Chapter 17
The sky is black, the horizon something beyond black. My stomach churns, and not just from the waves, as the speedboat nears
the yacht, a stark spot of white and glowing lights in the swath of smokelike ocean. Callum squeezes my hand at the sharp
intake of breath I can’t hold back. To our left is the remnant of a town. It barely survived the last hurricane, Yelene, that
pummeled this area less than a month ago. Remnants of houses stick out of the ground like zombies half emerging from the grave,
doors and windows blank and open like broken jaws and wide, terrified eyes. Every coastal city expects a certain level of
storm, but Yelene surpassed everyone’s expectations. And Zelda makes landfall in less than an hour.
Callum looks at the city, and he must be thinking the same thing I am, because his hand finds my waist.
He was at my door in the morning, arms wrapping around me. I’m so sorry. That was all my fault. I should have been more careful, he’d said. He’d been up almost all night in a cabinet meeting about the security breach. His eyes were, and still are, ringed
with purple and red. And although it was clear we’d both had shitty nights, for the first time since I’d said good night to
him, I felt my muscles relax.
Now I look back at him. The speed of the boat pushes his golden hair off his forehead. He looks up at me—it’s too loud to
even try to talk—and kisses my hand.
The yacht only seems to grow as we approach, from a speck to a mammoth mass that could be its own island. I knew it would
be big—I’d seen the unedited footage in the server room—but it still knocks the wind out of me. Five stories of fiberglass
and chrome loom up at us out of the blackness, lit up like a Christmas tree. It makes me want to vomit. I’m the first to board,
after climbing an impossibly small ladder built into the belly. As I reach the top, I hear a squeal and look up. Mona Bellaccimi
flaps her hands as she teeters toward me, high heels clacking on the teakwood deck.
“Princess Ripley in the flesh oh my gaaaaah!” she caws, and I can’t say anything before she’s on me, her perfume enveloping
my senses like a noxious cloud of rosewater and baby powder.
“Oh, just Ripley is fine,” I say as she pulls back and scans my face. “I’m not a princess. This is a democracy, after all.”
“Of course,” she says conspiratorially, winking at me like we’re in on a private joke together.
Her false lashes make it look like a real workout, but like the rest of her makeup, they almost look real, like she was born with gigantic spiders on her eyes.
Her dark hair is pulled back into a low bun, and she wears a sport vest that barely zips over her ample chest.
She had seemed younger on my tablet screen, or maybe that was all the forced giggling and her constant coterie.
As if summoned, her sisters, Nova and Quinnie, approach. Quinnie has a glass of champagne permanently affixed to her mouth,
her diamond rings glittering even in the gloomy light. Nova is the youngest, her blond bob tucked behind her ears. She’s dressed
most sensibly in jeans and a sweatshirt, though I can tell the small wear and tear on the cuffs over her hands was built into
the design.
“Welcome,” Nova says, soft pink lips turning up as she holds her arms out, “to the Demeter.”
“Definitely worth the climb,” Callum huffs as he reaches the top of the ladder. I turn to give him a wry smile, but he’s beaming
at the sisters. “Ladies. Always a pleasure.”
Before I can question his sudden warmth, he’s pulled into a similar suffocating hug by Mona, and when I hazard a glance back
he fakes suffocation, sticking out his tongue, and I have to disguise a laugh as a cough.
Security follows after, and then the camera-wielding B-listers, appearing on the deck in an endless line that nonetheless never seems to crowd the deck. Mona laces her arm in mine, and Quinnie grabs Callum with her free hand, and we’re off on a tour before anyone can say a word.
The Demeter is less of a yacht and more of a floating city. There’s a ballroom, a tennis court, and a pool. But the main feature of the
yacht is the “disaster tourism” part: a glass dome that can encapsulate the entire ship and a rotating axis at the core that
always keeps the ship upright, regardless of the external weather.
“Only takes fifteen minutes to secure the dome. And then we could be in a Category Seven and you wouldn’t even spill your
espresso,” Mona brags.
Callum’s eyes widen as they find mine. “Seven is child’s play,” Callum says, continuing the full-charm offensive. “Considering
you three ladies are tens across the board.”
The sisters titter, pinching at Callum like a flock of crows descending. He offers me a shrug and a smile as they squawk about
his perfect suit, pull at the gold button on his lapel, fuss with the tuck of his shirt, even run fingers through his hair.
