Chapter 35
Rylan Cameron
Call sign: Minnow
Rylan and Tia sat hip to hip on the salon couch shoveling oatmeal thick with peanut butter into their mouths as they watched
TV. Tia was in a good mood, probably feeling secure thanks to the escape plan she’d hatched. It was easy for Tia. All she
wanted was an exciting, simple life with a few close people. She wasn’t afraid of leaving behind her parents. She reveled
in it.
Rylan would never be like that. He stirred his oatmeal (or as Alejandro had always called it, boatmeal) and ate a spoonful of the oaty, peanut buttery cement.
“Are you going to miss stuff like this? Like oatmeal and TV?”
Tia used her finger to finish off the swipes of peanut butter left in the bottom of her bowl. “You mean when we run? Oatmeal
and TV exist outside the Cameron family, you know.”
“I know, but . . .” Rylan set his breakfast aside. “But you never make it seem like your life is going to be normal after
you leave. You’re going to be living in the woods or on the side of a road, or something.”
“I want adventures, yeah. But I’m not swearing off good food and television till the end of time.” Tia sucked her finger and laid her bowl on the coffee table next to Rylan’s. Hers was scraped clean.
“I know, it just seems like a big divide, you know? Like there’s your life before you run, and your life after. And ne’er
the twain shall meet.”
Tia wiped her hands on her shorts and gave him a quizzical look. “Why do you keep saying when I run? Like you aren’t coming
with me?”
Rylan opened his mouth to respond when Francis’s voice, muffled above them, rang out. “Rylan! Come up on deck!”
Rylan grimaced.
Tia grabbed his arm. “Maybe if we stay silent he’ll think we’re still asleep.”
They waited. Francis grew louder, shouting down the companionway. “Rylan, get up here! Quick.”
The blood drained from Rylan’s face.
“Rylan!” Francis shouted again.
“It’s okay,” Tia promised now, standing and taking his hand. “I’ll go with you.”
She stayed in front of him all the way up to the deck, but when Francis ran over, he seemed to look right through her. Francis
was giddy.
“We got a bite on the line,” Francis explained, herding them to the stern. “Something big.”
Not a test, then. At least, not yet.
The deep-sea fishing kit. Rylan had forgotten it was still hooked up. Nico and Alejandro were wrestling with the fishing poles.
Rylan followed the fishing line with his eyes and looked down into the water.
A fish, long and powerful, fought in the waves in a desperate dance to escape the hook through its lip.
It had a magnificent fin protruding from its back, blue and brilliant against the water around it, which looked gray in comparison.
A blade-like bill pointed out from its face, and Rylan recognized the species as a sailfish, named for its sail-like fin that fanned out enough to catch the wind.
They were the fastest fish in the sea, able to swim as quickly as a car on the highway if they wanted to.
And they were huge, growing up to eleven feet.
Francis joined Nico and Alejandro. “Let’s pull her up.”
“Can’t you cut the line?” Rylan asked, sick to his stomach. No one heard him.
“Rylan, help us out,” Francis ordered, but Rylan was rooted in place. Even if he could reclaim his muscles, the last thing
he wanted to do was help haul the poor fish out of the water.
Nico glanced back at him and registered his expression. “Mr. Cameron? Can we catch and release? Do a few photos and throw
it back?”
Warmth spread throughout Rylan’s body, and he mouthed his gratitude at Nico, who was too preoccupied with the line to see.
“Let’s just get her up first,” was Francis’s short response.
The three men struggled to drag the sailfish onto the deck. Somewhere in his peripheral vision, Rylan realized Tia had taken
the wheel and Lila was beside her.
The sailfish appeared then, wriggling and wide-eyed as it was yanked onto the deck. It was huge, easily as long as any human
Rylan had ever seen, and probably longer.
Francis laughed, delighted. “Can you believe it?” he asked no one in particular.
“She’s beautiful,” Nico murmured.
The sailfish continued to thrash, its scales glinting like unearthed treasure in the sunlight.
“Lila! Lila, get a photo of me, darling!” Francis crouched down over the fish, who was still moving, still frantic to breathe.
Rylan found himself lost in the sailfish’s eyes: glossy, marbly, and ever-staring. Its palpable fear became his own, and if
he’d had the strength to lift a creature of that size, he would have thrown it back overboard.
Lila took out her phone and snapped a couple of photos of Francis, his arm around Alejandro and his hand pointing to the dying
animal.
Nico hung back, out of frame. “Can we toss it back now, sir?” he asked.
“You kidding, kid? We’re having this sucker for dinner.” Francis waved at Alejandro, who headed to midships and came back
with a mallet.
Rylan turned his head, bile rising in his throat.
“Really, Francis? A hammer?” Lila fanned herself.
“It’s how it’s done, Lil.” Francis took the mallet from Alejandro, then turned and held it out. To Rylan. “Go on, son. I just
need a couple strong hits.”
Rylan’s voice failed him. He shook his head.
Francis licked his lips and stepped forward, sweat gleaming from his brow. “The longer you hesitate, the longer it suffers.
You want to call yourself a Cameron?”
He didn’t. Not after this year. Not if it meant this. Rylan backed up, but he was against the railing. If only he and the
fish could jump overboard together and swim far, far away.
“Dad, cut it out,” Tia barked, but Francis didn’t even spare her a glance. He held the mallet between himself and Rylan.
“I’ll do it, Mr. Cameron.” Nico stepped forward.
Alejandro caught his arm. Had they been planning this?
Rylan sucked in air, but it didn’t seem to reach his lungs. Behind Francis, the sailfish flopped, its strength sapping.
“Come on, Rylan,” Lila begged him. “It’s just a fish.”
“This is what it takes to survive at sea,” Francis lectured, as if they didn’t have weeks’ worth of food stored belowdecks. As if he had ever had to survive at sea. “You either put it out of its misery or it dies gasping for air.”
Like MJ.
But Rylan couldn’t move. His hands did not obey. I’m sorry, he said to the fish. I can’t do it . . .
“Rylan! Get down here, quickly!”
He was back in their home in Palm Beach.
His father sounded urgent. Something must be wrong. Rylan raced down the stairs. Francis was in the kitchen holding a cheese
knife over the marble countertop, his sleeve rolled up to his elbow.
“What’s going on?” Rylan looked around in confusion. Lila was reading a Jenna Fischer novel at the table. She hadn’t even
looked up.
“Think fast,” Francis advised. Like a father says when he throws his son a football. Not when he plunges a cheese knife through
a flap of skin in his own arm.
Francis dropped the mallet without warning, and it banged on the deck. Rylan flinched.
“What is wrong with you?” Francis spat and walked away, taking the helm from Tia and letting the sailfish flap and fight for
every last second. That fish had more fight than Rylan ever had.
It happened in an instant. Tia left the wheel and scooped up the mallet. She shoved past Alejandro and raised it in the air
with all her might, then brought it down.
Whack.
Rylan jumped and smacked his hands over his eyes.
Whack.
The sound of the thrashing stopped. Their mother gasped.
Whack.
When he dared look back, Tia was standing over the fish, its skull caved in with three clean hits.
Blood streamed over the cockpit, flecks spattered on his sister’s legs and hands.
Francis, who was supposed to be steering, was watching her, stunned.
Tia walked right up to him, fish blood pooling around her bare feet.
“You’re what’s wrong with him,” she said evenly. “With all of us.”
She dropped the brain-splattered mallet at his feet.