Oliver took a gun from the holster at his side; when I looked up, I noted that Dig had done the same. Both men stayed crouched low. There hadn't been any more gunfire since the ceiling of the greenhouse had exploded, but I counted out another endless sixty seconds after Oliver left before I allowed myself to move.

I called 911 as Oliver had instructed, though I had no idea what to tell them.

"What's your emergency?" the woman asked, so calm she almost sounded bored.

"There's a shooter," I hissed, keeping my voice low.

"Where are you, ma'am?" she asked. Any trace of boredom was gone.

"On an island – Crab's Neck. We're on Crab's Neck."

"Is the shooter still there, ma'am?"

I hesitated. "I – I'm not sure. They went after him. I think he's gone. But we need an ambulance—"

"How many are injured, ma'am?" she asked.

I looked up, my heart beating so hard it felt like it would escape my chest before the conversation was done. "I'm not sure."

Reggie lay splayed on the stones, a pool of deep red blood spreading beneath him. Thea was draped on top of him, sobbing. I looked at Roy.

"Is she hurt?"

"I don't know," he said. "Thea – hey." He pulled her away gently, and my stomach rolled at the amount of blood that stained her coat. "Are you hurt?" he asked. "Were you hit?"

She shook her head, but I didn't trust the confusion in her eyes.

"Two, I think," I finally told the dispatcher. "One is bad. I don't know..." I choked on the words, tears springing to my eyes. "I'm not sure he's alive."

"Is there a place where a Medevac unit can land?" the woman on the phone asked.

"Can a helicopter land here?" I asked Roy.

"Yeah – we've had them out here before," he said quickly.

"Yes," I said. "There's a place to land – please, just send someone out."

I hung up, then dialed Willa immediately. By the time I'd ended that call, Roy had Thea sitting on the stones over by the pond. She sat in shock, silent tears rolling down her face. He'd taken off his jacket and the flannel shirt that he'd worn under it, and now that flannel was wrapped tightly around Thea's arm - she apparently had been hit after all.

"Is she all right?" I asked Roy hoarsely.

"It's through-and-through," he said. "Tagged her in the shoulder. We need to get her to the hospital."

"They're sending someone. And Reggie?"

Roy shook his head grimly. Thea's eyes sank shut, tears still falling.

A sudden rustling in the brush just down the path followed by the sound of someone crashing through foliage had my heart racing all over again. Thea barely looked up, but I noticed that Roy moved quickly to stand in front of her, as though to protect her from whatever new disaster was headed our way. Instead of an armed madman, though, Tommy emerged from the darkened path. He looked terrified, his eyes widening that much more at the scene he found.

"Thea!"

Thea let out a small, inhuman cry at sight of her brother, and stumbled to her feet and ran to him. Tommy pulled her into his arms; I couldn't help but be touched by the emotion on his face, the sheer relief I saw there.

"What the hell happened?" he demanded after a few seconds, as his gaze fell to Reggie's lifeless body.

"There was a shooter," I said numbly. I felt sick.

"Thea, you should sit back down," Roy said, looking on from a distance.

Tommy pulled her away and held her at arm's length, only then noting the bandage around her arm. "She... You were shot?"

"She'll be all right," Roy said awkwardly. "We just need to get her to the hospital."

I expected Tommy to snap at the outsider, but instead he looked grateful. "Thanks for looking after her," he said quietly.

"I called Willa," I said. "And 911."

"That's good," Tommy said. He forced himself to take a steadying breath, then refocused on his sister. "Come on - Roy was right, you need to take it easy till the paramedics get here."

"But Reggie…" She began to sob, and Tommy wrapped her in his arms once more.

I looked away from the grim tableau and instead stared into the pond. A fresh surge of panic gripped me at the shards of glass that glittered in the water. Blood floated to the surface alongside one of the koi, a jagged piece of glass impaling its brilliant scales.

"Where the hell was Oliver in all this?" Tommy asked, anger coming through for the first time. I knelt by the pond and began removing the glass piece by piece, only dimly aware of the others suddenly. "I thought he was supposed to be here to keep something like this from happening."

A sliver of orange flashed beneath the water, the fish moving fast. Another followed. I forced myself to take a steadying breath. They were all right, at least for now – at least some of them. I pulled out another shard of glass, and another, piling them on the stones while Tommy's frustration built.

"If he can't protect you – us – then what the hell are we paying him for?" he demanded.

"I'm here," Oliver's gruff voice said. Somewhere far away, I felt a sense of calm that I couldn't quite access. Oliver was here, but how did that really matter?

