Chapter 27
“You…you killed Elena?” I ask, my voice wavering.
“You still don’t understand,” Piper says, sighing. She looks off to Ligia, eyes hazy.
“Help me understand. Please, Piper.”
She glances back at me, and there is real sympathy in her eyes, a gentleness I haven’t seen from her before. “I am sorry you got swept up in this. Collateral damage.”
My stomach drops, and something she said a minute ago floats back to the front of my brain. “Hang on. Piper. You said no one was coming for us. Did you…did you destroy the bridge?”
“I had to,” Piper says sadly. “When the storm started, I thought it could be a way to start over. Clean away what happened. We don’t deserve to be rescued.”
“The storm is quieting,” I point out. “And someone will come for us eventually.”
“No,” Piper corrects me, and her voice is changing now, turning deeper and more guttural. “They won’t. I called the Coast Guard before I destroyed everything and told the emergency line that we were already evacuating and there was no need to send assistance.”
The whites of her eyes are bulging, little legs of red creeping through them.
Her voice is pitching, raising with fervor.
“I said we had transport back to the mainland thanks to Trey’s deep pockets, and they should divert any resources to people who really needed them.
Then I took a hammer and smashed everything to pieces. ”
“No…” I groan. “No, we would have heard that.”
“The bridge is soundproof when the door is closed,” Piper explains. “You think Trey wants all the rich people hearing the beeping instruments and radio calls whenever the yacht needs maintenance or needs to be moved? Once that door is shut, no sound is getting out.”
“Jesus, Piper, why would you do that?”
“Because we don’t deserve this,” she repeats. Her voice is broken and sharp, pieces of pottery scattered on the deck.
“Tell me what happened.”
Instead of answering, Piper suddenly steps forward, wrapping her arms around me tightly. I flinch, expecting an attack, but instead she hugs me, fiercely, her neck pressed against my face. I can smell her—sweat and alcohol and something faintly floral, a perfume that has almost washed away.
Piper squeezes me closer. “Top drawer of the end table next to my bed,” she murmurs in my ear, making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, despite the rain’s attempts to flatten it. “2-0-3-3-5-5.”
“What—”
She releases me, and I stagger backward. Piper spins away, her bare flesh stretching as her muscles bunch together, and she launches herself toward the side of the yacht.
“Stop!” The scream tears itself from my throat and I jolt forward, but she’s so far ahead of me already, she’s so fast.
Rivulets of rain snake down Piper’s back as she swings out over the railing, like she did the other day. And before I can reach her, before I can say anything else to stop her, Piper jumps.
I almost break a knee slipping on the wet deck, racing over to the edge, getting to the railing in time to watch Piper jackknife down into the turbulent water, a straight arrow that disappears into the surf with barely a splash.
The rooftop deck isn’t that high; we’re about twenty, maybe twenty-five feet above the water, and Piper is a water-based athlete, but it’s shallow here and I’m terrified she’s hit the bottom of the ocean and broken all her bones.
For a moment, I’m paralyzed with indecision. Is there a life vest anywhere on this damn boat? There must be, somewhere, right? I’ve yet to see any rescue or safety equipment; I guess it’s not “glamorous” enough.
Piper’s head breaks the surface ten feet away from Empress, and an exhale whooshes out of my chest so fast my knees buckle.
She’s alive.
For now.
I watch helplessly, her blond head bobbing on the surface, as she’s flung to the side by a large cresting wave.
“Piper!” I scream, but the wind has picked back up again and her name is ripped from my mouth and carried away like a mouse by a hawk.
I squint through the rain. My jaw drops open—Piper is swimming.
Away from Empress, toward the dark blot before us that represents Ligia.
Her powerful arms are visible, thrashing through the water as she propels herself forward.
She keeps getting knocked underneath by the rough waves, and this can’t end well.
She’s strong, she’s used to violent waves from surfing, but this is different.
There’s no way she’ll make it to Ligia in hurricane-level weather.
Piper is sucked under the surface again, and this time, she doesn’t come back up.
“Piper!”
