CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 25
NESS’S FIRST INSTINCT WAS, REGRETTABLY, TO FLEE. TO WHERE? She hadn’t thought it through in that much detail. All she knew was that she saw nature trying to smite them, and her brain announced it was time to go—there was nothing she could possibly do. Always take care of Number One, said her father’s voice in her head. The problem was too big and she was too small, incapable of contributing anything worthwhile all on her own. Besides, she rationalized, while staring at the smoke curling from the remains of the roof, Hayes probably had everything under control, as usual.
Except, said a different voice—a voice very much her own—everything obviously wasn’t under control, because she’d very recently been trapped in a dungeon. Bradley was, in fact, still trapped in said dungeon, waiting for her to rescue him.
Her inner voice grew louder. Did she not see what she’d already accomplished?! By signing on to this cursed project she’d reclaimed her past and her future in one underpaid swoop! Sure, the experience so far had been a dumpster fire of epic proportions as far as career development went, but in terms of personal growth? Sheesh! She’d caught a fish. Fought a woman-eating snake. Executed a glorious watery escape without dying. Actually stuck around to have difficult emotional conversations! She wasn’t going to let a teensy act of God derail her epic comeback now.
As frustrating as they were, her fellow castaways deserved better from her. She deserved better from herself.
There was a crack of thunder so loud it sounded like the world was breaking in two. Ness took a deep breath, launched herself off the rock, and ran toward the house.
Ian, Daisy, and Coco stood outside, their backs to Ness, as she tromped up the hill with all the grace of a hangry, exhausted rhinoceros. She crossed the small clearing to join them, taking in their waving arms and snippets of an increasingly loud conversation.
“If they were ‘just going to come out on their own,’ that would have happened already. We need to go get them.” Coco was on her tiptoes, her dirt-streaked face three inches from Ian’s pale one.
He took a step back, hands raised. “Whoa whoa whoa. Of course we need to get them. I’m just saying we need to think it through. It’s not safe in there. We can’t go roaring in without a plan.” He rubbed his hands over his face, wiping water from his eyes.
Coco backed off, crossing her arms. Even from a distance, Ness could see how tense she was.
She jogged the rest of the way, her movement catching their attention.
Ian’s eyes widened and he flung his arms open. “Holy shit!”
“Aaaaaaaggghhh! Where have you been?” Daisy demanded, diving at Ness to wrap her in a soggy embrace. Ness hugged her back, closing her eyes against the rain and enjoying the additional body heat. After so many days of being hot, she’d never thought she’d be so desperate for a fireplace and a dry sweater.
“What the hell, Ness?!” Coco punched her not quite lightly on her upper arm before planting a smacker of a kiss on her lips.
“Long story,” Ness said. She gave an extremely condensed summary, raising her voice to be heard over the wind—dungeon, Bradley, flooding, bonkers escape—pausing only to assure Ian he was an excellent prison guard; she was just a better escapee. She glossed over the details of the “Tyler purposely marooned us here to further his career and possibly sell footage of our private moments to the media to pad his bank account” part in case Coco decided to kill him accidentally on purpose before they’d rescued everyone. “Tyler’s the bad guy, will explain later” seemed sufficient for the moment. In a situation where it was seven against one, she couldn’t imagine he’d pose much of a threat, especially in his current state. Based on how ill he’d looked in the dungeon, she’d be surprised if he was still standing.
Of course, everyone had a million and one questions, which, Ness assured them—mostly via hand gestures and one-word answers—would be addressed in due course.
“I’m glad you’re back,” Daisy said, giving her hand a quick squeeze before going back to staring worriedly at the house.
“Bradley’s still down there?” Ian asked, face crinkled in concern.
“Unless he’s found another way out in the twenty minutes since I left, yeah.” Ness eyed the house. The roof had stopped smoking, but she could swear a crack in the concrete exterior was looking more like a giant fissure.
“Where’s everyone else?”
“Libby and Tyler are . . .” Daisy trailed off, nodding at the house. She exhaled loudly, shaking her head. “They were arguing about whether to go looking for you and Bradley when the lightning hit. Coco and I had just come out here to try to get more of the shutters closed.” She shuddered, and Coco put an arm around her waist, pulling her close.
“Then the lightning hit.” Coco picked up the story. “And Ian came running out, yelling about structural integrity.”
“Hey!” Ian protested. “It’s a valid concern!”
“And then we waited for them to come out,” Daisy said. She leaned against the wind, which was picking up more strength with every moment they stood there.
“But they haven’t.” Coco glared at the house like it was to blame, and maybe it was.
