Chapter 7
Kane
I wake up at the crack of dawn. Not because I want to, but because Declan dumped a bucket of ice water on my head.
I jolt upright, fists poised to do a number on his face, but somehow, in my hangover, I remember just who he is. A man who with one order can end my life faster than I can blink, and I rather like my booze, thank you very much.
“You fucking asshole!” I sputter, as tiny men with hammers pound inside my skull.
“Get up. We’ve got work to do.” He glowers at me like a parent would at their petulant teenager who’s late for school.
And then he spies the empty bottle of tequila sitting on the nightstand.
He picks it up by the neck and looks at me. “What the fuck is this?”
I shrug a shoulder. “A nightcap.”
I put a hand to my head as he barks, “I told you to stay sober!”
“Yeah, no. That’s not gonna happen,” I mutter, gripping my hair in my hands.
“Rory.”
That’s all Declan said, and called me crazy, but I knew shit was about to hit the fan.
I look up to see the two of them looking directly at me while talking in hushed tones. And then, they smiled.
But it wasn’t just the smiles on their faces; it was the fact that they lunged at me in unison.
Before I knew it, I was on my feet in nothing but my boxers and a t-shirt and was being hauled towards the door. I start to fight back once we are out in the hallway.
Wren pops her head out of their room, her hair disheveled from sleep. “What the hell is going on?”
“Nothing, goose. Go back to bed,” Declan says, still manhandling me down the hall.
“He’s in his underwear,” she points out, eyebrows raised as she takes in my boxer-clad state. “At least put some pants on him.”
“Nope, not happening,” Declan replies cheerfully. “This is part of the punishment.”
“Help me!” I called her. “Your husband’s gone mental!”
Wren shakes her head. “Whatever he did, he probably deserves it. Just don’t kill him, Declan. Blood’s hard to get out of those fancy shoes.”
With that charming send-off, she disappears back into their room.
“Your wife is terrifying,” I mutter as they drag me toward the elevator.
“You have no idea,” Declan says proudly.
The hotel staff barely blinks as Rory and Declan march me through the lobby in my underwear. Must happen all the time in this place. Or maybe it’s just the MacGallan name that keeps them from interfering. Either way, I’m tossed into the backseat of our rental car like a sack of potatoes.
“Where are we going?” I demand, my head throbbing with every word.
“Somewhere you can dry out,” Rory says cryptically, sliding into the driver’s seat.
I realize with growing horror what they’re planning as we head toward the coast. The morning is chilly, the wind off the Irish Sea cutting through my thin t-shirt. By the time we reach a deserted stretch of beach, my teeth are chattering.
“You can’t be serious,” I say as they haul me out of the car.
“Dead serious,” Declan confirms, pulling something from his pocket. It’s a nose plug, the kind swimmers use. “Put this on.”
“Fuck off.”
“Fine, we’ll do it the hard way.”
Between the two of them, they manage to clip the nose plug onto me. While I struggle, Rory pulls out a plastic drinking straw next.
“Open wide,” he says, grinning like this is the best day of his life.
“What the hell is this?” I demand and immediately clamp my mouth firmly shut.
“Your snorkel,” Declan explains. “We’re not monsters, Kane.”
“Could have fooled me,” I mutter, as they drag me across the sand, my half-naked body shivering in the morning chill.
“This is insa…” I start to shout but remember I still have two free feet.
I take off running, and as I do, Declan orders Rory to start digging just as he takes chase. I don’t get more than twenty feet before he tackles me to the ground.
He drags me back to where Rory has dug a canoe-sized hole. If it weren’t my life on the line, I would be impressed. “You can’t be serious,” I protest as Declan forces me to lie flat on the sand. “This is—this is torture!”
“This is an intervention,” he corrects, holding me down while Rory starts piling sand around my legs. “You’ve been drunk since we left Toronto. We need you sober and focused.”
The sand is cold and coarse against my skin as they work quickly, piling it higher and higher. First, my legs disappear, then my torso, my arms pinned firmly at my sides.
“Should we cover his head?” Rory asks, motioning towards me.
Declan shakes his head, then bends down and grabs my face. “Where the hell did the nose plug go?”
“Here is a better question,” I pipe up. “Why the fuck do you carry a nose plug around?”
He ignores me and looks at Rory. “Got any tape?”
Rory nods. “Yeah. In the car.”
