooked over two fingers, when something dark rolled in the surf below. I walked past it. Three steps. Stopped. Walked backward. A wave spread thin across the white sand, turning the dark shape with it. An arm emerged. "Oh, come on." A gull lifted from the cliff beside me. "This is my vacation." The gull offered no sympathy. Neither did the body. I looked at my pastries, then at the beach. "Fine." I tucked my breakfast into the crook of a sea-grape tree, well above gull height, and started down. The path to Cala Verde was less a path than an ongoing disagreement between roots, loose stone, and gravity. The rock was still cool beneath my bare feet, though the morning already carried the promise of heat. Cicadas rasped somewhere in the green. Beyond the headland, a fishing boat coughed awake. Everything smelled of salt and wet leaves. It had been a very good morning. I resented the body for ruining it. Then I reached the sand and saw the blood. My irritation vanished. He lay facedown where the water thinned around him, one arm trapped beneath his chest. His clothes were dark with seawater and something darker still. I crossed the last few meters at a run. "Hey." Nothing. I dropped beside him and pressed two fingers beneath his jaw. For one heartbeat, I found nothing. Then— There. Weak. Slow. Alive. "All right." Another wave came in. I caught his shoulder before the water could turn his face back into the sea. His skin was warm. My hand stopped. The water around my calves was cool enough to raise gooseflesh. His clothes were soaked through, salt already drying pale along the collar of his jacket. He should have been cold. Instead, heat lingered beneath his skin. Not fever. Something steadier. I rolled him onto his back. Wet blond hair fell away from his face. That was inconvenient too. He was handsome beneath the blood and sand. Not polished-handsome. There was too much damage for that. A cut disappeared into his hairline, his lip was split, and a bruise darkened one cheekbone. His jacket had been sliced open along the ribs. Not torn. Cut. One cuff was blackened. I rubbed the edge between my fingers, and the fabric crumbled. Burned. The breeze shifted. Beneath the salt, I caught the faint smell of smoke. My eyes returned to him. "Where did you come from?" The sea hissed around us. No answer. Of course. I lifted the torn fabric at his side. There was enough blood to make my stomach tighten. There should have been a wound beneath it. There wasn't. A narrow red line crossed his ribs. As I watched, it contracted. Red softened to pink. Pink faded. Then there was only smooth skin beneath my fingertips. I didn't move. A gull screamed somewhere overhead. The stranger remained unconscious with remarkable commitment. "That's not concerning at all." I checked him again, slower this time. The cut at his temple had stopped bleeding. The bruise near his collarbone was already yellow at the edges. Then I reached his wrists. Two dark bands circled them. Too straight. Too even. Not rope. Restraints. Several punctures marked the inside of one elbow. The quiet part of my mind that had spent three weeks occupied with novels, naps, and bakery schedules packed its belongings and left. Burned clothing. Blood. Restraints. Needle marks. And wounds that refused to remain wounds. I looked out over Cala Verde. Nothing but blue water between the black volcanic headlands. No wreckage. No boat. No second body. The tide reached for him again. I caught his shoulder. Leaving him here while I fetched my phone suddenly seemed unwise. I looked at the hill. Then at him. "You couldn't have been five-foot-eight?" His eyes stayed closed. "Five-ten. I would have accepted five-ten." Nothing. "Selfish." Dragging him above the tide line took longer than I cared to admit. By the time we reached the palms, sand coated my knees and my hair had escaped its knot, black strands sticking to the sweat at my neck. I lowered him into the shade. "You're welcome." He coughed. I dropped beside him as his whole body convulsed. "Turn." I rolled him onto his side. Water spilled from his mouth, followed by a ragged breath. Then his hand closed around my wrist. Hard. My thumb folded automatically into my palm. Don't pull. Turn toward the— I stopped. His eyes opened. Blue. For one suspended second, neither of us moved. His fingers were locked around my wrist. My body had already shifted toward a movement I hadn't needed in years. His gaze snapped past me. Trees. Cliff. Sea. Path. Me. "Where—" His voice scraped out of him and broke on the single word. He swallowed. "Where am I?" "Moira." Nothing. No recognition. His grip tightened once before he looked down and seemed to realize what he was doing. His fingers opened immediately. "Sorry." Pale crescents remained in my skin. He stared at them. "I hurt you." "You startled me." "It isn't the same thing." His eyes lifted to mine. Something passed through his expression. He didn't ask. "Do you know where Moira is?" He looked toward the sea. "No." "What's the last thing you remember?" His