Chapter 32
“Don’t do anything rash, okay? Here, take it.”
I edge forward, phone outstretched, my body craning away from the diminutive gun in Viv’s hand. I can’t see it clearly in the low lighting, but it’s almost laughably small. I can’t believe I’m being threatened with something that looks like a gun for dolls.
Viv leans forward and snatches Piper’s phone from my hand.
“Stay right there,” she instructs me. Then she backs up, still pointing the gun at my face as she taps away at Piper’s phone.
“There. Deleted.” She pauses, does a double take, lifting the phone screen higher to her face before lowering it and staring at me. “Her phone has service.”
“Really?”
“Jesus, you’re a bad liar.”
“I guess my subterfuge skills get a little wobbly when someone’s pointing a fucking gun at me.”
“This must mean the storm is passing,” Viv says thoughtfully, examining the phone. “We’ll have to move quickly. Now I’m sure Piper is out there.”
“What? Viv…” I don’t know if it’s smart to insist on bursting her bubble, but I can’t help it. “The storm might be dying down now, but it most certainly wasn’t when Piper went in the water.”
“I have to try,” Viv says through gritted teeth. “I have to save her.”
“I don’t understand. You really want her to be alive?” I’d have thought Viv would be eager to get out there and make sure Piper hadn’t made it.
Viv’s expression is hurt. “Of course. I wanted to go after her earlier, but it was too dangerous, right? Now, maybe we’ve got a chance of finding her. I love her. Even if she recorded that…incident. She’s family.”
Something isn’t adding up. Viv should want Piper to disappear even more now. “No one else thinks she could have made it to Ligia,” I say instead. “And it’s been hours since she went in the water, Viv. What are you going to do if you can’t find her? The chances of her being alive are—”
“I’ll find her,” she cuts me off viciously. “I have to.”
“Why are you going so hard for Piper when you were able to discard Elena so easily?” I demand.
“You think that was easy?” Viv’s voice turns hoarse and gasping. “I had to be strong for the others. I couldn’t show… I couldn’t—” She clears her throat. “That was not easy, Charlie. And I can’t lose anyone else.”
I pause. Is it possible that Viv actually does care? Could her frigidity be a mask for the deep guilt and regret she feels about what she did to Elena?
If you did something that terrible to someone, you wouldn’t be able to bury it, would you?
The thought jars a memory loose in the back of my brain that scrapes unpleasantly against the soft flesh of the truth, and I gasp, jerk away from it. There are things we can bury and forget about if we try hard enough. The trick is to focus on a different pain instead.
Quickly, I change the topic. “Where did you even get a gun, Viv?”
“I made Trey buy me one when we started Empress. A bunch of chicks alone on the ocean? What if some creep found us and tried something?”
“Why is it so small?”
“It’s a Baby Browning mouse gun,” she says.
“Mouse?”
“That’s what they call a super tiny gun.
Like a pocket pistol but even smaller. I love this thing, pretty mild recoil.
Luckily, I’ve never had to actually use it on someone.
And I’d rather not use it on you. So, behave.
Where’s your phone?” She glances around the room, then shifts her gaze to my person.
“Uh…” The weight of my phone is heavy in the pocket of my shorts.
“Babe, you think I’m stupid, don’t you?” Viv bares her teeth, a flash of white in the dark. “I saw you glancing down at Piper’s phone while we were talking. I saw the screen lighting up. And I saw the service bars. You sent that video to yourself, didn’t you? Unlock your phone, and gimme.”
Reluctantly, I slip my phone free, typing in my passcode, handing it over to her. Viv snatches the phone and backs up again, tapping through my device.
“Where is it? You didn’t Air Drop it. And your phone has no service.
Hoping it would come through when the storm passes?
Well, sorry, but that’s not going to happen.
” She drops my phone to the floor with a soft thump, lifting one heavy black rain boot and slamming the heel down on my screen.
It takes her a few tries, but the glass splinters and the screen goes dark.
“I’ll toss it overboard when we’re outside, don’t worry. ”
“We?”
Viv nods, her voice disgustingly nonchalant. “You’re going to come with me on the tender. Swept overboard, remember?”
“Uh…no?”
“Uh…yes,” Viv mimics me, her voice becoming juvenile and snotty. “Did you forget I have a gun? Let’s go, we don’t have much time.”