“Hayes?” Ness asked, voice a bit shaky.
“He went to look for you a couple of hours ago,” Ian said, pointing down toward the beach. “He’s probably huddled in one of the sheds until the storm lightens up.”
Ness looked down over the island. The long grass was bent horizontally, pressed close to the ground by the still roaring wind and driving rain.
“He’s fine,” Coco assured her.
“Yeah,” Ness said faintly. She coughed and gave her head a little shake, trying to clear it. “We need to get Bradley and Libby.” She started toward the front door.
“And Tyler,” Daisy added, falling into step beside her.
Ness huffed out a breath. “Right. And Tyler.” She cleared her throat. “Do you all . . . um, not think I set all this up anymore?”
“Did you?” Ian called from behind her.
“And tie my future success to Tyler? No!”
“Okay,” Coco said, hauling the door open against the wind.
Ness couldn’t believe it could be that easy. “Okay?”
As they stood dripping all over the foyer, Coco turned to her. “Look,” she said, “maybe you did put together this wildly elaborate scheme with some random assistant with the personality of a deranged house cat. And maybe you both trapped us here on purpose and recorded us at our most vulnerable and tried to make a snake eat your frenemy for additional publicity. But—and I mean this in the nicest possible way—you’re not a good enough actor to do all that and still pull off being so clueless the rest of the time.”
And that was that.
With half of the shutters closed, the main floor of the house was shrouded in gloom, but it was blessedly dry. Above, the wind whistled through the upper level in a way that suggested, at a minimum, they’d lost some of the windows in the lightning hit.
The plan, if it could even be called anything so formal, was for Ness and Ian to get Bradley while Daisy and Coco located Libby and Tyler. They’d regroup outside and figure out next steps together.
In the foyer, everything seemed quiet, if dark. As a single, dripping unit, they edged along the hallway and into the kitchen and living area. No one spoke.
Scorch marks ran across walls, and the air smelled of ozone and burnt plastic. The house creaked as if it had aged fifty years in a few hours.
“If the house collapses on us, can we sue?” Coco whispered.
Ian glanced back at her over his shoulder. “Sure, as long as you don’t mind being paid in vintage adult films and taxidermied exotic pets.”
“Can we focus?” Ness said sharply. She wanted to get this done and get out. “Where were Libby and Tyler last time you saw them?”
“The kitchen,” Coco answered. “Libby looked like she was about to chop Tyler up for a stringy stew.”
“Okay, gross.” Ian’s mouth turned down in disgust. “But accurate. She was pissed.”
“I think they went upstairs,” Daisy added. “I came back in for a second and I’m pretty sure I heard voices up there.”
Ness grabbed the precious emergency flashlight from the sideboard and headed toward the hallway that held the bedrooms, intent on getting Bradley and getting out. Ian, Coco, and Daisy scurried behind her.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “Libby?” she shouted. “Tyler?”
Ian looked at her, aghast.
“What?” she asked. “How were you planning to find them? By scent?”
“The slightest disturbance could bring this whole thing down around us and you’re in here hollering like we’re looking for your bestie at the club? Jesus take the wheel!”
But Ness wasn’t listening to him. “Shush!” She smacked his chest with the back of her hand as his mouth opened to continue his tirade. “Did you hear that?”
“You mean the sound of the beams breaking free from their moorings to crush us into elder millennial pancakes?”
“No, you drama queen. That.” Distantly, there was a rhythmic clanging.
Coco quirked her head to the side, listening. “Upstairs?”
“Let’s check it out,” Daisy said, walking toward the decrepit staircase.
Ness’s ankle throbbed with remembered pain. “Careful on there,” she cautioned.
“Yeah, Mom. Got it.”
“That’s still not funny.”
As Daisy and Coco disappeared up the stairs, Ness looked at Ian. “Ready for Operation: Heroes?”
“Lame title. Yeah, let’s give’er.”
She walked into the bedroom where, hours earlier, she’d listened to Ian’s animated sex scene narration. It seemed like a lifetime ago. Entering the closet, she let herself through the secret panel.
“This place is so creepy,” Ian said, eyeing the door with distaste.
They jogged down the hall, the floor of which was covered in jagged pieces of drywall and ceiling panels that had been knocked loose. Dust and small pieces of debris adhered to Ness’s still-damp bare feet. The smell of burning plastic was stronger here. It tickled her nose and made her head throb. She’d read something once about lightning traveling through wiring and plumbing to get to the ground, and assumed she was inhaling the gaseous remnants of some vintage electrical work.
