Chapter 2

Callum blocked the ramp off the boat. "You think you can hit me and just walk away?"

Brynn stepped between us before I could answer. She hooked her arm through mine, gentle, like we were friends. "Elowen, I get it. I know you don't like me."

Her voice cracked at the edges. Eyes glossy. Lower lip trembling. The full performance. "If you really hate my stuff that much, I'll throw it all away. I don't want anyone to feel uncomfortable because of me."

The group didn't need a second invitation.

"Just hand them out, Elowen. It's not hard."

"Not everything has to be about you."

"She spent her own money making these and you can't even say thank you?"

I pulled my arm free.

"I said I won't help hand them out. I never said you can't use them." I looked at each of them. "That's your choice. But nobody gets to pretend I owe them something."

My waterproof bag was on the deck, knocked over during the scuffle, gear scattered everywhere. I pointed at it. "Pick my stuff up. All of it. Or I'll help myself to whatever I find in your cabins tonight."

A few people muttered "psycho" under their breath, but they crouched down and picked up my things.

I slung the bag over my shoulder and stepped off the boat. Alone.

Last time I saved every one of them. Told them the truth. They repaid me by shoving me into a bonfire.

This time they can slather that stuff on head to toe. When the bill comes due, they can take it up with the girl who made it.

I was ankle-deep in mangrove mud when I heard the grunt. Low, guttural. Then branches cracking — fast, heavy, coming straight at me.

A boar. Massive. Tusks caked in dried mud, curved like fishhooks. Two hundred fifty pounds and closing the gap in seconds.

I couldn't dodge. The mud held my feet like glue. The tusks caught my left forearm on the way past — three clean rips from elbow to wrist, skin and muscle peeling open like wet paper.

Blood mixed with swamp water. My vision went white.

But my right hand was already moving. The dive knife came off my belt on instinct. The boar was already swinging back for a second pass — I didn't stab it so much as hold the blade steady and let two hundred fifty pounds of momentum do the rest. The tip punched through its neck. Hot blood sprayed across my face.

The boar dropped. I stood there shaking, arm screaming, covered in mud and pig blood and my own.

Something was wrong. I'd walked this same path in my last life. Same route, same mangroves. Never saw a boar.

I checked my bag. Ran my fingers along the strap.

Greasy. A thick layer of something smeared into the nylon — the strap, the side pocket, the inner lining where it pressed against my body.

Coconut oil. Sweet. But underneath it — sharp, animal, wrong.

Four semesters of marine bio. I knew what animal pheromones smelled like. This wasn't any herb or plant extract. This was the kind of thing that sends wild animals into a frenzy.

She'd rubbed it into my bag while I wasn't looking. Right into the straps, so the scent would cling to my skin.

I wrapped my arm with a strip torn from my shirt and headed back.

They saw me before I reached the clearing. The laughter cut off. Someone whispered "holy shit."

They were on the beach in front of the cabins. Sunscreen on, drinks out, phones up. Taking selfies like it was spring break.

I walked straight to Brynn and slammed my blood-soaked bag at her feet.

"You put something on my bag." I grabbed the strap and held it up so everyone could see the greasy residue. "Smell it. Whatever this is, it just sent a two-hundred-fifty-pound boar straight at me."

Callum was in front of her before I finished the sentence. "She was worried about you going off alone. She slipped a jar into your bag in case you changed your mind — it probably just spilled. And THIS is how you thank her?"

I shoved my shredded arm in his face. "Does this look like a sunburn to you?"

He barely glanced at it. "You walked off by yourself and got hurt. That's on you."

From behind him: "Brynn spent all night making those jars and this is what she gets?"

"You left the group. That's what happens when you throw a tantrum."

"She was trying to help and you're blaming her? What is wrong with you?"

Seventeen people looked at my ripped-open arm and chose to look away.

Something snapped.

I swung my leg and kicked Callum square in the chest. He staggered back three steps and went down hard on the sand.