Chapter Fifteen
My bad. When the yelling stopped, I thought you two might have killed each other down here,” Emmy says. “So sorry for interrupting you and your secret kissing. When you’re done stabbing me in the back, I’ll be on deck.”
“Stabbing you in the back?” Jackson says. “Could you be any more dramatic?”
“You’re really going to say that to me after what I just saw?” she shouts, climbing down the stairs. Her voice echoes the inside the boat. “How long has this been going on?”
“A couple months,” Jackson admits at the same time I say, “Three minutes.”
Emmy folds her arms. “You two need to get your lies straight.”
I frown at Jackson. “It hasn’t been a couple months. We kissed once at Christmas and then again now. Nothing in between.”
Jackson’s jaw clenches. “I wouldn’t say nothing in between. But you’re technically correct.”
Emmy looks like her head might blow straight off her shoulders. “Christmas?! You’ve been keeping this from me since Christmas?”
She doesn’t look at her brother. Emmy’s furious gaze is all for me.
My mind goes blank. I don’t even know where to begin explaining this mess. I should have told her the truth when she first asked me about it, but I didn’t have the words then either.
“That’s my fault,” Jackson says, steadying me by the shoulders when the boat pitches to the side again. “We kissed, and then I put on the brakes. I asked her not to tell anyone.”
“I’m not just anyone,” Emmy says.
“No,” I say. “And I should have told you, but I felt like an idiot. Keeping it to myself meant I got to wallow in private and pretend it never happened.”
I can feel the weight of Jackson’s gaze. The boat rocks again, and this time it throws Emmy fully into the kitchen.
Emmy rights herself with a groan. “Well, you’re clearly done with the denial, since you’re down here sucking face instead paying attention to the storm.” She throws herself up the stairs and out onto the deck without another word.
The regret is not only instant, it also consumes my entire body.
“Emmy, wait!” I shout.
Jackson groans and follows me up the steps after her. I don’t know what I’m going to say, but an apology is a good start. She’s right; I should have told her about Jackson. Shame or embarrassment be damned. I kissed her brother and lied about it.
I catch her by the wrist halfway along the side of the boat, but before I can say anything a teeth-rattling clap of thunder splits the sky. All three of us duck, and when we look up, the sky above our heads is a churning mass of black.
Emmy meets my stare. “Pause?”
“Pause,” I agree.
“Yeah that’s a solid idea,” Jackson says.
A fresh crackle of lightning fills the sky.
Shit. These ocean storms move fast. The deck is already coated in a sheet of rain, and as we watch, the wind catches the sail tent and flings it off the boat and into the ocean where it drags behind us. Ben cowers at the base of the mast and bellows for help.
“We have to get him off that metal mast before he gets electrocuted,” Emmy yells over the wind.
“I’ll get him.” I push her toward her brother. “There’re two life vests on the table; each of you put one on. I’ll be right behind you.”
“No, I can help,” Emmy says, moving back toward me.
A wave slams into the side of the boat, and she almost goes flying.
I lock eyes with Jackson, and he plucks his sister right off the deck and carries her toward the cabin. “Don’t let her come back up here!” I shout at his back.
He nods and disappears below deck.
Another wave crests the top of the boat as I reach the mast. It nearly knocks me off my feet this time, and I cling to the twisted, broken metal until it recedes.
Ben spits salt water from his mouth. “Fuck! I’ve been yelling for you idiots for ten minutes! Get me off this thing!”
I drop to the deck behind him and start yanking at the knots around his wrists.
The boat rocks. We tip sideways over the top of one wave and slide down the other side of it, only to be pitched back up into the air by the next one.
“Hannah!” Ben yells, sounding more frantic now. “Please tell me you’re making progress! I’d prefer not to die out here!”
I cast a worried look at the rising waves and yank on another loop. “I’m working on it.”
“Work faster!”
Another wave tosses us up, and it feels like I’ve left my guts in midair.
My knees lift off the deck, and I’m airborne for a second before my kneecaps take the brunt of the fall.
I grit my teeth and yank another loop free, but Jackson did a good job with these knots.
It’s taking too long. The sky dims further as a particularly dark cloud moves over top of us.
The ocean reflects it back, the waves turning almost black.
The waves seem to be getting taller by the minute.
My fingernails start to fray and splinter against the ropes.
Something comes down over my head, and I almost scream before I realize it’s fluorescent orange and slightly scratchy against my cheek.
Jackson tugs the life vest into place around my chest.
“Is Emmy okay?” I shout over the wind.
“She’s down below. Where you need to be.”
I tug at the life vest. “This one was for you.”
He scowls. “Over my dead body, Hannah.”
He reaches into his pocket and flicks open Ben’s knife, quickly slicing through the bindings on his wrists, and I sag with relief.
“Thank god someone’s thinking!” Ben shouts, untangling himself from the ropes.
“And just like that I regret helping you,” I shout.
But he’s not listening. He’s staring in horror over our shoulders.
We spin around. A twelve-foot wall of water surges toward us.
I hear Ben scream, and Jackson grabs my arm, but then my head is underwater.
Something slams into my shoulder. Pain radiates down my arm, and I gasp in a mouthful of seawater.
My head clears the surface, and I spit it back out.
