Chapter 14
Kylian
I could forgo most of the emotions required of the human experience, but layered feelings are the ones I loathe most.
Experiencing more than one emotion simultaneously is not only frustrating but exhausting. It takes my brain too long to break down and catalogue each feeling individually. It takes even longer to make sense of what the combined sensibilities are supposed to convey.
It’s like ordering two flavors of soft serve—two or more emotions, twisted into a symmetrical helix. Sure, the individual flavors are there, but when you lick it, they’re indistinct. An indiscernible mashup, creating a new and unfamiliar taste. Each bastardizing the other. What’s the fucking point?
In this moment, inside my mind, worry and panic are battling against fury and resentment.
The first for my girl.
The latter for the man I used to consider one of my best friends.
I’ve been allowing Decker to call the shots when it comes to Josephine because that’s how the two of us work. I analyze the data, give him information, offer my suggestion, and he makes the play.
But this isn’t a game.
And this time, he’s gone too far.
“They’re headed back.”
Narrowing my eyes, I search the horizon for evidence of Greedy’s declaration.
He was as livid as I was when Decker carried my girl onto that boat and into open water without her consent.
Decker didn’t mention a single thing about his ludicrous idea to any of us.
He knew better.
He knew we’d stop him.
And despite insisting that we’re a democracy, he decided he knew best and forwent any vote or consensus gathering before enacting his strategy.
There’s a false sense of leadership bestowed on the members of a group like ours.
We all take on the role of lead from time to time, flexing our prowess when a particular skill set or life experience makes one more knowledgeable than the others.
But at our core, because he’s our core, we inevitably defer to Decker.
He has the charisma. The charm and the magnetism. He has the ability to make each person feel seen and heard, valued and respected, even if, in the end, he’s still going to do whatever the fuck he wants.
Like now.
Like always where Jo is concerned.
It ends today.
It ends the second he pulls up to the dock.
It took both Kendrick and Locke to hold me back, to physically restrain me as I considered taking one of the jet skis—or even one of the fucking ferries we use to get people from the marina to the house on party nights.
As they held me back, they talked me down. Forced me to listen to their reasoning.
Once they had my attention, their explanation made sense.
Despite every instinct raging inside me and all the sticky, confusing sensations ping-ponging around my brain, there’s an undeniable reason why hopping on a second vessel and chasing after them would have been a very bad idea.
Not much rattles Decker Crusade.
The guilt and the shame and the anger he harbors over his mother’s death have coalesced into an insidious cancer that lives inside him. It’s dormant most of the time—a disease in remission, a trauma response he keeps locked down and tucked away.
But pursuing him in the same way his mom was chased across the lake and left for dead has the potential to trigger the beast.
Once I made that connection, I knew my only option was to sit back and wait.
Even now—seventy-one minutes later—I’m certain it was the right call. In this situation, inaction was the best reaction. Even if it hurts like hell to endure.
Hunter’s been sobbing since she realized what happened.
Locke has been crouched on the rocky shoreline, head hung low, silently seething.
Kendrick’s been standing guard at the end of the dock, curling his hand into a fist, then flexing it open over and over again.
Garrett Reed Ferguson the Third has been pacing, drifting from Kendrick to me, from Locke to Hunter, trying to comfort and soothe and make sense of the situation.
He thinks we’re too weak to chase after our girl—to defy the great Decker Crusade.
He’s ignorant to the excessive amount of power we must harness to keep from tipping the scale of this shitshow barreling toward a fate we can’t fathom.
We’re holding back, because the fallout of chasing after him would inevitably make matters so much worse.
It could always be worse.
But the worst is nearly behind us.
The pontoon boat is approaching. Not just approaching. It’s practically flying across the water, coming in fast.
Kendrick barks an order to Locke, who hops to his feet and races to meet him at the end of the dock.
Thunder rumbles in the distance. Low and long. Distant but noxious, nonetheless.
I seek out Locke as he spins on his heel to meet my eye, horrified.
A storm’s rolling in.
Josephine is out there, on open water. She’s on a boat, against her will, on the water, as a storm brews in the distance.
Our girl doesn’t do storms.
Pulling up the weather app, I zoom in on the live radar. There’s plenty of green. But it’s the jagged, angry line where green transforms to yellow and orange that concerns me.
The boat is less than fifty yards from shore.
Decker doesn’t slow. In fact, it looks as though he increases his speed once he sees that K and Locke are ready and waiting to help him dock.
At the last second, he throws the engine into reverse, giving just enough resistance to allow the pontoon to scrape along the edge of the landing.
A single raindrop splashes on my glasses’ lens, blurring the scene in front of me.
Thunder crashes miles away.
The side of the pontoon and the dock are close, but not close enough.
Jo is standing now, steadying herself on the port side, watching the gap close on approach; doing the math; gauging her chances.
“Locke!” I holler.
He’s closer. Stronger, too. My shout is unnecessary. He knows exactly what he needs to do.
As if the move has been choreographed and practiced a thousand times, he positions himself at the edge of the dock, then stretches his arms out. Jo scrambles over the side and launches herself off the boat and into his embrace.
Garrett stops beside me and scoffs, surveying the scene. “So much for Crusade’s brilliant plan. Looks like he did more damage than good.”
He’s wrong, but I don’t bother arguing.
Jo’s desperation right now has nothing to do with the boat.
It has everything to do with the storm in the sky; the storm in her heart.
Without a word, Locke barrels past me, Jo wrapped around him like a koala clinging to a tree.
“Get her up to the Nest,” I instruct. I’m itching to follow. Desperate to peel her off him, assess her head from toe, and pull her out of her head and shelter her from the storm raging in her mind.
But before I do that, I square my shoulders, cross my arms, and wait.
When Decker finally looks up from the boat’s gauges, it’s not with smug victory or even defiance.
He looks just as broken as I feel.
He’s clearly out of his depth. Remorseful and confused. Desperate to make things right. Desperate to do something right for Jo.
His expression is filled with more despair than I’ve ever witnessed from him.
I don’t need to question why.
I know the answer in my gut. A resounding answer that settles down deep in my soul, if I even have one of those.
She’s in his head. She’s in his heart.
He’s fucked up and so fucking gone for my girl.
“I’ll deal with you later,” I shoot his way once he’s close enough to hear me.
Then, without another word to any of them, I turn on my heel and take off after the people deserving of my time.