Teardrop

EPILOGUE BROOKS

Brooks ran headfirst into the tree at full speed. He felt the impact above his eyebrow, the deep slice into his skin. His nose was already broken, his lips split and shoulders bruised. And it wasn’t over yet.

He had fought himself for nearly an hour, ever since he’d lumbered ashore on the western fringe of Cypremort Point. He didn’t recognize the land around him. It looked nothing like home. Rain fell in colossal sheets. The beach was cold, deserted, at a higher tide than he had ever seen. Submerged camps lay all around him, their occupants evacuated—or drowned. He might drown if he stayed out here, but seeking shelter from the storm was the last thing on his mind.

He was being dragged along the wet sand where he’d slid into a heap. He felt the tree bark in his skin. Every time Brooks verged on losing consciousness, the body he could not control resumed its battle with itself.

He called it the Plague. It had gripped him for fourteen days, though Brooks had sensed an illness coming on earlier than that. First it was faintness, a shortness of breath, a bit of heat across the wound on his forehead.

Now Brooks would have traded anything for those early symptoms. His mind, caged within a body he could not control, was unraveling.

The change had come on the afternoon he’d spent with Eureka at Vermilion Bay. He had been himself until the wave took him out to sea. He’d washed ashore as something else completely.

What was he now?

Blood spilled down his cheekbone, ran into his eye, but Brooks could not lift his hand to wipe the blood away. Something else controlled his destiny; his muscles were useless to him, as if he were paralyzed.

Painful movement was the Plague’s domain. Brooks had never experienced pain like this, and it was the least of his problems.

He knew what was happening within him. He also knew it was impossible. Even if he’d had control over the words he spoke, no one would believe this story.

He was possessed. Something ghastly had overtaken him, entering through a set of slashes on his back that wouldn’t heal. The Plague had pushed aside Brooks’s soul and was living in its place. Something else was inside of him—something loathsome and old and built of a bitterness as deep as the ocean.

There was no way to talk with the monster that was now a part of Brooks. They shared no language. But Brooks knew what it wanted.

Eureka.

The Plague forced him to turn an icy coldness on her. The body that looked like Brooks was making every effort to hurt his best friend, and it was getting worse. An hour earlier, Brooks had watched his hands trying to drown Eureka’s siblings when they fell from his boat. His own hands. Brooks hated the Plague for that more than anything.

Now, as his fist slammed into his left eye, he realized: he was being punished for failing to finish off the twins.

He wished he could take credit for their wriggling free. But Eureka had saved them, had somehow pulled them from his reach. He didn’t know how she had done it or where they had gone. The Plague didn’t, either, or Brooks would be stalking her now. As that thought crossed his mind, Brooks punched himself again. Harder.

Maybe if the Plague continued, Brooks’s body would become as unrecognizable as what was inside of him. Since the Plague had overtaken him, his clothes didn’t fit right. He caught glimpses of his body in reflections and was startled by his gait. He walked differently, lurching. A change had come into his eyes. A hardness had entered. It clouded his vision.

Fourteen days of enslavement had taught Brooks that the Plague needed him for his memories. He hated to surrender them, but he didn’t know how to turn them off. Reveries were the only place Brooks felt at peace. The Plague became a patron at a movie theater, watching the show, learning more about Eureka.

Brooks understood more than ever that she was the star of his life.

They used to climb this pecan tree in her grandmother’s backyard. She was always several branches above him. He was always racing to catch her—sometimes envious, always awed. Her laughter lifted him like helium. It was the purest sound Brooks would ever know. It still pulled him toward her when he heard it in a hallway or across a room. He had to know what was worth her laughter. He had not heard that sound since her mother died.

What would happen if he heard it now? Would her laughter’s music expel the Plague? Would it give his soul the strength to resume its rightful place?

Brooks writhed on the sand, his mind on fire, his body at war. He clawed at his skin. He cried out in anguish. He yearned for a moment’s peace.

It would take a special memory to accomplish that—

Kissing her.

His body stilled, soothed by the thought of Eureka’s lips on his. He indulged in the entire event: the heat of her, the unexpected sweetness of her mouth.

Brooks would not have kissed her on his own. He cursed the Plague for that. But for a moment—a long, glorious moment—every future ounce of sorrow had been worth having Eureka’s mouth on his.

Brooks’s mind jolted back to the beach, back to his bloody situation. Lightning struck the sand nearby. He was drenched and shivering, up to his calves in the ocean. He started to devise a plan, stopped when he remembered it was useless. The Plague would know, would prevent Brooks from doing anything that contradicted its desires.

Eureka was the answer, the goal that Brooks and his possessor had in common. Her sadness was unfathomable. Brooks could take a little self-inflicted pain.

She was worth anything, because she was worth everything.