I chance a look over his shoulder. Becka leads the security detail, looking distinctly bored as she surveys the scene. Behind
her, trailing at the back, is Hux. He is wearing the same black beanie he wore in Alaska, and his scruff seems to have grown
in more overnight. I do a double take, because he wasn’t on the flight out this morning. How did he get here?
“And here we are!” Mona gushes, motioning out ahead.
I gawk as we pass the third fountain and enter the ballroom, which is full of people. I’ve seen their faces on my tablet before:
the CEO of a tech company and his wife; two senators who look like twins but are actually rivals; and a whole gaggle of visitors
from a startup company in Switzerland that sells athleisure backpacks of breathable air.
Suddenly Callum goes pale and returns to my side, grabbing my hand and leaning down to whisper, “My father’s here.” I look
up and scan the crowd, confused, just as Mona clinks clawlike nails on the edge of her glass. Why is the president at a party
in the middle of a hurricane?
“Y’all,” Mona calls, “welcome to the twenty-sixth hurricane bash of the year!”
The full ballroom erupts in applause and cheers, with the odd whoop sounding across the glass dome. I stare up at the grossly
high ceiling, the swaying chandelier. It’s a room designed for splendor, to amplify laughter, and it drips with cut glass
and gold. Outside, a storm is making landfall, and someone paid to put a chandelier in a weatherproof yacht all so rich people
could dance as the poor people die.
“We’ve seen it all this year, A through Z!” Mona is saying. “And while there are things I know we’d rather not remember—”
The first of the rainbands is battering the outside of the boat, and not even a single cut crystal of the chandelier dances.
But outside the broad windows, destruction is descending on our neighbors.
The yacht chugs past all of it, dragging us along so that it looks like a stretch of old film rolling in the background.
“—lookin’ at you, Babs!” Mona says, to much laughter. “Who could forget her canapé faux pas during Hurricane Celeste?”
Acid burns my throat. I’ve seen Mona on a tablet screen, so zoomed in that her eye took up every pixel, but this close, it’s
oppressive. I can smell her, the heat coming off her body, the spittle as she makes another joke while people die outside.
As I step away, Mona pauses, her eyes tracking me. Too late, I wonder if I was staged like a prize cow. Did they guarantee
a certain amount of airtime? Proximity to the propaganda princess? Callum, hands resolutely in his pockets, watches me go,
but he’s distracted by his father’s presence, so I can slip to the back of the crowd until I reach the far window. I put a
hand to the glass. Just fifteen feet away, the top half of a basketball hoop bobs in the brown water, a pink plastic tricycle’s
wheel stuck in the rusted metal.
“No other weather-chasing club has ever had the pleasure of completing an entire hurricane season!” Mona enthuses, still excited
about their run through the alphabet. “So, as a little treat, we have a friend here to congratulate us: President Graves himself!”
I look up just in time to see President Graves walk down a staircase on the other side of the ballroom. The whole place erupts in applause as he gives them a wave and returns the gesture with big, exaggerated claps, like he is pantomiming praise.
That’s how Hux is here. He must have taken the boat with the president.
I don’t realize Callum is right behind me until his voice vibrates through my chest. “You okay?” he asks, putting his hands
on my hips from behind. I lean back against him. In case anyone’s watching, but also to ground myself. As always, Callum is
warm and steady. My Callum.
I shake my head in reply. Not here. Callum seems to get it, humming and planting a kiss on my hair just as a flash of lightning splits the sky. Like it’s just
a show, several guests let out appreciative applause; one woman gives a light shriek.
“Shall we go to the observation deck?” Mona suggests, clapping her hands.
Callum meets my gaze with a question, jerking his head, and I nod grimly.
The observation deck is a giant shelflike structure that protrudes from the side of the third deck, and I stop before I step
out onto it—it’s all glass. Every inch.
“It’s safe,” Callum says, holding my hand and stepping out in front of me as if to demonstrate its structural integrity. “It’s
a polymer. They made the newest space station out of it.”
I follow, looking down as I put my full weight on the clear surface.
It holds, and the fear quiets in the back of my mind, even as the ocean churns below, a gunmetal gray with tips of white foam.
The ruined, half-floating coast is even easier to see from here, and I’m transfixed by it enough that I don’t even clock that I’m walking farther out onto the deck.
“This is . . .” I start.
Callum squeezes my hand. “I know,” he says, his voice low, as we reach the far edge of the deck.