“Grab the hat too,” Declan says as Rory jumps up and starts to sprint to where the car is parked.
I can’t move a muscle beneath the weight of the sand. Panic rises in my chest as I realize how completely helpless I am.
“You’re not actually planning to leave me here?” I ask, trying to keep the fear from my voice.
Rory returns with a roll of duct tape in his hand and looks to Declan with the same question in his eyes. “We are leaving him here, right?”
Declan nods and stands, brushing the sand from his expensive trousers. He studies me with cool detachment. “I’ll come back. Eventually.”
“Declan!” I shout, but he’s already walking away. “You can’t do this! There are... birds and shit!”
“Think of it as a spa treatment,” Rory says as he tears a strip of tape off the roll. “Sand exfoliation.”
“I hate you both!” I scream. Then Rory slaps the tape over my mouth.
“We’ll be back in a few hours,” Declan says over his shoulder, not even turning around. “Use the time wisely.”
Rory gets up and starts to follow him, and I sit there in disbelief as they climb into the rental car.
Lucky for me, though, I had the foresight to lick the skin around my mouth and keep it open before Rory silenced me.
The morning sun offers little warmth as a cloud passes overhead, casting me in shadow as I push on the tape with my tongue. I manage to free one side and blow on it. Still stuck to my skin, it dangles from the side of my face, but at least my mouth is free.
“Fuck,” I whisper to myself as a crow lands nearby, looking at me with its beady eyes. It hops closer, tilting its head as if thinking I might make a tasty snack.
“I swear to God, if you shit on me...”
The car door opens, and Rory makes his way towards me.
“You’re in luck,” he says, and relief pours through me until I see what he’s holding in his hands. “Not only did Declan find another nose plug and earplugs, but he also found this hose too!”
“Why the hell would Declan even have those things?” I ask, trying to twist my head away as Rory kneels beside me. “Is he some kind of professional swimmer I don’t know about?”
He laughs, and I notice a pen fall out of his pocket. If I had a free hand, I’d have stabbed him in the thigh with it simply because he was enjoying my discomfort. “You’d be surprised what Declan keeps in his emergency kit. Man’s prepared for everything.”
Before I can protest further, he grabs my face, fingers digging into my cheeks until my mouth pops open. He shoves the hose between my lips.
“Bite down,” he orders. “And for God’s sake, don’t let it go.”
I clamp my teeth around the plastic tube, heart hammering against my ribs as he forces the nose plug onto my nostrils. The pressure makes my eyes water. Next come the earplugs, pushed firmly into my ear canals until the world goes muffled and distant.
“Can you hear me?” Rory’s voice sounds like he’s talking underwater.
I grunt around the hose, which I take as confirmation enough for him.
He stands up and begins shoveling more sand over my body.
The weight increases across my chest, making each breath a labor.
Sand creeps up my neck, then over my chin.
I fight back panic as it covers my mouth, leaving only the hose protruding.
The last thing I see is Rory’s smirking face before I squeeze my eyes shut. Sand cascades over my face, plunging me into darkness.
The weight is suffocating. Each breath through the narrow hose feels inadequate, my lungs straining against their sandy prison.
I can’t hear anything beyond the thundering of my own pulse, can’t see anything but blackness.
Time stretches into an eternity of shallow breaths and mounting claustrophobia.
Is this what drowning feels like? I’ve spent years drowning myself in alcohol, but this—this visceral panic, this helplessness—this is different.
I try counting to keep myself sane. One-Mississippi, two-Mississippi... By the time I reach three hundred, my tongue is dry as sandpaper, and my jaw aches from clenching the hose. Has it been minutes or hours? The uncertainty is complete.
Memories surface like debris in a flood. My father’s disappointed face when I came home drunk at sixteen. My mother’s tears when I missed my grandmother’s funeral because I was passed out in some stranger’s apartment.
Uncle Tomas, the only one who ever believed I could be more than the family screwup, pulled me aside at Christmas five years ago.
“You’re killing yourself, Kane,” he’d said, eyes filled with concern rather than judgment. “And for what?”
I never answered him. Now I wonder if he isn’t dead, if I’ll ever get the chance.
When the panic threatens to overwhelm me completely, I feel vibrations through the sand. Footsteps. They are back.
Relief floods through me.
The weight shifts suddenly as one of them starts to dig.
Call it weakness, but I grab hold of their hand like it’s a lifeline.