Chapter Eight #2
Luckily Jackson was on it. I steal a glance at him over my shoulder, still screaming at his sister, and wonder how many other ways we’re going to have to luck out to survive this.
Second priority has to be the boat. After we figure out what to do with Bennett, we need to see if the motor works.
That would be the fastest way to get to shore.
If it doesn’t, then…we need to start a more long-term plan.
Inventory our food and water. Search the boat for rescue supplies.
Find the first aid kit. See if there’s any way to get this water out of the cabin…
The list forming in my mind calms me quite a bit. That is, until Emmy’s voice reaches a new octave, and I wince. Dog whistle screeches are officially where I draw the line.
Something bumps into my knee, and I find a swollen-looking orange floating beside my leg.
I stand and stuff Ben’s knife into the pocket of my shorts.
I snatch the orange out of the water and hurl it at them.
It hits the wall between Ben and Jackson’s heads and explodes in a burst of salt water and pulp.
They all turn toward me in surprised silence.
“If the three of you don’t shut up, I swear to god, I’m going to start singing Hamilton songs off-key at the top of my lungs until you’re all suffering raging migraines. I’m trying to make a plan over here.”
“You almost hit me with that,” Emmy grumbles.
“What part of ‘shut up’ wasn’t clear?” Jackson asks. He dodges the punch she levels at his shoulder and meets my gaze across the room. “We can’t do anything until we deal with him,” he says, rattling Ben against the controls. “I’m not about to watch my back every second we’re trapped here.”
“Jackson Cole, we can’t throw him overboard,” Emmy shrieks.
He gapes at her. “Why would I throw him overboard?”
“You said we have to deal with him. Like you’re planning to off him or something.”
“You’ve been watching too much Yellowstone. I clearly meant: How are we going to keep this walking liability from doing more damage than he already has?”
“He’s got to be contained somehow,” I agree. I tap my fingers against the table, trying to think. Maybe we can repurpose one of the ropes on deck and tie him to something up there? That would leave him in full sun though, at the mercy of the elements. There has to be a better option.
My eyes catch on the mesh bags hanging from the ceiling, and an idea takes form.
I wade through the water. “Throw him in the bathroom.”
“What?” Ben and Emmy yell at the same time.
Jackson, on the other hand, doesn’t say a thing. He just hauls Ben through the boat.
“Hey, hey, no!” Ben yells. He flails and kicks, splashing water in every direction. “No way!”
“You did this to yourself, dickhead,” Jackson says.
I climb onto the bench and reach for the smaller mesh bag that held the sprouting potatoes—both bags lost their contents to the storm.
Emmy stands in the aisle beside me, hands on her hips. “This is going to come back to bite us in the—”
Jackson dumps Ben into the bathroom like a sack of rocks. He windmills backward and lands half on the toilet and half against the wall. Before he can get back to his feet, Jackson yanks the sliding door shut. I hop back into the water and brush past my still-protesting best friend.
“Hannah,” Emmy squeals, “We can’t just hold him hostage.”
Watch me.
I twist the mesh netting until it creates a makeshift rope and slide it through the circular handle in the door while Ben pounds against it from the other side.
Jackson plants his feet and presses his palms into the door, holding it shut while I drag the bedroom door closed and loop the other end of the “rope” through that handle too.
I pull it as tight as I can and tie a quadruple knot in the mesh.
Jackson and I step back and wait.
Ben shouts something unintelligible on the other side, and the door rattles, but the rope holds.
“Hannah, we can’t do this,” Emmy says, appearing over my shoulder again. “He said it was an accident. I’m sure he didn’t intentionally hurt anyone. We can’t lock him in there.”
I close my eyes and let out a sigh that weighs a thousand pounds before I look up at Jackson. “Make sure the rope doesn’t start to come undone,” I mumble.
“Open this fucking door!” Ben screams on the other side.
Jackson nods, and I lightly shove Emmy toward the kitchen.
She stumbles into the kitchen. “What the hell, Hannah?”
I step close and make her look at me. “I need you to hear me. Not just nod and smile and wait until it’s your time to speak. Really hear me. Can you do that?”
Anger blazes in her blue eyes, and she looks like a furious Barbie in her hot pink bikini, but she nods.
“I love you to death, and most days I appreciate your happy-go-lucky ‘everyone is my best friend’ perspective, but not today. I need you to really think about what’s happening here.
A guy you just met at the resort convinced us to go out on a random boat because he didn’t like that the licensed tours were docked because of the storm.
The captain he hired got so drunk he couldn’t stand, and Ben’s first move was to drag him on deck and threaten him.
And when that didn’t work, Ben broke his nose.
When threatened with assault charges, he intentionally knocked the captain overboard.
There’s probably still blood on the boom, Emmy. Ben killed him.”
Emmy eyes fill with tears. “How do you know he did it on purpose? The waves were intense. He said he lost his grip. I saw him fall.”
“I watched him let go.”
“But—”
“I saw the look in his eyes, Em. He let go and threw himself to the ground. He knew exactly what he was doing.”
The tears escape and stream down her face.
I take a breath. “And instead of showing remorse, Ben threatened all of us, because he’s more concerned with his own future than the one he took away.
