Chapter 19
By the time Viv and I get to the main level, everyone else is already there, even Piper, though she pretends she’s downstairs to refill her drink.
“Everyone else lost service too, then?” Viv guesses, looking around at the forlorn faces shining under the cool kitchen lighting.
“I thought it would last longer,” Trey admits, running a hand through his hair, shuffling awkwardly from foot to foot. “The storm must be picking up.”
“No shit,” Carl says, nodding to the floor-to-ceiling windows that surround us. He looks tired; he has bags under his eyes and the corners of his mouth are drooping. His head bobs as he waves a hand at the windows with great effort. “Hear that?”
We all pause for a minute, listening to the violent pinging of water on the glass, the howling of the wind, the slap of waves against the hull.
“It’s getting worse,” Rachel confirms, her voice trembling. She’s hunched next to her twin, as if she’s hoping to fold into herself and disappear. Ashley has her arms wrapped around Rachel’s shoulders, her chin resting on her sister’s head.
Watching the two of them together, I can’t help but think of Ashley as a bird, wings outstretched to offer shelter to her chick.
Viv’s brow creases. “Trey,” she says, a questioning note in her voice.
Whether it’s pleading or a warning, I can’t tell.
Viv and Trey have openly butted heads in front of us, both of them intent on proving their dominance.
Maybe that’s to be expected in a high-pressure situation like this.
I didn’t get a chance to see them interact under normal circumstances.
“Yeah, okay, I’ll call for help,” the billionaire says, acquiescing to Viv. “They’ll probably need extra guidance in this mess anyway.”
He’s got a point—it’s only a little after five o’clock, but the sky is so dark it might as well be midnight, and when I glance out the windows looking for the island, there’s nothing but a blotch of gray.
“How are we supposed to call for help if none of our cell phones work?” I ask.
“Radio, remember?” Trey replies, tapping the side of his head and giving me a wan smile. I remember him mentioning something about the bridge earlier, but he must see my skepticism because he beckons to me. “Come on, I’ll show you.”
“Yes, let’s all go,” Viv offers quickly, waving to the others. “We should stick together.”
“Why?” Piper grumbles. “It’s not like we’re in a forest being tracked by wolves. If Empress blows away, who cares where in the boat we are?”
“Fuck, Piper, don’t talk like that,” Ashley says, her eyes darting toward her sister’s increasingly drawn face.
Ashley draws herself taller, wrapping her arm tighter around Rachel.
Once again, she appears to brace herself, as if she’s actively flooding her words with an acidic tone.
“We’re going to be fine. This is a precaution. Right, Trey?”
“That’s right,” he responds immediately. There’s a confidence in his voice I don’t like. It sounds hollow. “Don’t worry, girls. It’ll all get taken care of.”
I catch Fiona’s eye; she curls her perfectly made-up lip, and I nod at her.
She hears it too: the condescension in Trey’s voice.
Something about the way he calls us “girls.” But the group of us line up to follow him anyway.
He is, after all, our boss, even if he’s not that much older than us and doesn’t really act like a manager.
He’s got that effortless, privileged, rich white dude affect—he’s not concerned about anything, and he expects us to follow suit.
Trey leads us downstairs to the lower level, past the hallway of bedrooms and into the billiards room.
I catch a surreptitious glance between Ashley and Carl over Rachel’s head; they are remembering their illicit hookup in here.
As if she can feel my eyes boring into her, Ashley turns, catching me watching them. Again. I look away quickly, flushing.
“Come here, Charlie, I’ll show you the bridge,” Trey calls out to me. “It’s hidden, like the crew quarters.”
Eager to escape Ashley’s scrutiny, I slip past Fiona and Viv and stand beside our boss, who is gesturing to a door I hadn’t noticed in the corner of the billiards room.
Like the door to the crew quarters on the main level, this one is camouflaged into the molding on the wall, the handle a little cleft in the surface that pops up and pulls back.
“This opens into the engineering room,” Trey explains. “It’s how we access the bridge. You can’t make the inner workings of a boat look very glamorous, so we hide it. This is where Empress’s brain lives.”
He pulls the door open and leads me into a completely different world.
Everything is exposed. There are pipes running through the ceiling, industrial stainless-steel containers, machine parts, and a grated metal floor that clangs when we step on it. There are no windows, and the storm is quieter here. Instead, there is a gentle humming sound.
It’s not a room; it’s a whole different section of the boat, tucked away and hidden.
“Over here,” Trey says, leading me around the corner of one of the large metal containers.
The others have stayed behind in the billiards room, but I follow Trey up a rickety steel staircase that leads to a second door, which belches us out into a wide, curved space with a full-length window showcasing the brutal storm raging outside.
A captain’s chair perches on a raised platform and a strip of cushioned seating lines the wall next to the door.
“Wheelhouse window and observation deck,” Trey says, gesturing.
“This is where the captain hangs out when we’re moving.
It’s the control room. There are sat phones and radios we can use to communicate with the Coast Guard.
Or whoever else might be listening.” He winks at me.
For some reason, it sends a chill up my arms. “Don’t worry, I know this looks complicated, but I can—”
He glances toward the wheelhouse window and freezes. I almost bump into him.
Peering around his thin frame, my eyes land on the large bank of digital screens and displays.
There are two big touch-screen panels along with a series of dials, knobs, and a bunch of other stuff I can’t even guess the name of.
I wonder what the display screens facing the captain’s chair would have showed if they hadn’t been smashed to bits.
Every monitor, every display, looks like it’s been punched by Iron Man. The control panels themselves have been opened up—there are twists of colored wires sticking out, and other pieces of equipment have been smashed, as if with a hammer.
“What the FUCK!” Trey yells, his hands up in his hair again, tearing at his roots. “What happened here?”
His wail is so loud it brings the stamping feet of the others, clanging through the engineering bay. The bridge floods with voices and footsteps behind us.
“Is…is that…”
“Oh my God!”
“What happened?”
But I don’t think anyone has to explain what happened. It’s pretty obvious.
Someone intentionally destroyed the radio, the control panels, and our chance of escape.