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pulling out catch faster than Bree could throw her spear. Being around him had been unbearable, and she’d left to check her inland snares, happy for some time alone. Heath had tagged along. Bree gave him her spare knife and taught him how to skin and gut rabbit. He was good at it, his blade precise. Amazing how coordinated he was with things he could see.
    “How come you don’t call Ma ‘Ma’?” he’d asked, pulling the hide off a rabbit with a quick snap of his wrists.
    “She’s not my mother.”
    “I know. But she acts like it.”
    Bree wiped her blade clean on her pant leg. She was grateful to have grown up with what felt like family, but it didn’t make Chelsea her mother. As far as she was concerned, the woman had never been outwardly maternal. What sort of mother doesn’t prepare a girl for what’s coming as she approaches womanhood? Bree had thought she was dying that first day she bled. It was Ness who’d explained things to her. Ness, two years older than Bree, not Chelsea.
    “How old was I again?” Heath had asked. “When your ma died and you came to live with us?”
    “You were still a toddler—had just turned two—and you were fat .” He’d shot her a skeptical look. “I know it’s impossible to imagine, but you were. You had so many chins I thought you were neckless.”
    He giggled. “Now I’m a string bean.”
    Just like every other kid in Saltwater. A diet of fish and greens took care of baby fat quickly. And even when boys started filling out again—like Lock—the muscles were lean ropes. Bree was filling out, too. Not as curvy as Ness and some of the older girls, but she wasn’t all sharp hip bones and ribs anymore, either. Another thing Chelsea had never prepared her for.
    “Well no matter what you think of Ma, I think of you as my sister,” Heath said.
    Had Lock declared the same thing, the disappointment would have been overwhelming. But with Heath, everything was easy. Bree had smiled, because it was exactly what she wanted—for him to look at her that way. To be a sibling and a shield, a sister dedicated to keeping him safe.
    And today she’d ruined everything.
    Her stupid trap. Stupid fables.
    Bree slid into the pit and grabbed the nearest spike. She heaved, pulled, but even after sitting unattended for several years, it was well secured. She resorted to kicking, and eventually knocked the spike free. Then she moved on to the others, toppling them each in turn, until the belly of the trap was filled with uprooted spikes and Bree was gasping for air. She brushed sweat from her eyes and looked up, only then realizing her mistake. She was surrounded by steep dirt walls, with no means of getting out. Bree jumped, trying to grab the woven branches supporting the overhead foliage, and came up empty. She was short, small. Always had been. Not that it mattered. If she managed to grab anything, it would likely snap from her weight.
    Bree slumped to the floor. Maybe no one would come for her. Maybe she’d starve to death in the base of her own trap. It would be a fitting punishment.
    Damn, she was stupid.
    It was much later, when her stomach was growling, that she heard footsteps. The crunch of twiggy brush, the swish of feet through grass.
    “Bree?” Lock came into view a moment later, peering down at her. “What the—? Come on. It’s time to eat.” He looked drained, like he’d run to Crest and back. Dark circles bloomed beneath his eyes.
    “Heath?” she asked.
    “Still breathing. Sparrow got the bleeding to slow, and he’s bandaged up now.”
    “I’m so sorry, Lock. I’m so damn—”
    “It was an accident, not your fault. Now get out of the trap.”
    “I would if I could.”
    He smiled then. An actual smile. “Well, isn’t this something.” He stared down at her, hands on his hips. “This from the girl who made fun of me last week when I got stuck up a tree.”
    “I told you those branches were going to snap. You brought that upon yourself.”
    “And you