Chapter 19 #2
Then she noticed Kai. He was lying face down on the deck behind Steven, not moving.
Her instincts kicked in, and she spun and bolted for the stairs that led up to the wheelhouse.
She knew the door wouldn’t stop Steven for long, and she was literally in the middle of nowhere. There was no place to hide on the small boat, not like when she was on the Asaka Express and had endless places to hide from the pirates.
“Elodie!” Steven called out, and she shivered again…
Then realized he’d used her real name. He hadn’t called her Melody.
Her heart sank.
Fuck. Paul Columbus had found her. Steven wasn’t him, of course, but he was obviously a trusted member of the family.
Adrenaline coursed through her body as she looked around the wheelhouse. There was no way she could get back to shore before Steven, or whatever his name was, burst into the small space. He was going to kill her. She knew that as easily as she knew her name.
He confirmed it with his next taunting words.
“You can’t get away, Elodie. This is it. You’ve had a good run, but your time is up. You knew you’d never get away from us.”
Elodie looked at the small side window in the wheelhouse and reached for the latch. She wasn’t going down without a fight. She had too much to live for. She had Scott. And friends. A life. A few months ago, she might’ve given in, but not now.
She wiggled her upper body out the window and managed to get her feet out and under her without falling off the side of the boat.
There was a narrow ledge around the upper part of the boat, and she shimmied around it, frantically trying to come up with a plan.
It was only then that she remembered the emergency location beacon Kahoni and Perry had installed on the boat, just in case.
It would automatically be triggered to transmit their location if the ship sank, but it could also be manually activated from the wheelhouse.
But it was too late to go back. She saw Steven’s head pop through the window she’d just climbed out of. He laughed at her.
“Where are you gonna go, Elodie? There’s nowhere to go. Look around you, you’re not gonna survive this. Come back inside and I’ll make your death quick and painless.”
Elodie inched farther away from him until she was overlooking the back deck. Looking down, she once again saw Kai lying on the deck, blood pooling under him. She wanted to cry. This was exactly what she didn’t want to happen. Someone else getting hurt or dying because of her.
Panic began to set in. What was she going to do? She had very few options here. She had no weapon, and Steven could easily overpower her. She didn’t believe for a second that he’d kill her quickly. The nasty gleam in his eyes belied his words.
“Hey, girl.”
She jerked in surprise and saw Steven looking up at her from the lower deck. He’d moved fast, getting from the wheelhouse to the deck seemingly in seconds.
She scooted around the ledge once again, so Steven wouldn’t have a direct line of fire if he decided to shoot her while she was up here.
She looked out across the water and could barely make out Diamond Head.
Kai had played right into his hands, bringing them out even farther on the water.
And since it was Sunday, there weren’t nearly the amount of fishing boats running today.
Quickly glancing around, Elodie realized she couldn’t see even one.
They were literally the only boat out this far, this early.
“You’re making this so much harder than it needs to be,” Steven mocked. “Come down before I’m forced to shoot you while you’re up there. You know your body will just fall into the sea and sink to the bottom where you’ll be eaten by fish and sharks.”
And just like that, she knew that was his plan all along. He was going to dump her body into the ocean and no one would ever know what happened to her. Scott would forever wonder if she’d ran off on him or if something had happened.
No, he’d know she would never up and leave without a word. But even knowing that, her disappearance would devastate him.
Her mind was racing, trying to come up with a solution to her predicament. A way to come out of this alive.
And then, just like that, Elodie knew what she had to do.
Everything within her rebelled, but she knew it was the only way. The one chance she had of making it out of this alive. It was a slim chance, and so many things could go wrong, but she literally had no other choice.
She turned her head and saw Steven leaning against the back railing of the boat, staring at her.
He could’ve shot her at any time, but instead he was enjoying her panic.
The evilness in his eyes was as clear as day now, and Elodie knew without a doubt if he got his hands on her, she was in for a world of hurt.
“I’m sorry, Kai,” she whispered.
Then inched as far forward on the boat as she could, took a deep breath, and jumped.
“No!” she heard Steven shout as she fell through the air, then all she could hear was the whoosh of the water closing over her head.
Afraid Steven would shoot at her in the water, she stayed under and held her breath as long as she could as she frantically did her best to get as far away from the boat as possible.
When she finally had to come up for air, she turned to look at the boat. Unbelievably, she’d managed to get at least twenty-five meters away. Steven was still standing on the back deck. He hadn’t run up to the wheelhouse to try to steer the boat closer.
As she tread water, Elodie did her best to try to calm herself. Her heart was beating close to two hundred beats a minute, and she knew she’d pass out if she didn’t slow her breathing.
“What now?” Steven called out to her. “You do know how stupid that was, right? Look around, Elodie. You gonna swim back to shore?” He laughed. “Not hardly. You’ll never make it. Come back to the boat, and I’ll make a deal with you.”
Elodie didn’t bother to ask what kind of deal. He was lying, and she knew it. She wasn’t stupid; if she got back on that boat, he’d kill her. Slowly. Her only chance of getting out of this was for Scott to realize something was wrong when he came to pick her up, and she and the boat weren’t there.
“Bitch! I said get back here! Now!” Steven called out when she didn’t start moving toward him.
In response, Elodie kicked her legs and moved farther away.
She saw Steven pacing back and forth on the deck before he turned and went into the seating area. When he appeared in the wheelhouse, she tensed. He could easily run her over or get closer and shoot into the water.
She heard the engine start up and watched as the boat sputtered and spun in a few circles.
She would’ve laughed if the situation wasn’t so dire.
It was obvious the man had never driven a boat before.
She’d been given lessons by Kahoni when she’d first been hired, and he’d also explained the oddities of his boat.