Reggie was still dead. Thea was hurt. I had a death sentence hanging over my head, and no idea how to escape it.

I pulled out another shard of glass, my gaze never leaving the water.

"Felicity," I heard Oliver say, still far away.

"She's lost it," I heard Tommy say with disgust. "And if my sister—"

"I'm okay, Tommy," Thea said, a new edge of steel in her voice. I looked up. Bloodied and white as chalk, she didn't look okay to me. Still, somehow she managed to get to her feet and stalked-slash-staggered to Oliver. "Did you catch the son of a bitch who did this?" she demanded.

He shook his head regretfully, Dig standing beside him. "No. The whole thing happened too fast, and he bought himself some time making the sky fall." Oliver paused, assessing Tommy. He stood beside his sister, almost as pale as she was. "Where were you? You must have heard—"

"Of course I heard," Tommy said coldly. "But there wasn't a lot I could do until I knew it was safe, unless I wanted to get myself killed too."

Another koi floated to the top of the pond, belly up. I removed the body and set it aside as gently as I could on the stones, careful to avoid more glass.

The fish are my friends, Winnie Merlyn told her mother, sitting in exactly this spot. Wreckage and ruin disappeared, and the greenhouse was whole, green, all over again. Winnie's mother Rachel smiled at her, smoothing the hair back from her daughter's forehead.

And why wouldn't they be? she asked her daughter. Every creature on this island is your friend – every caterpillar, every bug and butterfly. The world loves you, Winnie the Pooh.

The scene vanished as quickly as it had appeared, and I was suddenly at a cliffside on a stormy night. I was cold, and I was wet. Not me, I reminded myself. Winnie was cold and wet. I wasn't her; she wasn't me.

Esther! Winnie called. She was sobbing. Esther, come back! Come on, puppy… Rain slashed down, a bolt of lightning illuminating the darkness for just an instant.

In that flash of light, I caught my breath.

Stared.

A man's face stared back at me.

"Felicity," Oliver said. His hand on my arm brought me back. I looked up, felt my heart racing in my chest. He was crouched in front of me, concern clear on his face.

"I'm all right," I said.

"You're not – you're bleeding," he said. "Let me take a look."

"Thea's hurt worse—"

"Willa's taking care of Thea," he said. I looked over in surprise to find Willa beside my cousin, tending her arm with calm efficiency. When had she gotten there?

"I'm fine," I said.

"Let me be the judge of that." He took my hand grimly. I noticed the blood there for the first time, coming from a deep, jagged cut across my palm. I hadn't even felt it.

"What the hell happened?" Malcolm's voice suddenly cut through my fog. He raced onto the scene and stopped immediately at sight of Reggie. My uncle's eyes were closed now, I noticed, but otherwise he hadn't been moved – still lying in the middle of the stones, the blood beneath beginning to congeal.

Malcolm saw Thea next and rushed to her, kneeling beside her and pulling her into his arms. She didn't seem soothed by his presence, instead stiffening in his embrace. "Are you all right?" he asked.

She pulled back, and looked at him with the kind of hate I never could have imagined a child could have for her father.

"I'm fine. And it looks like you got your wish, Dad. Reggie's dead – you're the heir apparent at Merlyn Enterprises."

"I never wished Reggie harm," Malcolm replied. He was perfectly calm, not an ounce of fire in the words. His dark eyes had gone dead, something cold and dangerous lurking there. "My cousin was irreplaceable. The best among us."

Tears rolled down Thea's cheeks, but there was a chill to her words when she spoke. "Yes," she said, her eyes never leaving her father's. "He was."

Quentin arrived close on Malcolm's heels with a trio of paramedics. It was obvious at this point that nothing could be done for Reggie, so they focused on Thea instead. Willa cleaned out the wound in my hand and patched it with butterfly bandages, though she said stitches would probably be better. I declined; Willa didn't argue. Despite Thea's protests, Malcolm insisted she be flown to the Maine Medical Center in Portland, where she could be evaluated and held overnight. Tommy and Willa went with them, but Malcolm remained behind, assuring Thea that he would meet her at the hospital – though the way Thea looked at him, I wasn't sure that was his safest option.

The second they were gone, Malcolm turned his cold glare on me. Oliver, still beside me, tensed visibly.

"I want you out of our lives," Malcolm told me. The emotion that had been missing before was back in spades now. "My children could have died today. My cousin is dead. I don't care what blood you shared with Moira and Robert; I don't care what kind of asinine plea she made in the moments before her death. If I need to pay you, I will do so – but I want you off our land."

