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frenzy, desperately waiting for it to pass over. Bodysurf until our bellies scraped sand, then fight the tide to get back in. Wipe out every now and then, the ocean flinging us underwater into a spinning knot of suffocating, airless panic. Bump and slip and hurl ourselves into each other’s bony arms and legs. And then, dozens and dozens of waves later, with blocked ears, salty, snotty upper lips, and burning eyes, Jack would look at me and say, “I’m going to stop the ocean.”
    He’d face the surf, plant his feet wide, all lean limbs and spiky hair and shiny skin. “Watch.” He’d raise his arms, palms flat forward, a wave bearing down on us. “Stop!” he’d yell in his deepest voice. “I command you to stop!”
    And for a second I’d think he could do it. I’d think the wave would freeze in its curl, cartoonlike in its obedience to my brother’s power. But then it would be on us, tumbling our bodies under its smack, daring us to find our legs again.
    “Stop!” he’d order the second one, arms out, like a traffic cop. “Stop! You will stop now!” But that one wouldn’t stop either, and then, hurrying before the next hit, he’d pull at my shoulder, lining me up right next to him. “Anna,” he’d say. “You’ve got to help.” So I’d plant my feet wide, just like his, and throw out my palms, and I’d shout at the next wave, “Stop! Stop!”
    And the two of us, blue-lipped and drenched, worn out and determined, would yell over and over and over, wave after wave after wave, “Stop! We command you to stop!”

6
    THEY LET ME SLEEP LATE ON MONDAY. I SLEEP HARDER AND deeper than usual. When I wake up, I’m so groggy it takes a while for me to figure out that the heaviness in my blood and the dread in my chest are because two nights ago I killed somebody. Cameron Polk is dead . And Ellen. Jack.
    My eye is killing me. I sit up in bed, peel off the spaghetti strainer, and reach for the eyedrops. It’s hard. I miss a few times with each bottle, and the liquid drips coldly down my cheek.
    Things are clanging downstairs. Silverware drawer opening and closing, dishes dropped into the sink. I press the shield back into place, drag myself out of bed, and pull on jeans and a zip-up sweatshirt.
    My parents are in the kitchen drinking coffee and wiping instant-oatmeal dust off the table.
    “Don’t you have classes?” I ask my mother. I rub my left eye. It has tons of crust in the corners. Gross.
    She reaches to hug me. “Never on Mondays.” She holds on for a long time, careful of my right eye. It’s strange but good, like when she held me in the hospital bed. It’s not that we don’t get along, so much as we’re not that close, I guess. The truth is, before yesterday I don’t remember the last time we touched. “Just office hours,” she’s saying now, sipping at her mug. “Which I’ve cancelled.”
    She teaches Web design and computer skills at the community college. She always gets the highest marks on her student evaluation forms at the end of each semester. She has Jack or me look at them and give her the results because she says it’s only a matter of time before her luck changes and they all start to hate her.
    I wander over to the kitchen table, near my father. “I thought Russell was incompetent.”
    My dad works in finance. He invests other people’s money, and he has this male secretary who he doesn’t much like and who he thinks is going to accidentally bankrupt the clients and ruin us all forever.
    “Russell is incompetent,” my father says. “Which is why I’m going to work.” He checks his watch. “In about five minutes. I just wanted to see you first.”
    “Here I am,” I say. And then I want to cry, but my father doesn’t like crying, so I look away. Still sitting, he pulls me in by the waist and doesn’t say anything, which makes not crying harder.
    “Why don’t you just fire Russell?” I ask into the air over his head. It’s an old question. It feels good to