fingers curled into the sand. "Water." "What else?" "Noise." A pause. "People." His breathing shortened. I watched the tendons in his wrist tighten. "Don't force it." He ignored me. "Fire." The word came out differently. I glanced at the burned cuff. He followed my eyes. "Does that mean anything?" "No." The answer arrived quickly. Not false. Not exactly. It felt crooked, the way words sometimes did when someone was trying to make fear sound like certainty. He dragged a hand through his wet hair. "Why can't I remember?" Anger sharpened the question, but fear frayed its edges. "I don't know." His jaw tightened. Then his attention shifted back to me. "Who are you?" "Lucy." He waited. "Lucy Hart." Lucy was mine. Hart wasn't. "What about you?" His mouth opened. Nothing came. The color slowly left his face. "I don't know." I let the silence sit. The palms moved above us. A bead of seawater slid from his hair to his jaw. He stared at the sand as though an answer might be buried somewhere beneath it. Then his eyes sharpened. "Marco." "What?" "My name." He said it again, quieter this time, testing the sound as though it might disappear if he spoke too loudly. "Marco." I repeated it. Something steadied in his face. Only a little. It was enough. "Last name?" Gone. He shook his head. "Home?" Nothing. "Family?" His eyes closed. Nothing. "All right." "That's not all right." "No." He looked at me, almost angry now. "Then why say it like that?" His voice sharpened, frustration finally finding somewhere to go. "Because panicking on an empty beach won't make your surname fall from the sky." I brushed sand from my knee. "You have a name. We start there." His stomach growled. Loudly. We both looked down. Another growl rolled between us. Marco cleared his throat. "Apparently I also have that." Despite myself, I smiled. "My breakfast survived you." I retrieved the paper bag. The smell of coconut and butter escaped when I opened it. Marco's gaze found the pastry. Then very deliberately found the ocean. His stomach betrayed him again. I held one out. "Small bites." "That's yours." "It was." "I'll be fine." Crooked. I looked at him. "Try again." His brow furrowed. "Are you hungry?" "No." His stomach answered. I held the pastry closer. "Traitor," he muttered at it. "Your stomach and I have formed an alliance." He took the pastry. Then ate half of it in one bite. I stared. He froze, cheeks full. For the first time that morning, I laughed. Marco chewed with wounded dignity. "You said small," he complained around the last bite. "I misunderstood the scale." While he ate, his thumb drifted toward the bloodstained tear at his ribs. He lifted the fabric. Smooth skin waited beneath it. His fingers searched the place once. Again. Harder. "You said I was hurt." "You were." "How badly?" I looked at the blood covering his clothes. "Barely alive." His hand dropped. He didn't touch the place again. The sea breathed in and out below us. After a while, he asked, so quietly I almost missed it, "Is this normal?" "I met you twenty minutes ago." "Right." He looked toward the hill. "Your phone?" "At the cottage." "Can we call someone?" "If we can figure out who." He nodded, then tried to stand. For two impressive seconds, Marco succeeded. His face went white. I was already moving when his knees folded. His arm landed over my shoulders, mine around his waist. Heat soaked through his wet shirt. "Still confident?" He breathed through his nose. "No." "Excellent. Personal growth." A weak laugh moved through his chest. Together, we turned toward the path. Halfway to the first rise, Marco looked back. The tide had reached the place where I'd found him. Each wave lifted the blood from the sand in pale ribbons before carrying it away. His fingers tightened on my shoulder. "White." I stopped. "What?" His eyes stayed on the water. "Something white." A pause. "Gold." His free hand flew to his wrist. "Someone was—" His face twisted. Then whatever he'd reached disappeared. "I lost it." "Leave it." "But—" "Leave it." He looked at me. I softened my voice. "Memories don't respond well to strangulation." His thumb left the fading restraint mark. We climbed again. The cottage roof appeared between the palms. After several steps, Marco spoke, his voice stripped of the humor he'd been using like a bandage. "Why aren't you afraid of me?" This time I stopped. He looked down at himself. Blood. Burns. Skin that had healed before our eyes. I looked at the hand resting over my shoulder. The same hand that had grabbed me. The same hand that had let go the instant he realized. "Should I be?" His blue eyes met mine. "I don't know." The answer settled cleanly. True. I turned toward the cottage. "Then we'll figure it out." Behind us, Cala Verde glittered beneath the sun, bright and innocent enough to make the morning feel impossible. I looked back once from the path. The tide was already smoothing our footprints away. Whatever had brought Marco to Moira had left blood, burned cloth, and questions behind. For the moment, the sea kept the rest.