Chapter 13
“I’m not wearing a bathing suit,” I protest, even as I follow her.
I don’t mention that I didn’t even bring a bathing suit—it’s on the list of things the chief stew Mika is supposed to get for me. Books are on that list too; a bunch of new releases. Viv said nothing about me reviewing A Song of Scales and Salt, and for that, I was grateful.
But for right now, I am both book-less and bikini-less.
Piper doesn’t seem to care. “It’s only us. Go naked.”
She’s not looking at me; she’s busy heading to the yacht’s lifelines, wires that are permanently rigged fore and aft on either side of the deck. I’m glad Piper is not watching the flood of red rushing to my cheeks at the thought of being naked around this girl.
“Uh, no thank you.”
“Fine,” Piper huffs, like I’m being unreasonable. “Keep your underwear on, then. Who cares? Come on.”
“Hey, where are you going?” I ask as she strides to the edge of the deck. “Isn’t there a swim platform or something?”
“Sweetie, we’re on a fucking yacht. You don’t climb off and gently lower yourself into the water. You jump.”
She places a toe on the bottom line of stainless-steel cable that encircles the main deck, stepping up, swinging her legs over.
Piper twists so that she’s dangling over the water, arms pulled back behind her, gripping the wire railing.
With one hand, she removes her sunglasses and tosses them over her shoulder. They clatter to the deck at my feet.
Gucci. She threw Gucci sunglasses like they were nothing.
“Are you sure that’s safe—”
Before I can finish my sentence, Piper lets go, and I run over to the edge of Empress in time to watch her flip spectacularly in midair, diving into the ocean with a little plonk.
“Come on, newbie,” Piper yells up at me when she resurfaces, golden hair slicked against her skull. She floats on her back, moving effortlessly through the water as if it was a second skin. “Show me what you’re made of.”
I can’t help glancing at the caissons, a shiver going through my bones. But there’s nothing there. With the sun out and the waves calm, the water is crystalline and shimmering. If anything was floating under the surface, I would see it.
My clothes slip off. I toss them on a deck chair, wondering if any of the other girls are watching from inside, wondering what they think of my boy shorts and bralette, my pasty white skin, my decidedly un-muscled stomach.
The thought makes me scramble, desperate to get in the water where I can hide.
I mimic Piper, grabbing the cable and swinging a leg over the top of the lifeline.
But the hot metal of the cable sears into my palms. I panic, not expecting the pain, and suddenly I’m off balance, releasing my grip.
The yacht disappears behind me, and I fall like a rock, so fast I have barely enough time to curl up and hold my breath as I smack into the surface of the ocean.
The water is shockingly cold. Bubbles stream up my nose, my limbs flail as I fight to right myself, and I open my eyes, briefly, water stinging. Everything is white, as if I’m swimming through salt.
This is it. This is how Sage felt at the end.
The thought comes so fast and so violently that I open my mouth, swallowing huge gulps of briny water. My arms are like lead, my heart is hammering against my rib cage. I thrash, but my legs aren’t working. I’m blinded by bubbles, unsure of where I am, a vise taking hold of my lungs.
Like Sage.
My skin is numb, but I can feel a pair of arms wrapping around my waist, yanking, and suddenly my head is breaking the surface.
“Jesus, girl, don’t you know how to swim??”
Great, spasming coughs rack my body as I retch out seawater.
The corners of my eyes are stinging fiercely, and hot drops dribble down my cheeks.
My lungs expand, shaking off the creature that had sunk its teeth into them, and I allow another coughing fit to stab through me as feeling starts to return to my body.
Slowly, I become aware of Piper’s warmth; she’s cradling me. She’s floating on her back, treading water, keeping both of us afloat. She must be even stronger than I thought. She rescued me like it was nothing.
When my lungs are clear enough, I rasp, “Thank you. I’m so sorry, I got disoriented.”
“I’ll bring you over to the ladder.”
I want to protest that I’m okay, but she’s already half-dragging me through the water toward Empress. When we reach the yacht, she links my arm around the bottom rung of a small ladder attached to the hull that leads up to a swim platform higher above us.
Piper releases me, treading water again, watching my face.
“I’m okay,” I insist, dangling from the rung, glad there’s no gap between Empress and ocean today. I’m attached to the boat like a barnacle, lower half floating in the surf.
But I’m not okay. The thought of Sage obliterated my brain and body. There are shock waves crashing through me. Every summer since we met, Sage and I had gone swimming together, but I had avoided water since her death for obvious reasons.
And then Piper asked me to jump off the side of the boat after the story I told earlier.
I shake the thought from my waterlogged brain. I’m sure Piper didn’t mean to trigger anything.
“Can’t have you drowning on your second day. Viv would kill me.” Piper’s hair fans out on the surface around her like yellow tendrils of seaweed.
The waves gently rock us up and down as we drift there, face-to-face.
Another cough forces itself from my throat, and I keep the inside of my elbow hooked around the ladder, anchored even as the current tenderly pulls at my legs. “How deep is this water?”