Skidding to a stop at the door to the dungeon, Ness flicked the deadbolt and heaved. The door screeched open and the sound of lapping water echoed up at them, accompanied by a smell Ness could only associate with pirates, peg-legged ghosts, and her newly formed fear of dark, enclosed spaces. Seawater, wet rock, moss, and despair.
Ian froze, taking in the dark staircase and the scent of the air swirling around them.
“Is this . . . Davy Jones’s locker?”
Ness pushed past, flashlight beam bouncing as she pattered down the steps.
“Bradley! Salvation has arrived!”
There was no response.At the fourth from last step, her foot dropped into cold water. She sloshed the rest of the way, playing the light across the room. Ian had caught up and was right behind her, lightly gripping the back of her shirt.
“Where is he?” Ian cupped his free hand to his mouth. “Bradley? Brad? Bradster?!”
Ness waded down to the bottom, shivering as the water brushed against her thighs.
“I hate it here,” she said to no one in particular as she walked the perimeter, dreading the moment her foot would collide with a submerged Bradley. She stubbed her toe on raised rocks and nearly tripped on waterlogged debris, but she didn’t discover anything obnoxious-actor-sized.
Splashing over to the smaller back room, she solved the mystery. Bradley was passed out on the same chair she’d found him on the first time, his chest rising and falling in slow motion. He wasn’t restrained and had presumably chosen this perch for its relative dryness as opposed to comfort. The water bottle was on his lap. Empty, Ness discovered when she picked it up.
“Idiot!” She didn’t know if she was angrier that now she had to schlep his unconscious bulk upstairs, or that she’d left him alone here for so long that he felt the only way to cope was by drugging himself yet again. Or that he was willing to risk drowning to avoid dealing with the situation instead of toughing it out and waiting for her. She didn’t want to think about what that said about his confidence in her making it back.
Looping his giant, beefy arm over her shoulders while Ian did the same on the other side, she decided to be mad for all the reasons at the same time. Maybe burning anger would give her the strength to actually lug him out of there.
From the upper hallway came a loud crack, followed by an even more concerning thud. Two beats later, the yelling started.
“We should go,” Ness said, locking eyes with Ian across Bradley’s waxed chest. She’d wedged the flashlight into her armpit and prayed it would stay put long enough for them to get to the stairs.
It did, barely. At the foot of the staircase, having dropped their unconscious passenger only once, Ness wondered if her karma would be evened out after this. She had to hope that a pretty hefty number of bad deeds were being erased from her cosmic record this week.
“You want heads or tails?” Ian asked. They’d deposited Bradley onto the steps, where he now sprawled, moaning softly. Ness put her hands on her knees, trying to catch her breath, and glared at the sleeping man.
“What do you think the chances are we can wake him up so he can walk?”
Bradley burped and curled into the fetal position, stair edges cutting into his side.
“Probably about as good as the chances Daisy will ever date me,” Ian replied.
“Well, shoot. I guess I’ll take his feet.”
After three failed attempts and nearly concussing Bradley multiple times as they dropped various limbs, they got creative.
“We’ll wear him like a donkey suit,” Ian declared.
Which is how Ness found herself with her face six inches from Ian’s ass and Bradley’s body balanced atop them. He was face down, chin resting on Ian’s left shoulder, while Ness took the weight of his lower half, holding his legs under the knees as though she was giving him a piggyback, except she was doubled over and, as stated, face to buttocks with Ian.
Twenty stairs had never felt so unconquerable. Not to mention the fact that the sounds of chaos from above hadn’t tapered off. If anything, they’d gotten worse, with more frequent apocalypse-like creaking, crashing, and the occasional scream to punctuate it all. The sound of roaring wind and impending doom increased in volume with every step upward.
“Ian?” Ness croaked out.
He grunted in response.
“This sucks.”
Ian groaned out a laugh. “No shit, Nessinator. No. Shit.”
“Hey, Ian?” She paused. They’d pretty much hit rock bottom here—no pun intended—so why not dig a little deeper?
He grunted.
“Can we talk about . . . that night?”
“Which one?”
“The night.”
She stared at his ass, willing his face to start talking. It did not. They struggled up another step.
“The night we . . . you know.”
“Oh,” he finally said. “That night.”
“Yeah, that night. I’m glad you found it so memorable.”
Ness shifted Bradley’s weight, wondering how bad it would be if she dropped him.
Ian glanced quickly over his shoulder (and Bradley’s, as it were). “How much of it do you remember?”
“Um, essentially nothing. But, you know, I was doing a lot of . . . well, everything then. There are blanks where some of my more regrettable actions should go.”
“Okay, so try not to be too upset, but, nothing actually happened.”
