Chapter 17 #3
We arrived by boat. It’s still tethered to the port side. I take off at a sprint. The sky above is an angry dark swirl; rain that had before only pattered down on the glass overhang is now a roar, too loud for me to hear my thoughts. But I’m done thinking. I need to act.
Overhead, the dome is encroaching; it passes directly overhead, sweeping like the hands of a clock, every minute ticking closer
and closer to closed. I can make it. I have to make it. For insurance, and a pathway back since I can’t trust my eyes, I grab
on to loose rigging, knotting it around my waist, and clamber down the ladder.
At first, I wonder if the speedboat is even still here, but then it slams into my shin and I curse, fumbling for the slick
face of it. I fight to uncouple it from the yacht but I barely have time to celebrate my victory or even gasp a last lungful
of air before the world is swallowed up by water. I didn’t see the wave that pushed me overboard, but now I’m a part of it.
It rips at my hair, at my limbs, painfully jerking me down, around—and then up.
Up. Up. Up.
I break through the surface and gasp in a breath as Callum and Hux yank me back up onto deck by the rope, their arms flexing
with the exertion, as the dome clatters closed just behind me.
Callum gathers me up into his arms, our soaking bodies pressed together, his hands in my hair. “You almost died, jumping in
like that!”
I nod. He’s not wrong. As he pulls me into a hug, a whole crowd presses against the glass of the ballroom windows, staring at me in confusion and horror. So much for being a propaganda princess. I’m more of a drowned frog.
“But what about . . .” I try weakly as the storm batters the closed dome overhead.
“Callum!” a voice calls. The president, standing in the doorway, and his eyes are stormier than the skies.
Callum looks at me, torn. “I’m fine,” I say through teeth that are suddenly chattering. “Just go—”
I try a step toward the warmth of the ballroom, but the rope stops me, and I swear when it tows me back, my slick feet going
out from under me. Before I can faceplant, Hux yanks the rope around my middle, towing me close to him by my hips and staring
me down.
“What the hell was that?” he bites, pulling his blade from his holster and flipping it open. For a moment, I wonder if we’re
going to continue where we left off last night. Instead, he saws at the rope.
I wait for anger, but I don’t see any. His eyes flash as he looks me up and down. “You aren’t a strong swimmer,” he says in
a low voice. I don’t argue with him. We’ve done all the same training. He’s seen my abysmal freestyle.
Before I can object, Hux folds to my shin. I hadn’t even realized I was bleeding, but he starts probing it gently with his
fingers.
“I had to try,” I say, my voice small.
He stills at that, something softening in his shoulders. “I don’t think it’s broken,” he says finally. “But, Ripley.” He looks up at me, green eyes a beacon in the storm. “Don’t you dare pull something like that. Ever again.”
This completed, he leads me back to the ballroom, where I drop, sopping and exhausted, into an upholstered chair that I’ll
probably stain with seawater. Music pipes gently into the space, and couples swirl up into dancing. Callum offers his hand,
but when I decline, he dances with each of the sisters, then works his way through the crowd, never resting. Whatever his
father said to him, he’s on his best behavior, mask in place. I’m too drained to even fake a smile. Instead, I stare up at
the chandelier as we race through the hurricane wall. Perversely, it remains fixed, frozen, not even swaying with the motion
of the boat.
“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?” a voice says, and President Graves eases himself down into a chair next to me. My full-body flinch
nearly sends me careening off my seat. “You’re all right, right?”
“I’m fine—”
“I mean,” he continues, voice flinty, “my son told me he had you handled. Is that true?”
I bite my tongue.
He sighs. “There was something, something I was hoping would never get out. All of this”—he sweeps a hand at me—“it was insurance,
let’s call it. And part of me, well, I’d hoped I’d never need to use . . . all of this.”
My heart races. Does this mean Lyceum succeeded? Did they find the dirt they needed? Did Callum give it to them?
With a groan, he pushes up. “Oof. I’m not as young as I used to be,” the president says.
“But I’ve still got a few tricks.” His sharp eyes find mine.
“When we get service again, I hope you remember what my son promised me. That you’re handled.
Because you’re not useful if you forget that. After all, think of the optics.”
I’m frozen with horror, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I scan the ballroom for Hux, hoping to catch his eye, to ask to
borrow his tablet, but he’s nowhere to be found.
It turns out I don’t have to wait that long.
I notice the stares first, the way that Quinnie looks at me, clapping a hand over her mouth. Ms. Beighlor laughs cruelly and
points so sharply it feels like I’m being stabbed.
Panic pushes me to my feet and I stride over to Mona, air already slipping along my lungs. I’m nearly hyperventilating when
I reach her tablet.
There’s an image of me in my bedroom in Post Angeles in my pajamas, sprawled across my bed. The strap of my top falls, exposing
my shoulder.
I remember those pajamas. I threw them out when I spilled nail polish on them. When I was sixteen.
“So romantic,” someone is saying.
And it’s my face, my body, my bedroom splashed all over their screens.
“Star-crossed lovers,” someone else says.
Mona turns to me with a smile. “You know,” she says, “I can ask the chef to whip up some pancakes. I’m sure we’ve got plenty of syrup.”
My stomach drops.
Mona’s eyes find Callum as he cuts over to us. “For both of you,” she adds.
“Callum?” I squeak out. “What are they talking about?”
His expression falls. “Ripley,” he says, “I can explain.”