Chapter Thirteen
I duck into the hatch and slide down the stairs.
My feet splash through the water, and things immediately tangle in my toes and bump into my knees.
I wade through to the table, grab the waterproof phone holder from my bag, and tuck the lighter inside before I get to work looking for food and a water pump.
Before I put it back in the bag, I hold the power button down to turn the phone back on.
I don’t have high hopes for a cell signal, but it doesn’t hurt to try.
The dead battery symbol blinks at me instead of the Apple logo. I groan.
Emmy’s phone was already dead yesterday and Ben’s had even less of a charge than mine did. If we can somehow manage to get closer to shore, Jackson’s our last hope to call for help.
I make sure the waterproof zipper is firmly sealed on the phone holder and toss it back into my bag.
When I step back into the kitchen, I see something that looks like a yellow flashlight floating at the surface, and bend to fish it out.
It turns out to be a soggy banana and I fling it back. “Eeew.”
“You should know better than to touch anything in that water. Who knows what that grubby captain had in this boat,” Emmy says behind me.
I jump and whirl around. I didn’t even hear her feet on the deck.
She’s crouched in the hatch opening. “There could be used condoms floating around.”
Oh. My. God.
I turn my nose up toward the fresh air tempting me through the hatch. “That’s disgusting.”
“No puking. We’re already low on food. Keep those fruit snacks where they belong.” She drops down into the kitchen beside me.
“What are you doing in here?” I ask. I start digging through the kitchen cabinet beside the stove. Inside is bare except for two cans in the back. Condensed tomato soup and sliced peaches. I stack them both on the counter.
“Helping,” she says “Ben suggested we find a duffel bag or something to put the food in. To keep it all in one place.”
I roll my eyes. “Oh, did he? What a novel idea. And here I was hoping to store it all in the ass cheeks of this bathing suit. What would we do without Ben’s invaluable advice?”
She taps a pink nail on the box of fruit snacks on the counter with a frown. “I was hoping we could get some work done before this part, but okay.”
“I don’t know what that means.” I open another cabinet and find a can of expired…
butter? I didn’t know that even existed.
I hold it out to Emmy. “This is the grossest thing I’ve ever seen.
And it’s six and a half years old. I vote we feed it to your psychopath boyfriend. With any luck it’ll kill him.”
She snatches it out of my hand and throws it into the water. “Clearly you and I need to have a conversation. You’ve been glaring at me all day, and it’s starting to piss me off.”
I’m pissing her off?
It’s so absurd I laugh into the open cabinet in front of me. “I can’t even begin to tell you how little I care about pissing you off right now. But I’ll make you a deal: I’ll stop glaring at you as soon as you stop making excuses for a murderer.”
The next cabinet has the remains of a cardboard frame from a case of water bottles, but there are only two left. I add them to the pile on the counter.
Emmy grabs my shoulders and turns me around to face her. I expect anger—or maybe some argument about why I should be more understanding of Ben’s claustrophobia or whatever else she’s using to excuse this shit—but she doesn’t look angry. She looks devastated.
“Hannah, are you kidding me? I’m not making excuses for that bag of dicks!” she hisses. “He choked you.”
I can feel the confusion on my face. I bat her hands away from me and point toward the deck. “Yeah, and then I watched you cover his precious little shoulders with a towel and flutter around him like some pathetic groupie.”
Now I get some of the anger. “I didn’t see what he did to the captain, and maybe I didn’t want to believe that the guy who was so nice to us this whole trip could be that fucked up, but I watched you stop breathing, Hannah.
You turned fucking purple, and he smiled the whole time.
I wanted to cheer when Jackson knocked him off the boat, and I’m beyond fucking offended that you’d think I could watch any person on this planet lay a hand on you and not hate their guts. ”
“I don’t understand. What was all that crap about the sunscreen and we’re all in this together and cuddling up to him on the deck?”
Tears stream down her face, and she wipes them away. “I figured he’d have more incentive to help us if he thought he still had someone on his side. He might let something helpful slip while he’s trying to convince me to untie him.”
“You’re pretending you still like him to gather sailboat survival tips?”
She shrugs and wipes away another tear. “I may not be built for manual boat labor or fixing broken noses, but I can manipulate a stupid boy better than anyone.”