Ness stared at him—well, part of him—and clambered up some more stairs. Her foot slipped off the edge of one in a particularly painful way, but she barely noticed.
“We were at Imposter,” she said, squinting her way back in time. “Hammered, as was my usual state, and you offered me a ride to your place. I woke up in your bed. My clothes were on the floor.”
He was nodding. “All true. Except, I think you made some erroneous assumptions that I”—he coughed—“didn’t correct.”
“We didn’t have sex?”
“No.”
“Tell me.” She couldn’t believe she was having this conversation here, now.
Ian broke it down for her. “We got back to my place and you were, as you say, hammered. I was, oddly, not. I had a casting the next day for that thing with Claire Danes, remember? With the bomb in the hotel? Did pretty well at the box office, but I think it could have—”
“Focus.” Bradley’s leg dropped to the ground and she scrabbled to get it back into her grip. Ian paused, waiting for her to get organized.
“Right, okay. So, you? Blackout drunk. Me? Sober and grumpy as hell. Starving, mad at myself for losing some part, and primed to make dumbass decisions. But it felt . . . wrong. You didn’t want me.”
Ness had the leg back under control now and they forged on, as did Ian’s recap.
“You wanted something else to help you forget real life. And, no offense, but I didn’t want you, not really. I wanted a distraction. Maybe some validation that I was as sex-symbol-y as I needed to be for the next day. I put you in my room with a glass of water and a bottle of Advil, then slept on the couch.”
“My clothes?”
He shrugged. “I guess you didn’t want to sleep in them.”
“Huh.”
“Yeah. When you woke up and thought we had . . . I rolled with it. I figured since I’d been so chivalrous the night before, I deserved to use the situation to my advantage.” He extended a hand back, holding it up beside his butt to silence her protests. He listed to the side, and the hand jerked back as he righted himself.
“I know that’s a bullshit move. I was wrong and I still took advantage of you, just not in the way you thought. That’s what I want to apologize for.”
Ness took as deep a breath as she could, which wasn’t very. She was relieved, but also realized it didn’t actually matter that she hadn’t slept with Ian. It mattered that she had gone home with him, woken up believing the deal was sealed, and done nothing about it. She hadn’t been with Hayes at the time, but it had been just freshly over. She’d wanted to go back to him so badly that she’d done the only thing she could think of to drive him away forever. And it turned out that not only had she not actually done it (no credit to herself), he never even found out.
“Alright,” she said, after gathering her thoughts and regripping Bradley’s thigh. “Thank you.”
“You’re not mad?”
“I don’t think so.” She checked in with herself again. “No, I’m good. I appreciate you telling me.”
Three hundred years later, they staggered onto the landing.
“I gotta put him down,” Ness panted, convinced she’d never stand up straight again. Her arm still throbbed, and her mouth felt like she’d been chewing on a bag of cotton balls.
Water dripped onto the floor around them, making the dusty terracotta tiles even more of a slipping hazard. Through Ian’s legs, she could see pieces of wood and larger sections of drywall and pieces of curved tile she was fairly sure hadn’t been there on the trip in.
Unceremoniously, Ian crouched and shifted, rolling Bradley off his back and onto the floor.
He pressed his thumbs into his spine and whined softly as he tried to straighten. “He’d better make me best man at his wedding. Or buy me seven cases of that stupid organic water that’s thirty bucks a jug.” He nudged Bradley with his toe. “Wake up, dude!”
Ness had taken an alternative route, lowering herself to join Bradley on the floor, where she reclined, ever so slowly, until she was flat on her back. Eyes closed, she stretched her arms over her head, feeling her spine elongate and the gentle patter of raindrops on her face. With the speed of an elderly tortoise, her brain caught up, and her eyes fluttered open.
“Hey, Ian?”
“Mmph?”
She reached out and grabbed his ankle, making him jump.
“Where’s the roof?”
The short answer was: gone. At least, in part. The section that had once covered the vaulted ceiling of this secret corridor had collapsed, sliding mostly onto the patio while also littering their escape route with interesting new challenges. Ragged edges loomed overhead like a monster’s toothy jaw where the rest of the structure hung by what Ness could only assume was a construction-themed thread and her fervent prayers.
The wind seemed to have calmed itself from raging gale to a breeze punctuated by frustrated gusts. Rain no longer dumped by the bucketful, but instead pattered onto their heads, sounding like one of those ambient-nature apps.
Ness would have felt some sense of relief at this turn in the weather if it hadn’t been for the imminent threat of being pancaked by an imitation castle.