Fuck, fuck! I have to do something!
I spin around and run back inside, wet feet slapping as I slide into the relative warmth and safety of the yacht.
I don’t bother closing the sliding doors; the storm is already inside the upper living area and I don’t have time.
I only slow down on the stairs, which are already slippery even when I’m not soaking wet.
I won’t be able to get help for Piper if I break my neck.
I’m screaming by the time I hit the lower level, so loud that the others spill out of the billiard room, crowding the mouth of the hallway.
“Piper’s in the water!” I shout. “We need to help her!”
The others look at me with wide eyes and gaping mouths. Fiona’s misery has cleared, replaced by concern. Rachel and Ashley are clutching each other’s arms again. Even Viv is ruffled, brushing her hair back and quickly tying it up with an alarmed expression on her face.
“What are you talking about?” Viv asks. “Piper fell in?”
For the smallest second, I pause. Piper didn’t tell me exactly what happened, but she certainly held some animosity toward the others, enough that she jumped overboard to try to get away from them. But I don’t know if revealing that is the best move.
Instead, I lie. “Yeah. I saw her out there, and she was wobbling. I think she was drunk. I went outside to bring her back, but before I could get to her, she fell over the railing and into the water. We have to help her!”
“She’s in the water?” Trey asks, pushing past the others; he must have heard me, even from the bridge.
“We have to see if we can help her,” Viv says, face tight and lips folding together.
“Viv…” Trey says.
“Trey,” she snarls back. “We have to try.”
“That water…”
He doesn’t need to say it. I saw. I saw how Piper was struggling. The chances of her surviving out there are slim to none.
“She was still alive when I came down here,” I say, putting iron in my voice.
Piper might not have much of a chance, she might be a murderer, she might have stranded us all out here, but that doesn’t mean we should sit back and do nothing.
“She was swimming to Ligia. Maybe she thought that was her best shot. But we have to go now.”
Viv nods, finally in agreement with me. “If the tender hasn’t been ripped away from Empress, I might be able to go out there and get her.”
“Let’s go,” I say, urgently.
“It’s too dangerous!” Trey cries, looking at me in the eye for the first time since the incident in my room. “You’ll be flipped over in a second; the tender can’t handle waves like this.”
“What about the motorboat you and C-Carl arrived on?” Ashley asks.
“It’s tied up behind Empress,” Trey replies. “But that boat isn’t rated for weather like this either!”
“We have to try,” Viv hisses.
“What if the tender is gone?” Rachel asks, her voice cracking.
“We cross that bridge if we come to it,” Viv announces, skirting around me, running down the hallway without another word. Her footfalls smack on the stairs as she heads to the main level.
“Dammit,” Trey mutters, and tears after Viv.
“Come on,” Ashley says, turning to Rachel and pulling her twin’s hand toward her heart. Ashley’s eyes are puffy and red, but there’s a determination in them. “Viv is right. Piper’s family. We have to try.”
The twins follow Trey.
Fiona is clinging to the wall, crying again, but she spares me a glance. “You should get dry, Charlie. You don’t look so good.”
The rainwater is being frozen to my skin by the air-conditioning, lowering my body temperature, but that’s not why I’m shivering so hard.
I’m picturing Piper, flailing under the water, trying desperately to swim to safety, trying to escape certain death.
I’m picturing her mouth opening underwater like mine did the other day, like Carl must have done after the party.
I can almost feel the ocean thrusting itself down Piper’s throat, choking her, breathing her in I squeeze my eyes shut, and she blooms in my mind; only she’s not Piper.
She’s Sage.
Bloated face, blue lips, wrinkled fingers—limp body sagging in the undulating waves on Lake Michigan.
It’s not hard to imagine. Not after seeing Elena.
“No! Not another one. We can’t let her drown,” I shriek, the world swaying as I hold a hand against the wall to steady myself. “She can’t! It’s my fault; she can’t drown; it’s all my fault!”
“They’re going,” Fiona soothes, sniffling, stifling her own tears and approaching me gently. “You couldn’t have done anything else.”