Fear and frustration war inside me, pressurizing the inside of my head. “Viv, you can’t be serious. The storm might be passing, but it’s still dangerous. If we go out there, neither of us will make it. You’re going to kill us both.”
“Stop wasting time,” Viv hisses. She gestures with the gun, a tainted “come hither” movement.
I try one more time. “I thought you said you couldn’t lose anyone else.”
“I’m not,” Viv replies. “You aren’t a part of this family.
That’s clear. And I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you’re going to walk away from this and not tell anyone.
” Her body language changes—she goes from a rigid oak to a limpid weed.
Her voice falters. “Please don’t make this harder than it needs to be.
I’m sorry, Charlie, I am. But I meant what I said: I don’t want to lose anyone else.
And that means I need to protect my family and myself. ”
The injustice of it all crashes over me. I’m going to die because she’s unstable? Because she killed her best friend? “But Piper was going to do the same thing, and you want to find her alive!”
“Piper is family,” Viv explains, simply, calmly. “You’re not.”
* * *
We move through the yacht like liquid shadows, slipping down the staircase and on to the main level.
I want to scream, I want to call for help, but the storm is loud enough that I worry no one will hear me in time.
And besides, I saw the video. The others had not anticipated violence, but they stood by while Elena was murdered and stayed loyal to Viv, after.
Never turning her or Piper in. I can’t trust them to save my life.
And Trey… Viv had told him some warped version of the incident with Elena, and he was entirely unbothered by it. Happy to keep their secret and hide the death of an employee. Clearly unaffected even though he’d been hooking up with Elena and planning to whisk her away as his assistant.
Before we left Piper’s room, I asked Viv where that same angry energy was for Trey. “You sleep with him,” I said. “Even though you hate him.”
“Hm, I do hate him, don’t I?” Viv had remarked, as if I pointed out an interesting piece of art in a gallery. “But yes, I sleep with him. Because I need him. And because he’s there.” Then she slunk behind me and tapped the gun against my spine, which got me moving fast enough.
We go out on to the main deck and are immediately pelted with rain, the wind swirling its way into our hair. I’m grateful for the limited warmth of my sweater as my legs get soaked, but it won’t last long. Soon I’ll be drenched and joining Elena at the bottom of the ocean.
The waves around Empress are definitely less violent than they were during the day, and the swelling of the sea is more drunk than aggressive.
But it’s dark—the only lights in the hazy night come from Empress, beacons glowing from its deck and caissons, casting greenish hues upon the waves closest to us.
The frigid air smells like dead fish and electricity.
Viv follows me across the deck, snapping directions as we climb down the stairs to the tender.
I should be freaking out more, but there’s a memory bubbling in the back of my brain that is getting harder and harder to ignore.
I won’t look at it directly yet, can’t take hold of it in my hands and examine it, but I’ll need to soon.
It might be the only thing that can save me.
Instead of blubbering and begging for my life, I let Viv prod me down the steps, following her detailed instructions on how to untie the tender. I’m in a fog as I get in and sit in the front. Viv follows, plopping down in the seat next to me, the one with the controls and the steering wheel.
Viv is clearly familiar with this boat. The front of it is half-enclosed, half-exposed, with a wide nose.
The end of the boat narrows off, the engine pokes out from the frothing water like a dolphin’s fin.
There’s enough space for the two of us to sit in the half cabin, hunching away from the pelting rain.
When I glance out over the heaving waves, terror snaps its teeth at my face.
I’m looking at blackness. The water right below us blooms gray when Viv flicks on the headlights, but everything else in front of us is black soup.
It’s like we’re floating on nothingness, and I’ve never been more aware of the vastness, the depth of the sea.
She’s going to kill me.
I glance at Viv by my side, still holding the gun.
How quick is she with that thing? Is it not as powerful because it’s so small?
I am certain that without it, Viv would be less of a threat.
Can I wrest it away from her and toss it overboard?
But she’s on high alert, side-eyeing me, expecting something like that.
Which means I need to stay on this boat with her as long as I can so that I have a chance to act if she lets down her guard.
Viv gets up and pulls a neon-orange life vest from a storage container at the back of the boat and shrugs it on. She keeps the mouse gun pointed at me as she clips the buckle of the life vest around her waist. “Sorry, I’d give you one too. But, you know. Kind of defeats the point.”