After realizing how bad the damage to the house was, Ian hopscotched over the pieces of fallen wood and various house-building components to check on the others.
“I’ll be speedy quick and bring someone back to help schlep Sleeping Beauty!” he assured her, tripping over a two-by-four studded with nails and tetanus.
Bradley chose this moment to rejoin the party by vomiting with great force and in distressing volume, waking himself up in the process.
Ness pressed back against the dungeon door to stay out of spatter range.
“It was probably the cookie,” she said, trying not to inhale too deeply. “Or, you know, the Big Gulp of lord knows what drug cocktail you casually threw back, you imbecile!”
Hunched over, knees resting on the hard tiles, Bradley wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. His hair fell over his face, but from what Ness could see, his skin was the color of questionable milk.
“I hope Nestor has a better attitude than his namesake.” His voice was hoarse and wobbly.
“I hope he’s less of a selfish asshole than his father.” Ness paused, alarmed by the wave of emotion rolling over her now that Bradley was conscious. She was horrified to feel her eyes filling with tears, and swiped at them with the hem of her (really his) shirt.
Before she could decide whether to hug him or push him down and pummel his stupid perfect nose, there was movement outside. The vine-covered trellis that had camouflaged the window was dangling drunkenly from one side, giving her a clear view to the balcony and the person staring open-mouthed at what remained of the roof.
“Hayes,” she squeaked. Then she cleared her throat and tried again. “Hayes!” she yelled, clambering over rubble to get to the window. She raised her fist to bang on the glass but tapered it back to a gentle tapping with her nails when she saw how big the crack running across the pane was. She fought with the painted-over lock, suddenly desperate to be in his arms and feel safe, if only for a moment.
A shadow fell over her battered hands and she looked up. A bedraggled Hayes looked back at her. His silver hair was tangled with leafy pieces of tree and spiky brambles. A deep scratch ran from below his right eye to his jaw. He put a hand flat against the window and she raised hers to press against it. Her head drooped forward, forehead resting on the cool glass. There was a gentle thump as Hayes mirrored her motion. Ness took a deep, shuddering breath and felt the tension in her shoulders ease ever so slightly.
Behind her, something crashed against the floor.
As she spun, a gust of wind whooshed into the space, bringing a monsoon of roof tiles with it.
With one arm over her head, she grabbed Bradley’s hand with the other and looped his arm over her shoulders. “Time to go! Use those quads you’re so proud of and stand up!” She grunted and stood, dragging him with her. Finally, he got his feet under him and at least tried to participate, taking some of his own weight.
A tile smashed down onto his bare back, and down they went again.
“Dammit, Bradley!” Ness swore as she got back into position to try again. Not that it was his fault, but it kind of was his fault and she needed somewhere to direct her anger. She felt useless.
There was a sound of breaking glass, and then Hayes was at her side, gently moving her out of the way.
“Wait!” Ness said, putting a hand on his chest.
He looked at her, brow furrowed.
“I didn’t sleep with Ian.”
“Okay?” Water ran down the lenses of his glasses and he pulled them off, using the hem of his shirt to dry them. He took a quick look through and dropped them in disgust. They dangled at his chest from a cord made of braided grass and frayed rope fibers.
Ness plowed on, fully aware this was a stupid, impractical time to be having this conversation but desperate to get the words out before she caused him any more pain.
“But I thought I did. I meant to. I wanted to hurt you, to do something so heinous you could hate me and burn every memory of us from your mind. I didn’t want you to miss me. I wanted you to thank god I was out of your life, and I’m so, so sorry for that.” Ness looked in his eyes, terrified of what she’d see.
“I could never hate you.” He kissed her gently, then rested his forehead against hers for the length of a deep breath. She nearly burst into relieved, delirious tears.
Another tile pirouetted through the air, crashing onto a pile of rubble beside them.
“We need to go now,” Hayes said, looking pointedly at the destruction around them. He gave her hand a quick squeeze.
Ness nodded. “Yeah, right. Obviously. Life, death, et cetera.”
He got in front of Bradley, crouched, and somehow hoisted him onto his shoulders in a fireman’s carry.
He stood and tried to smile at Ness, but it ended up as more of a grimace as Bradley squirmed. Blood dripped down Hayes’s forearm and onto the floor.
“Your shoulders are so bony,” Bradley groused. “Put me down! I’ll walk!”
“You had your chance,” Hayes said, bouncing in place to get him repositioned.
A section of the upper-level interior wall started to peel away from its joists, dropping pieces of soaked plaster around them.
“Window or door?” Hayes asked.
Ness looked from the broken glass to the door that led farther into the disintegrating house.