"You need to stop thinking of this place as 'our land,' Malcolm," Quentin said, a coolness to his tone that belied the anger that flashed clear as night in his dark eyes. "This belonged to Moira; Moira very clearly passed it on to Felicity. It may have belonged to shared family once upon a time, but those days are long gone. Let them go."

"Never," Malcolm said darkly.

There was something cruel that bordered on downright terrifying in his eyes as he glared at me. I did my best to stay cool, focused, but it took some effort. Malcolm took another step toward me, his gaze running over me from head to toe.

"I'll bring in an army of lawyers," he said. "They'll dredge up every last unsavory detail of your past. Every institution you were in; every foster home that sent you away; every voice you heard of vision you claimed… I'll have you labeled incompetent, drag everything about you into the public eye, and by the time I'm done with you no one will even trust you with a job at McDonald's, so you can forget about being in charge of a multi-million-dollar estate."

As he spoke, Malcolm continued to advance on me until we were toe to toe, him glaring down at me. Suddenly, that flash of lightning sparked in my brain again: Winnie, on the cliff. The face staring out at her from the shadows.

"Step back, Malcolm," Oliver said, his voice dangerously low. Malcolm didn't budge.

The face remained in my mind's eye.

Dark, cruel eyes. Mouth twisted in a familiar smile.

Malcolm.

He had been there the night Winnie died – which was impossible, because Winnie died decades before Malcolm was even born.

Still, there was no question what I was seeing.

"You really think you can fight me?" Malcolm said to me, still pushing. "Do you have any idea the resources at my disposal?"

"Malcolm!" Oliver shouted. This time, he made a move. I stopped him with a hand on his arm.

"It's all right," I said. "I can handle him."

I gazed up into my cousin's eyes, a dozen visions of him flickering like an old movie reel in my mind. Cruel eyes. Twisted smile.

Race you, Mara, I heard him call to my mother's sister. She took off at a gallop, and I knew that I was seeing the final moments before she died.

I forced the visions away, and held Malcolm's gaze.

"I know what you are," I said. Though I was shaking, I was relieved at the strength in my voice. "And I know what you've done. You want to drag my name through the mud? After everything I've been through, do you really think I give a crap about my reputation? Merlyn Manor is mine; my mother willed it to me, and I don't have any plans to let it go. So, go ahead. Come for me. Send your lawyers. Do your best. I'm ready."

Malcolm started to say something, but Quentin appeared by his side. The lawyer looked every bit as pissed as Oliver, which was saying something.

"That's enough, Malcolm. Have your lawyer contact me, yadda yadda yadda. Don't come near my client again."

Malcolm looked ready to murder me then and there, his voice strangled when the words came out. "You're making a mistake."

I tipped my chin up, and refused to look away. "I don't think so."

And with that, Quentin escorted him out.

Oliver remained beside me. Roy and Dig were gone now, though I didn't know when or where they had gone. Willa had gone with Tommy and Thea in the chopper to the hospital. The world fell silent.

"Come on," Oliver said eventually. He touched my arm gently. "We should get out of here."

"Are the police coming?"

"They'll be along soon, I'm sure."

I went over to Reggie's body and sat down on the cold stones, careful not to touch the body since I assumed this was now a crime scene. I studied my uncle from my vantage, a few feet away. His eyes were closed, two neat black holes above his heart. The damage in the back would be worse; these two little holes seemed so inconsequential – not the sort of thing that could snuff out a life in the blink of an eye.

"I think I should get you back to the manor, Felicity," Oliver said, all the fury I'd heard earlier now gone. "You should get warmed up, change out of those clothes."

"I used to think they were guardian angels," I said. My voice came out monotone, as dead as the world around us. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Oliver turn to look at me.

"Who?" he asked.

"The people I saw – the Merlyn girls, and their family. Ray."

He sat down beside me with surprising ease. You wouldn't think a guy with that much muscle could just plunk himself down on an old stone floor, but it didn't seem to bother Oliver. Maybe your threshold for pain, for discomfort, goes up when you know nothing can kill you, no matter how bad it seems at the time.

"When did you decide they weren't?" he asked.

I considered the question. "I don't know. Sometime after my parents – my adoptive parents – were killed. If the angels allowed that to happen, they must not be very good at their job, right?"

He grimaced, eyes drifting to the stones beneath us. "Bad things happen," he said. "Sometimes, it doesn't have anything to do with the angels."

"No. I suppose it doesn't," I agreed.

We fell silent. The seconds ticked by, while Reggie grew cold beside us and we waited for the police to come. For the nightmare to end.

But the nightmare was just beginning.