I half expect to find myself adrift in the ocean when I open my eyes.
Instead I see Jackson.
His eyes are closed, and his face is pinched with effort. My right side is pressed against something hard, and I’m shocked I’m still on the boat. One of his arms is wrapped tight around the mast, and the other…around me.
He opens his eyes, and they fill with relief. Ben is pressed sideways against the lifelines, like a fish sputtering in a net, but he’s still here with us.
Jackson points toward the back of the boat and yells over the wind. “Get below!”
Ben nods, but he wobbles toward us, which is the wrong direction.
Safety in numbers, maybe?
A gust of wind hits the same time as another wave and sends Jackson stumbling ahead of me. He reaches back for my hand, but a high-pitched scream echoes inside the cabin. Jackson’s eyes widen, and he looks toward the hatch.
“Go!” I shout. “I’ll grab Ben. I’ll be right behind you.”
Jackson keeps his weight low and scrambles to check on his sister.
Ben clings to the mast like he’s genuinely in danger of being blown right off the boat. He looks absolutely terrified.
I reach back for him. “Come on! I’ll help you.”
He takes my hand, but instead of letting me pull him toward the cabin, he yanks me backward.
“What the hell—”
He grabs at the buckles on my life vest. “I need this! Give me your vest!”
I try and twist away from him. “What? No!”
Ben releases the top buckle and tries to rip the life vest over my head without unfastening the others. I curl my arms to my chest to keep it from slipping off, and his yanks get more frantic. “I need this, Hannah!” he shouts. “I need it more than you. You’re a better swimmer!”
I gape at him. “Like that will matter out here!”
“I deserve it more!” he screams.
The sailboat groans and careens down the back of a wave, and suddenly we’re falling, the deck practically vertical.
I slide until I hit the set of lifelines on the opposite side of the boat.
One of my legs shoots between the metal wires.
The skin at the back of my thighs rips open.
My feet dunk into the ocean through the railing.
Ben grips the mast and screams at the top of his lungs.
The boat rights itself, and I’m thrown sideways onto the bow. Ben lunges for me. That cold glint is back in his eyes, all of his focus trained on my life vest, like it’s his only salvation. Like I’m the only thing standing between him and basic survival.
I grab one of the lifelines for balance and plant my foot in his stomach, sending him sprawling back. I race along the opposite side of the boat, screaming Jackson’s name. I’m only four feet from the doorway to the cabin when I’m tackled to the deck.
Ben presses my cheekbone into the soaked decking until I feel my skin split. “I’ll take it from your corpse if I have to,” he shouts. “One way or another, that life vest is mine.”
Ben pulls his fist back—and I roll my head to the side. He punches the deck beside my face, and I hear the crack of his knuckles over the storm. He rears back with a scream, holding his hand to his chest. A blur of pink and orange grabs Ben by his wet hair.
Emmy, clad in her bright-orange life vest, twists her fingers into fists and yanks at his scalp with both hands until Ben is screeching and clawing at her hands. She slams his temple into the side of the cabin, and he drops to the deck with a groan, gripping his skull.
Jackson’s standing outside the hatch, one arm extended toward us like he was in the process of helping before his sister beat him to it.
Emmy lets out a screech of frustration. “God, I really do have the worst taste in men.”
I gape at her and bark out a surprised laugh.
Jackson shoves us both toward the hatch opening. “Get the fuck in the cabin!”
I hesitate. Ben’s in a crumpled ball on the deck, one wave away from never being seen again, and I can’t make my legs move. I may be the smasher of PlayStations, but I’m not him.
Jackson grabs my face. “Hannah, I need you to get below before I lose my fucking mind. Do you understand? You’re getting out of this even if it kills me.”
“What about him?” I ask, pointing at Ben. “Nobody deserves to die like this, Jackson.”
The boat pitches up the side of another wave, and Jackson swears at the top of his lungs.
“I’ll tie him to something. Get below.”
There’s no time for that.
I spot the emergency flotation on the deck and make a split-second decision.
I lunge over the back of the seats in the cockpit.
I don’t dare look at the water. We’re moving across it so fast, rocking left and right at angles we certainly never did during the last storm.
These waves are bigger. The wind is stronger.
And I don’t know if the water I drained from the boat is going to be enough to keep us afloat this time.
I rip the emergency flotation off the back deck and run it to Jackson.
He levels me with a punishing glare but slams the flotation over the top of Ben’s head and yanks one of his arms through it. “Here you go, asshole. Good fucking luck.”
Ben grabs at Jackson’s arm, screaming for help, but Jackson shakes him off. Emmy pulls me toward the cabin, and I reach back for Jackson, creating a human chain headed for safety.
Movement to our left draws my attention up.
And up.
And up.
A wave bigger than a bus comes out of seemingly nowhere, and it’s the scariest thing I’ve ever seen in my life. I hear someone scream. It might have been me. Maybe it was Ben.
We’re not going to make it into the cabin.
I lock eyes with Jackson. Without saying a word, we both reach out at the same time and shove Emmy back through the open hatch.
She tumbles into the boat. I feel Jackson try to shove me in too, but it’s too late.
The water surges toward us, and I know, without a doubt, that I’m about to die.