Ian stuck his head through the closet door. His hair had dried into a wind-tousled swirl and he looked as exhausted as Ness felt. His face lit up at the sight of Hayes.
“You’re back! Awesome. Can you come tell Libby not to push Tyler off the roof?” He ducked back out, leaving the passage open.
“So, door, then.”
* * *
They plopped Bradley into the tall grass, well clear of the house, before plunging back into the dark hallways and mincing up the staircase. If it had been a safety risk before, climbing it now was a full-blown death wish.
Wind buffeted them, shooting down from the upper level and making their hair whirl around their heads. Ness could swear the entire structure was swaying beneath her feet, and she clung to the railing, like that would save her in the event of a collapse. She had never desired a hard hat, or shoes, so ferociously.
At the top, they discovered that Libby wasn’t in fact threatening to send Tyler plummeting off the roof. Her preferred escape hatch was a gaping hole in the wall of what used to be yet another gaudy bathroom, complete with a red, heart-shaped jacuzzi tub that now lay shattered on the steep hillside below. It looked as if the entire corner of the room had simply . . . dropped away.
“He did this,” Libby announced, prodding Tyler in the chest with a single finger. She’d backed him up to the very edge of the remaining floor, his heels mere inches from open air. He had his splotchy arms spread for balance. Water dripped off the end of his nose.
“He trapped us here. He filmed us. He lied and schemed and didn’t know how to drive the fucking boat, and this is all. His. Fault. And then!” Her voice took on a tone of shrill indignation. “Then he asked me to help him! To assist! He offered me a cut of the proceeds from the sale of any surviving footage. Like I need the money! Like I’d stoop so low!”
Libby’s lower lip trembled. Her clothes, like everyone’s, were soaked through, and when the wind slithered through the remains of the room, she shivered, wrapping her arms around herself.
“It was an accident,” Tyler whined. His demeanor had taken a sharp turn from the jubilant delinquent Ness had seen earlier. His eyes were darting back and forth. “Admittedly, I took advantage of the situation, but surely you can understand how desperate I was. You’ve all been there! You know how hard it is to make a name for yourself. Heck, some of you are nearing retirement and still haven’t succeeded!” He directed this at Ness, which seemed a bit below the belt. “Don’t tell me that you wouldn’t have done the same thing if you were in my shoes!”
He looked pleadingly at her and mouthed, Do something, as if she were on his side.
Ness pointed to her ear, shaking her head and shrugging. Can’t hear you! she mouthed back.
He screwed up his face, dropping any attempt to get the others to sign up for Team Tyler.
“None of you have vision. You can’t recognize genius when it’s staring you in the face. Literally!” He threw his head back, laughing maniacally, which quickly devolved into a coughing fit. “You should be thanking me,” he wheezed, bent double, hands braced on his knees.
Coco stepped toward Tyler, looking as though she’d happily join Libby in her journey to the dark side. “Did you bring us here on purpose? Bribe the boat captain? Hell, did you knock him out in the clubhouse and steal his keys?”
Tyler’s eyes widened. He put a hand to his chest, whether because he was affronted by the accusation or because his lungs were attempting to vacate his body, Ness couldn’t tell.
“I told you,” he wheezed. “I made the best of a horrible situation. These are unprecedented times. Morris trusted me to get you to Eclipse on time. He wouldn’t give that job to just anyone. This was critical! Obviously a test I had to pass. We’re talking career-making opportunities here! So did I provide the captain with a moderate cash incentive in order to keep us on schedule? Yes. I’m sure any of you would have done the same.”
“Um,” Ness started to disagree, but Tyler pressed on.
He sniffled, wiping his nose with the back of his hand. “No one appreciates how hard I work.” Glaring at each of them in turn, he pointed a shaky finger at the group. “I’ll make you famous beyond your wildest dreams. You’re so shortsighted.”
Now that the calamine was gone, Ness could see just how pale he was. A gust of wind made him sway, pushing him closer to the spot where the floor disappeared.
“We’re shining a light on truth,” he said weakly, legs folding as he crumpled to the floor. “Exposing the darkness that lies within,” he mumbled. “It’s only what you deserve. Better than you deserve.”
The rain had turned to a gentle mist and, in the distance, sunlight tried to poke through the blanket of clouds. Coco and Daisy stood off to the side. Daisy’s lips were pressed together into a thin, pale line and her eyes narrowed with concern. Her hand clenched Coco’s, keeping her in place.