For some reason, when the steering had been installed, the mechanic had put it in backward.
So if you wanted to go right, you had to turn the wheel to the left.
It was confusing, but the owners had laughed and said it was a fun quirk.
She’d gotten used to the awkward steering, but was glad she didn’t have to be in charge of driving very often.
She watched as the boat shot forward and Steven’s head disappeared from view above the helm.
Kahoni and Perry had also put in a very powerful engine. If you didn’t baby the throttle, it would jerk forward, as it had just done.
Steven managed to get the boat a little closer to where she was, despite his ineptitude, and despite her trying to swim away from the boat.
He came back down to the back deck and raised the pistol, and even though she didn’t hear shots being fired, Elodie saw the water splash up in front of where she was treading water.
The reason the barrel of the gun was so long was clear now… he had a silencer on the weapon.
Ducking underwater once more, Elodie did her best to swim what she hoped was out of range of the bullets.
When she came up for air again, Steven was leaning over the railing of the boat.
“You know what? This is better!” he shouted.
“I was gonna make this quick and easy, but I like this. Paul will too. You can stay out there. You’ll eventually get tired…
it’ll be harder and harder to stay afloat.
You’ll get dehydrated, and with the sun beating down on you all day, you’ll fry like a bug on a hot sidewalk.
Not to mention there’s a storm coming in this evening…
if you make it that long. I’ve heard the riptides in Hawaii are pretty brutal too.
And then there’re the sharks. And I’ve got a parting present for you…
all the bait you planned to use to help me catch a fucking fish?
I’m gonna chum the water. Maybe a shark will think those big toes of yours are fish and he’ll take a bite. Munch-munch!”
Elodie was crying now; she couldn’t help it.
She was terrified. When she’d jumped into the water, she didn’t really have much of a plan, she just knew she needed to get away from Steven.
But now reality was sinking in. She was in the middle of the ocean, way too far out to be able to swim to shore, and she was most likely going to die a long, slow death. Just like Steven and Paul wanted.
“I didn’t do anything!” she cried out.
“You said no to the most powerful mob boss in New York!” Steven screamed back. “No one says no to Paul Columbus!”
And with that, Steven turned and headed back inside.
Seconds later, he was back and pouring buckets of bait into the water.
He dumped some over each side and even off the back.
She knew from experience how bloody and stinky those bait buckets were.
Many a guest had complained about them, but she’d always patiently explained that the stinkier the bait, the more appealing it was to the creatures in the sea.
Looking around frantically as she tried to swim away from the boat—and the crazy man trying to kill her—Elodie didn’t see any fins, but she knew it was only a matter of time.
Steven lifted his weapon and shot off a few more rounds, but she was getting farther and farther away.
Then there was silence for a moment before the engines of the Fish Tales fired up again and the boat lurched once more.
It wobbled side to side as Steven did his best to control the powerful engine, then headed toward the island of Oahu, barely visible in the distance.
For a second, Elodie simply stared at the back end of the boat with a mixture of relief and horror. Then she panicked again. Steven had left her in the middle of the ocean; she was way too far out to swim all the way back to shore.
But then again, she was alive. He hadn’t managed to shoot her. So there was that.
“What now?” she mumbled as she continued to tread water.
But that was the thing—she had no idea what to do.
Stay put? Swim toward Diamond Head, which she could just see on the horizon?
Would Steven come back? For some reason, she didn’t think that was his plan.
He’d been pissed he didn’t get to shoot her, but he’d also been pretty gleeful when he’d laid out all the ways she could die out here.
The man was certifiably insane, but he hid it extremely well.
She hadn’t thought he was anything but a married father of two, glad to get away for a little rest and relaxation while on vacation.
The tears came again, and this time they wouldn’t stop. Elodie thought about Scott. About how much she loved him and how lucky she’d been to find that kind of love, even if it was only for a short time.
Then she got mad. Then she cried again.
Her emotions were all over the place, and as time went on, and she bobbed up and down in the waves, she got more and more tired.
And dehydrated. The Hawaiian sun was brutal, burning the top of her head, shoulders, and face.
She had no idea how much time had gone by, but somehow she knew this suffering was only the beginning of the hell she was going to go through.
But Elodie wasn’t going to give up. She hadn’t lived through a hijacking and being pursued by a mob boss to die now.
She was going to fight to live. If she made it out alive, she’d still have to worry about Paul coming after her again, or sending someone else.
He knew where she was now, and there wouldn’t be any way to keep her survival out of the papers. People ate this kind of shit up.
Woman survives out in the ocean for days. Click here for story.
She could see the posts on the Internet now. Her story would be fucking click bait, and she’d have to run again. Find somewhere else to hide.
What was the point of trying to live when she’d just be hunted down again?
But then Scott’s face sprang into her mind. How he looked when he smiled down at her. How his beard felt against her skin as he kissed and caressed her. How proud he’d looked when the soufflé he’d made had come out perfectly.
A renewed energy swept over her.
Elodie would fight to live for Scott.
She loved him so damn much and would do anything to spare him the pain of not knowing what happened to her. She wouldn’t wish that on her worst enemy…well, all right, maybe she would on Steven or Paul.
Elodie knew she was a bit delirious, and she took a deep, calming breath. Then she fixed her gaze on Diamond Head in the distance…and began to swim toward it.
Maybe she’d run into another fishing boat on her way, and she wouldn’t have to swim the entire distance.
Maybe a dolphin would come up beside her and let her grab ahold of its dorsal fin, then tow her in.
Or one of Hawaii’s famous green turtles, a honu, would have pity on her and let her take a ride on its back.
She didn’t care how it happened, but she was going to get back to Scott no matter what it took.