They say love is blind, but that’s crap. I’d loved Maddie for five years and believe me, I saw her flaws. She was moody and obsessive and difficult. She was stubborn and hot-tempered. She wasn't homicidal, though.

Maddie wasn't guilty of this. This was PJ, and whatever he’d done to her.

The person who shot himself in that stairwell wasn’t Dewitt, and the person who rolled me off that roof wasn’t Maddie.

I’d lost Dewey. I'd lost him forever. When I got back to the Rock, I’d tell his parents he was dead. I’d walk into the living room and Mr. D would put down his crossword puzzle and Mrs. D would offer me apple strudel and I’d tell them I’d lost their son.

I wasn’t going to lose their daughter, too.

A crumbling terracotta pot loomed over me like a headstone. My right cheekbone scraped the concrete slab and a carpenter’s saw hacked through my rib cage. I couldn’t move my head, so I enjoyed the view down the length of my outflung arm to my hand: shiny and inflamed where the mozzy had stung me, bloated to the size of a catcher’s mitt.

My thigh felt worse, like the flesh had burst when I hit the ground, my skin held together only by my bloodwet jeans.

I should’ve been dead, but the orbs caught me, slowed my descent. I’d only fallen the equivalent of two stories instead of six. Onto concrete. After scorpion stings.

You don’t want to hear about the pain.You don’t want a list of synonyms for ‘agony.’ And you’re definitely sick of me mooning over Maddie, but I’ll admit I’d hoped for better than getting rolled off a roof. I guess I’m romantic that way.

My mind wandered for a while--afraid to return to the trainwreck of my body--then a shadow fell across the terracotta pot.

"You killed him," a man's voice said. "What the hell?"

"He’s alive, PJ." Maddie’s shoe nudged my injured leg.

I moaned.

"See?" she said.

PJ gave a low, happy laugh. "Those yo-yos are sweet. You got lucky, Maddie--this time."

"That wasn’t luck," she said.

"There's no way you knew he’d survive that fall."

"I know exactly how much Lark can take."

A siren sounded in the distance, and PJ said, "Get him in the truck."

Metal rattled, the back door of a construction truck swinging open. Gloved hands grabbed me under my arms and a mercenary swore. "Heavier than he looks."

"Spandle’s the same," PJ said. "She weighs a couple hundred pounds more'n you'd think."

"I got him," another voice said, and I recognized the mercenary named Teegan.

The guy from the construction site, who’d moved impossibly fast. Another active? He grabbed my wrists and dragged me to the curb, my feet jostling a hundred miles below me.

"Where does Mrs. Spandle get all that … stuff from?" Maddie asked. "When she turns?"

The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.

"From the air," Spandle said, from somewhere above me.

Even semi-conscious, in a fog of pain and fear, I have to say that that hurt. I’m broken and bleeding, and Maddie’s wondering about the mechanics of transforming into goo.

Teegan tossed me into the back of the truck and the doors closed and the engine rumbled. My unfocused gaze washed over some aluminum shelving, an air compressor and a lockdown toolbox.

"Drive," PJ called from beside me, and the truck lurched forward.

My eyes closed and welded shut. I felt PJ’s bulk beside me, I smelled the reek of rotting seaweed. From an immense distance, I switched my breathing.

A hand clamped my mouth. Almost immediately, I inhaled through my nose. And again, and again, and again.

"Something’s wrong," PJ said. "He’s not responding."

"It's the venom," Maddie told him. "He’s full of mozzy venom, give him a few hours for the resistance to wear off."

"Goddamn mozzies." PJ raised his voice slightly. "Get the vest. Secure him."

The truck slowed, then regained speed. I fainted, then woke. Hands tugged at my left arm, then my right. The pain in my ribs flared and I gasped. The hands flipped me onto my back. They buckled and constricted the vest around my body. Secured two crotch straps, four straps across my chest, the mercenary grunting with effort.

"Tighter," Maddie said.

The mercenary tugged the straps tighter. My breath turned shallow and quick.

"Tighter," she said again.

"You’re going to suffocate him," PJ said.

"Then don't listen to me. If he gets free, he’s not going to break every bone in my body."

"Good point," PJ said. "Tighten the straps."

The man drove his knee into my stomach and torqued the straps. Starbursts flared behind my eyes, and a wave of tingling in my arms turned to numbness.

"Hey man, you in there?" PJ asked knocking my head with his knuckles. Then his voice changed, talking to Maddie. "Can he hear me?"

"He can hear you," she said.

"Check this, Lark," PJ said, low and intimate. "There's a spike in back of that vest. If you push your yo-yos forward hard enough, it'll cut through you like a cheese grater. Or not a cheese grater, a spear. Yeah, I guess that’s more, uh …"

"Accurate?" Maddie said.

"Apropos! More apropos. If you use the yo-yos, you crush your own spine. Do you hear me, Lark? You could've been standing beside me. Instead, look at you. You’re a welcome mat, I want to wipe my shoes on your face. And why? To save Maddie? She doesn’t need saving, kid. See, that’s your problem right there, am I right?"

"That’s not his problem," Maddie said.

"Because his real problem is that I’m going to cut his throat just to smell him die?"

"No, I …" She paused briefly. "One thing scares him, PJ. One thing scares him more than anything else."

"The fact that he’s never getting into your pants again?"

"The fact that half the people on Little Big Rock are actives."

In the silence, the truck angled around a corner. The stink of rotting vegetables mixed with the oily scent of the air compressor.

"You kept this from me," PJ said, his voice dangerously smooth. "You didn't even tell me about that girl. Shandra."

Maddie's voice sounded a little unsteady when she said, "I know. I'm sorry. I'm--I’m telling you now."

"Don’t forget who you work for."

"I work for Boone, PJ. I was going to tell him when--"

I heard the meaty crack of PJ slapping Maddie. "I’m the one you tell. Me. I'm the the fucking one. Look out the window. Across the river. I own that. Any day now. I own all that--including you. You keeping any other secrets? I’ll toss you into Spandle and melt your face like panini." Another slap. "Tell me you’re sorry."

"I’m sorry. I'm so sorry."

"Tell me you’re a worthless little bitch."

Silence from Maddie, other than strained breathing. Like he was squeezing her neck in his big linebacker hands. The stink filled the enclosed space, a greasy roiling stench.

"Tell me," PJ repeated.

"I’m sorry, PJ. I said I’m sorry."

"Tell me you’re a worthless little bitch."

After a shorter silence. "I’m a worthless little bitch."

"You think your mozzies are kryptonite? You think I’ve got nothing over you? I’m all over you, once we finish here."

"Boone--"

Another slap. "Boone will bring us breakfast in bed. Tell me about the island."

"Half the population are actives, they …"

My brain stuttered, and I missed the rest of her words. But I heard PJ’s response: "-- once we’re done here, we’ll pay them a visit."

My last thought didn’t resolve into words. There was no heat, no anger, just cold certainty. Before the darkness swallowed me, I vowed one thing, in Dewitt's memory: PJ would never set foot on the Rock.

He would never terrorize Kenyatta and Arthur's twins.

He would never breathe his stink in the General Store and.

He would never stand over my sister's gravestone and not care who she'd been.

Not ever.