Hayes had made his way to Libby’s side and, with the tactics Ness usually associated with calming spooked horses or stray dogs, moved her farther into the room, away from Tyler. He murmured into her hair as she turned into him, collapsing against his chest. Ness felt a tiny spark of jealousy that she shoved away. Stupid, she thought, as Tyler suddenly lurched to his feet and shoved past her, bouncing off the walls as he stumbled down the stairs.
* * *
One at a time, Ness, Hayes, Libby, Ian, Coco, and Daisy made their way back down the stairs—which were now definitely swaying—through the house, and out the front door. No one spoke. Immediate murder-crisis averted, they still had to make it out of the house before it collapsed around-slash-directly-onto them.
Bradley had managed to get to his feet, and he staggered toward them. His face was covered with sand and he was dragging his hand across his tongue, stopping every few steps to spit.
“That little turd!” He wiped at his eyes with his other hand. “I tried to grab him and he threw sand in my face! It’s scratching my corneas as we speak. My mouth feels like a litter box. What is this doing to my veneers?!”
Ness patted him on the shoulder and kept walking. “Glad you’re feeling better.”
They slumped down to the beach and collapsed into the sand. Hayes laced his fingers through hers and listed sideways, resting his head on her shoulder.
“Should we start another fire?” she asked, not wanting to move a muscle but also yearning for the dry heat.
“We could burn the house,” Coco suggested. She was lying flat on her back, arm draped over her eyes.
Daisy had plopped down beside Coco and stretched out her legs, propping herself up with long, tanned arms. Her hair had started to dry into natural beachy waves that glinted copper in the weak sunlight.
“What about Tyler?” she asked.
Ian looked out at the gray ocean, where the waves were still choppy and angry-looking.
“Where’s he going to go? I say we leave him. We have enough to worry about. Like where are we going to sleep and how long can we survive on iguanas and, shoot, do we even have water?” He started to sound panicky.
“Hey, guys,” Bradley interrupted. “Am I hallucinating or is Tyler riding a giant flamingo out to sea?”
Ness jolted to her knees and spun around, shading her eyes with her hand.
“Son of a . . .”
By the time she’d staggered to her feet, Hayes had already taken off down the beach, clumps of wet sand flying behind him. He disappeared around the corner at the tip of the island while Ness was still a couple hundred feet behind. She rounded the bend in time to see him dragging another paddleboat across the sand and into the water. Huffing and sweating, she reached him in time to hop on board.
Their vessel sported a toucan motif. Hayes’s brow was furrowed in concentration and he pedaled frantically. Unlike the flamingo, the toucan was built for (comparable) speed. Instead of a long, gangly neck, the nose of the boat itself was the beak. The rest of the vessel made up the head.
Tucked back into the trees, its contents strewn across the ground to the beach, were the fallen remains of the snake shack.
Tyler’s rash-covered knees pumped furiously as he pedaled his way toward freedom. He looked back over his shoulder, and when he caught sight of them, he rammed a celebratory fist into the air, then extended his middle finger.
His lips moved as he yelled something, but Ness couldn’t make it out over the wind.
She cupped her hands around her mouth. “I can’t hear you, you absolute moron!”
His lips pursed, and then, slowly, the flamingo made a one-eighty and started back toward them. When he was within shouting distance, he leaned slightly over the edge and called out, “I said, ‘See you in the tabloids!’”
He raised a plastic bag with one hand and rattled it. One of the corners was ripped, and a black cube fell out, plopping into the water.
“Shit!” He chased it, circling frantically in slow motion before giving up.
“I have hours of footage! Days! Not only will I be the most in-demand director of the decade—century!—I’m going to be Malibu rich!” He attempted an evil laugh but started coughing uncontrollably. His legs were still pedaling and he kneed himself in the face. When he looked back, blood was dripping from his nose. He swiped at it with the back of his hand.
“It’s amazing how the artistic vision morphs over time.At the beginning I thought small. But you’re all so gosh darn insufferable. Do you even see yourselves? Your lives are shells! Meaningless! You suck the joy from everything. Well, just you wait. If nothing else, this”—he rattled the bag again, more carefully this time—“will give you a lifetime of regrets to wallow in.You’ll love it.You’re welcome. Must be going now!”
Ness watched his ridiculous escape. The thought of pursuing a giant fiberglass waterfowl into open waters seemed one step too far. Maybe he’d get eaten by a giant squid or an oversized, hungry albatross. She had to trust that justice would find a way.
Hayes, it seemed, did not agree.
He was seated within the toucan’s beak in the pedaling position, hunched behind the sportscar-style windscreen. Ness stood behind him and gripped the back of his chair. The ocean breeze whipped her hair across her face, making it feel like they were going much, much faster than the reality, which was . . .