I should be more appreciative of her attempts to console me through her own unbelievable pain and loss, but I’m too agitated. I can’t stop thinking about Piper. About Sage. About Elena. “We have to go! We have to help her right now!”
“Charlie…” Fiona’s voice is as scraped and punishing as a cliff face.
“No, no, we can’t give up.” I turn away and stumble down the hallway.
“Charlie!” Fiona calls after me, but I’m already on the main level, already avoiding Carl’s body (When will it start to smell? Shouldn’t we do something with him?), already racing toward the main deck doors.
I step outside, back into the brunt of the storm. The wind is almost worse down here than it was on the rooftop deck, and I plunge against it, working my way to the small staircase on the starboard side of the yacht where Viv, Trey, and the twins are standing, huddled together against the rain.
“Is the tender there?” I shout over the wind as I approach. “Can you see Piper?”
“No sign of her,” Trey tosses over his shoulder, back hunched against the wind. “But the boat is still here.” He points down the staircase.
The tender is being tossed and lifted by the waves, and it’s clearly been banging against the side of Empress too because there are black scrapes along the yacht’s hull.
“What are you waiting for?” I ask, raising my voice over the whistling wind. “We have to go!”
As if trying to punctuate my words, a clap of thunder rings overhead, making the twins jump.
“Charlie,” Trey says, and I flinch at his tone.
“No.”
“It’s too dangerous. There’s no way.”
“Please!”
“I think he’s right,” Ashley says, her words dropping like stones in my stomach. Her voice is loud over the rain but missing the edge she’s used before. She’s staring at me, mouth drooping and eyes wet.
Even Viv looks defeated now, staring down at the waves. I hope for her bossy attitude, her insistence we try, but she stays silent.
“Look, the thunder and lightning is a good sign in that it means the hurricane is probably moving away from us, but we can’t risk being out on the water in these conditions,” Trey explains, and he appears genuinely upset.
His eyes keep flicking to the boiling surface of the ocean as if perhaps it has calmed down in the last few seconds.
“There’s not even any lightning!” I protest. Right on cue, a forked flash of white light illuminates the sky behind Ligia.
“I’m sorry,” Trey says, shoulders sagging. “We can’t risk losing any more people. Maybe she’ll make it to Ligia. We can pick her up after the storm dies down. She’ll be safe there.”
“That’s a difficult swim, even on a good day,” I snap. “That’s what Fiona said, remember? There are riptides and rocks and you think she’s going to be able to make that in a storm?”
“She’s a strong swimmer. Stronger than Carl and I put together. If anyone can make it, she can.” Trey’s voice is resigned. Like he’s trying to convince himself but doesn’t have the motivation to do so.
“I saw her go under,” I finally admit, hoping it’ll spur him to move faster, reconsider.
“Then maybe it’s too late anyway,” Trey said. He turns to me, frowning now. “You’d have us risk our lives for someone who might already be gone? We can’t throw away the few advantages we have in this situation to rescue a drunk!”
“Fuck you,” I spit.
The fight goes out of Trey and he shrugs. “I wish it were different. But I’m not going to die to save a girl who’s already dead.”
A thrum of anger builds in my chest. I’m so sick of this man being the one to call the shots.
Two people have already died on this boat, and he might have something to do with it.
Now a third may be drowning as we speak.
How can he be so cavalier about the lives lost?
“So much for her making it to the island, huh?”
Trey avoids my glare and starts to walk away.
I look to the twins and Viv for help, but they’re wearing similar expressions of hopelessness and regret. Rachel is pressing her hands against her eyes, shoulders shaking.
“It’s not safe,” Viv chokes out. For once, she is emoting something real, something I can feel emanating from her in waves as heavy as the ones below us.
Over Viv’s shoulder, Fiona stands in the open door, head bowed, watching us through the storm. The deck itself shows evidence of the violence around us—the potted plants and chair cushions are gone, swept away like Piper in the water.
They’ve all made their decision. And there’s nothing I can do about it.
Piper is gone.