He destroyed our only way to call for help, and I have no doubt he would have used that knife on us too.
Ben isn’t being treated unfairly. He’s a danger, and I don’t know what he’ll do if we let him out of there. Do you?”
“He wouldn’t hurt any of us,” she practically whispers.
“He already did. Or did you miss him elbowing your brother in the face, or the body in the ocean? How many lines does he have to cross?”
Emmy folds her arms. “He might have a point, you know. You hit your head on the deck pretty hard. Maybe you didn’t see what you think you saw.”
I shouldn’t be surprised that she’s willing to believe a boy over her best friend, but I am.
It takes me a second to banish the familiar hurt and meet her eyes.
“I need you to decide who you trust more: Ben or me. Because I’m telling you right now that hitting my head didn’t change what I saw.
So either I’m telling the truth and the stranger you met a few days ago is a fucking liar, or I’m lying and making a terrible situation worse by locking up the only sailor among us for no reason. So which is it?”
Her tears are falling freely now. “Of course, I trust you.”
“More than Ben?”
She hesitates but nods. I try not to take that personally. It’s just the way she is.
“Then the best place for him is in the bathroom. As long as he’s in there, we can focus on getting back to shore. We’ll let him out as soon as help arrives, okay? But he can’t be running loose after everything he’s done, or we won’t live long enough to get rescued. Do you understand?”
She wraps her arms around my shoulders and squeezes me tight. “God. How did we get ourselves into this?”
I don’t point out the obvious. I hug her back. “We’re going to figure it out, okay?”
She nods and steps back, looking past me. I follow her gaze to Jackson, who tugs one more time on the mesh rope holding the door shut. The door is still rattling, but it hasn’t given way.
“I think it’s secure,” Jackson says, coming closer to us.
He lowers his voice. “There isn’t much room in there, and the door slides, so he doesn’t really have the space to get the leverage he needs to force it open.
The water is also working against him, I think.
We should check the mesh every once in a while to make sure it doesn’t stretch though.
If he manages to get his fingers through a gap, he’ll have a better chance of wrenching it open. ”
I turn to Emmy again. “Promise me you won’t let him out of there.”
Emmy sighs. “Fine.”
A person less familiar with Emmy might accept that, but I’ve seen her wiggle her way out of one too many “fines” to let it slide. Especially where a boy is concerned.
“That’s not a promise. I need you to understand why we put him in there, Emmy. Say it out loud.”
“I get it, okay? We don’t really know him. But I feel bad that he’s stuck in that tiny space while we…”
I raise an eyebrow. “While we…what? Float around on a boat we don’t know how to sail? Sorry, Emmy, but we’re all in a shitty situation. Only one of us has consistently made it worse.”
She sighs, and this time, when she nods, I feel like I’ve gotten through to her. Completely? Hell no. Will I have to watch her like a hawk if Ben starts crying in there? Yes. But in this moment, she’s on board. Pun intended.
“You fuckers!” Ben screams from the bathroom. “You can’t do this to me! My father will have your asses for trapping me in here. I’m a fucking Mulholland!”
“Yeah?” Jackson shouts back. “You’re also a murderer, so sit down and shut the fuck up.”
I bite back a surprised laugh. Emmy’s directing an anguished look at the closed bathroom door, so I point up the stairs. “Come on, let’s go check on the boat. Maybe we can figure out how to sail this damn thing on our own.”
“Right, because we’re suddenly going to know what each of those two hundred ropes does,” Emmy says sarcastically, as we climb out onto the deck. Ben’s furious shouts recede as we step out into the fresh air.
The waves have calmed considerably, but humid wind picks my hair off my neck and throws it around my face.
After being cooped up in the cabin all night, it feels so open and spacious out here.
I take a few steps toward the back of the boat.
There’s nothing but water and clouds as far as the eye can see, which is quite a bit farther now that the waves have calmed.
The horizon looks furious. The sky—and the ocean beneath it—are a deep bruise purple in the dawn.
I can just barely make out where the sun lurks low behind the cloud cover.
It turns the sky around it a lighter, almost wisteria purple with a red middle.
It’s as beautiful as it is terrifying, and I shudder.
I turn to point it out to the others and freeze when I see them staring at the front of the boat. They look terrified.
“What’s wrong?” I ask, instantly on alert. I move closer, but my feet falter when I see what they’re looking at. Or rather, what they’re not looking at.
The mast is gone.
The sails and metal supports trail across the deck and into the water. The metal mast is snapped almost clean through right beneath the boom.
I feel like I’m going to be sick again as the enormity of what’s happening sets in.
We’re on a boat with no power.
The only person left on board who knows how to sail is locked in the bathroom.
The mast is broken, making sailing an impossibility even if we could figure out how.
The radio is useless.
The rescue we hoped would arrive in a couple hours is nowhere to be seen. Most likely because Captain Keith didn’t tell anyone that he was taking a bunch of minors out into the Pacific in the first place.
We didn’t board a tourist charter with tickets and a record of our names. We hopped on the Be-Yacht-Ch and vanished. Not a single person on shore knows what boat we got on or who we set sail with. Including Emmy’s parents.
In the distance, a streak of lightning cuts the sky.
Jackson takes my hand, and I close my eyes.
“We are so fucked,” I say.