Chapter 35
“How dare you?” Viv’s voice is hard and bitter, an unripe lemon. “How dare you judge me for what happened with Elena after you killed that girl?”
“It was an accident. I never thought it would result in Sage’s death,” I defend myself. “And maybe…and maybe it wasn’t my fault—” But even as I say it, I know it’s an excuse. One I’ve hidden behind for months. A tidy loophole I could use to escape the reality of what I’d done.
I was furious with Sage. We’d been so close to a resolution, but she yanked it away again. I wanted to inconvenience her, maybe even hurt her. But I didn’t mean to kill her.
A voice speaks up, finally freed from the depths of my mind: Are you sure?
“That’s why you got so pissed when I posted that video!” Viv accuses.
I bite my lip. “No one knows what I did. But after her death, I didn’t want to fight for the book anymore.
I didn’t want to risk the attention or have people connect me to Sage.
I don’t think she told anyone we were meeting that day, and I burned her letter.
But I decided to let go of the book anyway, try to move on.
I didn’t want anyone thinking I was involved. ”
“But you were!”
“I didn’t mean it. I swear, I didn’t,” I say, fighting back tears.
“You act like you’re above us. You have since you got on board,” Viv hisses. “But the truth is that you’re as bad as everyone else.”
My bones ice over at her words. I hid Sage’s phone; I didn’t come forward and tell the authorities what I had done. I erased it from my mind like a trauma victim blocking out an assault.
Viv’s right—there’s a part of me, a dark, deep-down part, that fears the person I really am.
A person who reacts with vengeance after being wronged.
I can’t bear to admit the sliver of vindication that lives at the bottom of my soul; the tiny bit of self preservation that whispered, Don’t let Sage’s death ruin your life again. Not after what she did.
I face Viv, a sheet of rain whipped at us by the wind, icy drops pelting my cheeks. “I would take it all back if I could. I would have never touched the anchor. If I could do anything to change what happened, I would do it without a second thought.”
It’s all true, but I don’t say the rest of what I’m thinking. That the worst part, the hardest part, the part that I will always have to live with, is knowing that I hid my involvement because I wasn’t sad that Sage died. I was upset, I was guilty, but I wasn’t sad.
“You killed someone,” Viv says. “You’re not better than me. You’re…you’re just like me.”
And the way she says it, like it’s the worst insult she can possibly think of, breaks my heart. It’s so clear now: Viv hates herself.
Something rams against the underside of our boat, sending us flying.
Viv screams as the mouse gun sails out of her hand and clatters across the bottom of the boat, spinning on its side toward the stern.
I’m thrown against the control panel, the wind knocked out of me with a sharp thrust. Slumping to my knees, I tilt as the boat shudders again, lurching to the left now.
“What’s going on?” A rogue wave sloshes into the boat and my mouth; I spit out salt water, coughing.
“We must have hit a rock,” Viv says, craning her neck, eyes huge and terrified. “There are big ones near Ligia that are impossible to see in weather like this.”
“Oh, perfect; have I mentioned what a great idea this was?” I yell.
“Shut up.” Viv stabs her hand out at me as she pulls herself from the floor, but in that split second, we both realize the gun is no longer in her possession.
We stare at each other for the longest instant. Then we both throw ourselves to the back of the boat. The tender slides and rolls beneath us; the world slants, but I somehow keep myself right side up and hurtle toward the tiny gun. If I can get it before her, if I can throw it overboard…
But Viv is right next to me, her breath ragged, her face twisted in desperation.
We reach it at the same time. Viv dives, hand outstretched. I slide to my knees, fingers scrabbling against the back of her hand, digging my nails in, yanking her hand away from the gun long enough to reach out with my free one.
Suddenly I’m tasting something warm and salty. Another wave?
No; Viv’s black rain boot has shot up so fast and so hard that I didn’t even register it smashing into my face. My nose is throbbing—liquid is dripping, mixing with rain. Viv pulls back, triumphant, the mouse gun in her hand.
I swat at my nose, trying to stem the bleeding, but immediately flinch; it hurts to touch. Is my nose broken? I lay on the deck as Viv tries to get her footing and check the gun. The rain is pelting us, and the boat is heaving.
“It can’t wait,” Viv calls out over the wind. “I’m sorry. I have to do it now.”
Pushing aside the pain, I crawl to my knees as Viv levels the gun at me once again. She hesitates, a strange expression flickering over her face. Like she’s scared. Or confused.
“Viv—”
Before I can reason with her, before she can pull the trigger, another almighty crash sounds from the bow of the boat, larger than the first. The tender is flung upward, a huge wave slamming into us at the same time from behind.
The deck disappears as I’m flung into thin air.
A scream erupts from my mouth; there’s an echo of it somewhere ahead of me from Viv.
Instead of landing back on the boat in a crumpled heap, I hit the water.
I plunge through the waves, sinking several feet into the inky blackness. Bubbles issue from my mouth, and I’m grateful for them, because they’re the only way I know which direction the surface is.
The water is icy cold and fastens around my skin like a vacuum-sealed plastic bag.
My limbs churn, creating more frantic bubbles as I blink in the darkness.
The strange thing is that beneath the surface, away from the storm, it’s actually kind of peaceful.
I’m sinking, the gravity of my fall taking me farther down, but it’s blissfully silent here.
No wind. No rain. No gunshots.
I don’t want to leave the quiet. I don’t want to go back into the real world with its storm and the truth of what I did to Sage laid bare in the air.
But without my permission, my body stops sinking and begins to bob back up toward the surface.
I kick my legs, rising in a halo of bubbles, my face breaking free, gasping for air.
I’m immediately buffeted by a wave that knocks me to the side, and I swallow a huge gulp of oxygen and dip below the surface again for a moment, trying to orient myself.
When I rise up again, riding the crest of a big but thankfully gentle wave, I look around wildly.
Nothing. No boat. No Viv.
Only dark, endless ocean.