The last hour is suddenly making a lot more sense. Emmy’s the one who suggested we leave him in the water and drag him along behind us. She only argued for letting him back on board once the “sharks” showed up, and even then it was about saving his sailing skills—not him specifically.
I was so busy feeling betrayed, I completely missed what she was doing.
Apparently it’s my day to underestimate members of the Cole family.
I pull her in and wrap my arms around her. She hugs me back so hard it hurts, but I don’t mind. Relief floods every inch of my body. “Thank god, Emmy. I thought you went to the dark side.”
She pulls away. “We’re all stressed the hell out, so I’ll give you a temporary pass on not giving me the benefit of the doubt, but I reserve the right to be mad about this later. Maybe on the flight home.”
I laugh. “That’s fair. So long as I reserve the right to make fun of you for your terrible taste in boys.”
She holds out her hand, and we shake on it, grinning like idiots.
I missed her.
“Okay, how about I look for food, while you look for the pump thing?” Emmy suggests. “If Jackson’s up there too long with that fucker, one or both of them might end up in the ocean.”
She has a solid point. I move into the main part of the cabin and start lifting the seats around the table to get to the compartments beneath them. “What the hell does a water pump even look like?”
“That’s a good question,” Emmy says, dropping another can of peaches onto the pile I started. “Something with hoses?”
The first compartment is packed full of soggy junk. Clothes, ruined magazines, extra snorkeling masks, one solitary flipper, a stack of books, and a tackle box that leaks water from the cracks when I lift it up. Nothing with a hose. I move to the compartment on the other side of the table.
Emmy makes a triumphant sound and holds up a jar of peanut butter and a mostly empty bag of bread. She adds both to the pile. “The peanut butter is almost gone but a win is a win. And maybe if I make Ben a sandwich, he’ll help us brainstorm how to make the engine turn over.”
I dig through the next compartment. It’s full of soggy towels, two bright-orange life vests, a fluorescent-green bag holding an emergency raft, and what looks like a first aid kit in some sort of waterproof bag?
“I’m not sure pretending to be on his side is the best idea, Em.
Look at what he did when Captain Keith turned on him,” I say, chucking the two life vests on the table.
Leave it to Frat Boy Keith not to have enough for everyone on board. “Could be dangerous.”
She adds a container of tuna to the pile.
“It’s only dangerous if he finds out. Which he won’t.
Think about it, if you were on a boat with three strangers who all wanted you to go to jail, would you want to help them?
He’s lied about so many other things; what if there’s an easy way to get to shore right here, right now, and he’s keeping it to himself so he doesn’t go to jail? ”
I close the compartment lid and move to the sofa-style bench on the other side of the aisle. “How is pretending to be Team Ben going to help if that’s the case? What are you going to do, offer to testify on his behalf?”
“I’ll say whatever it takes. Then when we’re safe on land, we’ll turn him in to the cops as planned. He’ll get locked up, and we’ll go home.”
“Emmy,” I sigh. “What if it doesn’t go down like that? What if you trick him this whole time, turn on him later, and then his parents get the charges dropped? What if he finds you in Italy? He’s already proven he’s unstable.”
She shakes her head. “He’s only doing all this because he doesn’t want to get in trouble.
If the charges get dropped or they choose not to charge him at all, he’ll run back to his life in Miami without looking back.
He wouldn’t gain anything by coming after me once everything’s out in the open.
But if it makes you feel better, I’ll start my trip in another country, and I’ll make sure to block him on social media so he can’t see where I am. ”
“Your parents went to the same college as his parents. He knows your name and where we’re from. He could find you in twenty minutes if he tried.”
Her jaw tightens.
“I’m not trying to make you mad, Em. I’m only pointing out that this might not be the best plan.
He’s cooperating because he’s strapped to the damn boat.
It’s in his best interest to help us to shore, or he’ll go down with the boat too.
Why poke the bear when we’re not absolutely sure it’s necessary? ”
Emmy stands up straight and starts aggressively stacking the meager supply of cans and water bottles. “Is it a natural impulse to shoot down every idea I have, or do you have to work at it?”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
She looks like she’s about to say something, but she shakes her head. “Nothing, never mind.” She sloshes toward the hatch. “I’m going to make sure the two idiots aren’t spitting on each other; you’ve got this on your own, right?”