“The caissons can’t be in open ocean.” Piper spins in a circle a few feet away, her head tilted back to the sky. “We’re about twenty feet from the ocean floor. Maybe twenty-five. Look down, you can see it today.”
Even though the surface is inches from my face, I glance down. She’s right. The sandy floor is visible through the crystal water. It makes me feel better, being able to see the bottom. And being able to see that it’s only us in the water. No clumps of seaweed shaped like women rapping on the boat.
You better hope that wasn’t Sage.
“Stop!” I don’t realize I’ve said it out loud until Piper smirks.
She leans backward so that her feet flip up to the surface and says, “And they all think I’m the messed-up one.”
I’m too shaken to feel embarrassed. “All right, what’s your deal?”
Piper swims farther away from me, Ligia behind her, and the distant palm trees frame her face.
“Nothing exciting. Same sad story a million girls have: daddy issues, looking for external validation in all the wrong places, a desire to be noticed and loved. Before Empress, my choices were sugar baby or begging my father to let me back in his life. I didn’t like either of those options, so I came up with something else.
” She nods at the lavish yacht above us.
“It turned out to be a big mistake, but c’est la vie. ”
“Mistake?”
She grins; her teeth are pearly white and stand out against her tanned skin. “Did I say mistake? Must have been a Freudian slip.”
“Listen, is there something I need to know, because—”
“Check that out,” Piper interrupts, nodding at the water, her eyes fixed on something I can’t see.
“What? Shit, is it…” I twist on the ladder, sending bubbles flying everywhere, squinting into the waves.
The woman. The face in the water. Is Piper—
“Stop wiggling around and you’ll be able to see it,” Piper demands. “Something’s on the bottom of the ocean floor. It’s glinting. Maybe we’re above buried treasure.” She raises her brows at me, smirking. “People shipwrecked here all the time, I bet.”
My pulse steadies. I can’t decide if I’m relieved or disappointed. It’s not that I want there to be a face in the water, but it would be nice to know I’m not losing my mind either.
“How can you see anything at the bottom with all the waves and ripples?”
Piper ignores me. She takes a deep breath.
“Wait, you’re not—”
She flips over and plunges into the ocean.
Still holding the ladder, I sink down lower into the water and duck my head under, opening my eyes again, tracking her progress.
The salt stings, and it’s hard to see through the millions of little bubbles, but I can make out Piper’s lithe shape cutting her way toward the ocean floor.
I have to come up for air way before Piper returns.
When her head finally breaks the surface, gulping down fresh oxygen, I am officially in awe of her. Last night she could barely stand, this morning she was drinking a glass of straight vodka, and now here she is free diving as easily as if she was walking down the street.
“That was amazing!” I exclaim. “Did you reach the bottom?”
“You tell me.” Piper holds something shiny in her hand. She wasn’t lying—the sunlight is indeed glinting off it.
“What is it?” I ask as she swims over to me and shoves it in my palm.
She shrugs, water pouring off her shoulders to rejoin the ocean. “Some kind of bracelet, obviously. But who knows. Maybe it’s an ancient cock ring.”
I almost drop it, but manage to keep my fingers wrapped around its smooth surface.
The bracelet is a thick, golden cuff. It’s surprisingly heavy, which makes me think it must be pretty expensive.
There are no markings on it, so it’s hard to tell how old it is.
Although if it was ancient, it would probably be far more patinaed and beat up.
I move to hand it back to Piper, but she shakes her head.
“Keep it,” she says. “A gift to make up for almost killing you.”
I’m not sure I want the bracelet; it’s definitely not my style, but I also don’t want to be rude and drop it back down into the depths after Piper dove to get it. I slip the bracelet over my free hand so it comes to rest on my wrist. “Thanks.”
“Don’t mention it. Seriously. Don’t.” She bares her teeth and gives me a wink that somehow manages to be threatening and sarcastic at the same time.
Piper is intimidating, but I sense she’s the kind of person who appreciates straight shooters and respects bluntness. I go for it. “What’s the actual deal with Elena? Why did that conversation earlier feel so weird?”
The expression that spreads over Piper’s face is guarded and sharp. “No idea. Maybe you imagined it.” She looks up at the sky. “Hm. Rain is coming. We better get out and get back to work.”
Piper swims up to me, her face so close I could count her eyelashes if I wanted to. Being a touch away from her feels like facing the sun. Fire escapes her skin and her eyes blaze.
I release the ladder and swim backward, letting her climb up, finally recovered enough to feel certain I’m not going to immediately drown.
Water sprinkles down on me as Piper climbs up the ladder, the rungs shaking under her weight.
“Oh, by the way,” she says, glancing back at me, “you should examine the Empress girls’ pages.
To get a sense of how we all post. It’ll help you come up with your own stuff.
” She reaches the top of the ladder, stands dripping on the platform, squeezing out her long hair.
“All the girls. Elena’s page is worth looking at, even if she’s not here anymore—you can find her tagged in older posts on the Empress page. ”
And then she’s gone, up the stairs that will take her to the deck, leaving me floating alone in the ocean, her words settling over me like feathers from a seagull.