“Does that say three miles an hour?” She squinted at the instrument panel, which was made up of the—totally unnecessary—speedometer, a compass, and a peeling Metallica sticker.
They bounced over the low waves. A sleek, dark head poked out of the froth beside them. The dolphin kept pace for a few moments before streaking off, leaping playfully as it went.
Ahead, Tyler’s frenetic pedaling had slowed. The gap between the two boats started to close.
“This is it!” Ness bounced on the balls of her feet and slapped Hayes’s shoulder excitedly. “Let’s get him!” She leaned forward, willing the toucan to accelerate. She glanced at the speedometer: four miles per hour. Back on the beach, the others had gathered, presumably cheering them on, though she couldn’t hear them.
Hayes flicked a look back at her. “What do you mean ‘get him,’ exactly?”
Tyler stopped pedaling completely and stood to face them.
“God, I hate you!” he yelled, following the proclamation with a throaty, desperate yell. Fishing a hand into one of his cargo pockets, he pulled out something orange and, to Ness’s dismay, distinctly gun-shaped.
“Oh my god,” she moaned. “How many pockets do those things have?”
Ness rose to her tiptoes and cupped her hands around her mouth. “Stop being such an asshole, Tyler!”
Hayes muttered, “Don’t antagonize him!” He’d stopped pedaling and watched Tyler through narrowed eyes.
“But this is absurd! Where does he think he’s going to go in that stupid flamingo, anyway?”
Hayes glared and she stopped talking.
“We can work this out,” he called, the picture of calm.
Overhead, a small plane buzzed by, then slowly circled back. After days of waiting for exactly this moment, Ness couldn’t spare it a second thought. Now there was joyous screaming from the beach.
Tyler put a foot on his boat’s seat and rested his elbow on his knee, trying to steady his aim. The flare gun shook visibly in his hand. He looked about thirty seconds away from passing out.
The waves pushed them closer together. Hayes surreptitiously steered the toucan so it was perpendicular to the flamingo’s body.
“You’re sick, Tyler. We need to get you to a doctor, pronto.” He pedaled gently forward, closing the gap even more. Ness bent and extended her legs, limbering up, and watched the space between them shrink. Sweat poured down Tyler’s face.
“You’re hurting. You’ve been through hell this week.”
Tyler nodded in agreement. His face crumpled as he started to cry.
“No one recognizes my effort, you know?”
Ness quirked her lips down in sad understanding. “I do. We all underestimated you, and it’s easy to see now that we were so very wrong. Look at everything you pulled off! Right under our noses!”
He sniffled and wiped his nose with the arm that held the flare gun.
“This was my big chance to show everyone what I can do!”
Ness tried to look sympathetic. The boats had rotated so that what little sun there was shone directly into her eyes. She squinted, trying to keep a clear view of her target.
Hayes maneuvered closer. The toucan’s beak bumped the flamingo, sending Tyler staggering.
“Hey!” The flare gun came back up, aimed directly at where Ness had been standing, but she was already in motion. Bracing herself on Hayes, she jumped onto the edge of the boat and skirted the windscreen, landing on the top of the toucan’s beak.
It was more sloped and much slippier than she’d anticipated. Her toes tried to grip the surface, but the boat was sliding away from under her. Behind her, Hayes was yelling.
Tyler moved the flare gun slightly to the right and pulled the trigger. A bolt of heat shot past Ness’s left arm as she launched herself across the bow and wrapped her arms around Tyler’s ribs in the most vicious tackle she could manage in the tiny, wobbly space.
He fell backward, mouth a shocked O, and landed butt-first on the floor, sending the flamingo rocking merrily back and forth. The flare gun went skittering across the floor of the boat and slid off the rear swim platform. It bobbed happily in the water.
The toucan floated into view. A melted spiderweb of cracks radiated out from where the flare had struck the windscreen. The mottled shape perfectly obscured the area where Hayes’s face had been moments before. Luckily, the man himself seemed fully intact and had resumed his role as silver-haired mer-king, swimming toward them with strong, sure strokes.
Ness watched Tyler struggle for a moment as he tried to regain his footing, then cocked her arm and punched him directly in his annoying, shit-disturbing face. She was considering a bonus round when a dripping Hayes grabbed her elbow.
Faintly, she heard Coco’s exuberant string of expletives carry across the water.
“Shhhhh. We’re good. You got him.” He pulled her to her feet. “Look.” He nudged the smaller man, none too gently, with his toe to prove he was, in fact, unconscious. Which was great because, now that she thought about it, punching someone really hurt.