AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I opened my text messages and sent one to Lili:Staying on the island tonight; I left some things behind. Be back soon. She responded within seconds that I better be joking, but when I didn’t reply, she tried to call me. I ignored it.You’re already in trouble, I reminded myself.Might as well go all in.
I drove to the marina and had the attendants refill the tank on the boat. It was nearing eleven; I would be back with Lyse well before sunrise, as promised. The thought made me warm, despite all of the unknowns crowding in around me. Returning to Lyse was the most important thing for now. I would figure everything else out once I had my arms around her again.
Fifteen minutes later, I was navigating the boat out of the marina and heading in the direction of our island. My phone rang off and on until I was too far out of range, and my signal fell off. I would call Lili in the morning and make up some excuse as to why I had to leave. It wasn’t like I wasn’t coming back…I just needed a game plan first.
Luckily the weather was good, and the water was flat, and the nav put my arrival on the island a full thirty minutes earlier than normal. If I hurried things along, I might catch her before she went to sleep. Maybe—
THWACK!
Pain erupted in my head as I was struck from behind. I groaned and nearly collapsed, but I gathered my wits as best I could and turned around, swinging at whoever had attacked me. The man was obviously surprised that I could do so, and I was able to get my hands on him. I shook him, slamming him into the side of the cabin.
The man was scrawny, but he had an iron pry bar in his hand, and he swung it with precision, smashing it into my forearm, making my arm go numb. “Cabrón,” I snarled and rammed myself into him, knocking him off balance enough that he dropped the pry bar with a clangingthud.
The man struggled beneath me, slapping at me, but I pressed my numbed arm into his throat and pinned him down. His face turned a bright red, and I watched the panic bloom in his eyes as he realized that he couldn’t breathe. He bucked, tried to bring his knee up, but despite all his training — if he had any to begin with — I didn’t let up for a moment.
He lost consciousness, and I scrambled off of him to grab the pry bar. I brought it down on his head again and again until the bottom of the boat was slick with blood so dark that it looked black.
I sank down, breathing hard, as my vision swam. Little dots flickered across my eyes. Reaching up, I touched the back of my head; my fingers came away bloody.Shit, I have a concussion. I needed to get the boat pointed in the right direction again; I was probably going to need stitches and for someone to watch over me so that I didn’t die in my sleep.
It took far more effort than I wanted to admit to get to the steering wheel, and even longer to be able to read the nav system. My vision kept blurring, and my stomach swooped in a sickening way. I couldn’t pass out on the boat. Iwouldn’tpass out on the boat.
I just needed the damn boat to go faster.
* * *
Lyse
“You should sleep,mi amor,” Helena said for the twentieth time. “El jefewill be back soon. He can wake you up, if that’s what you want.”
We were sitting on the front porch in a pair of rockers that didn’t look like anyone had ever sat in them before. I had been painting for most of the day, but Helena declared that I’d inhaled enough fumes and hustled me outside to see the moon and breathe the fresh air.
“I’ll wait a little while longer,” I said, “but you can go, if you’re tired.”
Helena reached out and patted my arm. “I’ll stay with you,” she said. “Besides, I like nights like this.”
“Quiet?” I asked.
Her face went tight. “Oh,mi amor, you just jinxed us.”
"Huh?"
"You can't say that it will be a quiet night when you're with the Castillos," Helena said, absolutely serious. "That's all but a guarantee that it will end badly!"
She's so cute. “I don’t believe in superstitions.”
The older woman gasped, dramatic to a fault. “Not superstitious?Dios mío.”
“I think you’re being—”
The roar of an engine reached us, and I looked out into the darkness, hoping to catch a glimpse of Omar as he brought the boat into the dock. But it quickly became apparent that the boat was going far too fast. I pushed myself to my feet. “What’s he doing?”
Helena stood up too. “He needs to slow down.”
It took me another second to realize that he wasn’t going to slow down, that something wasseriouslywrong, but then I was tearing toward the beach as fast as I possibly could. “Get Efrain and Pascal!” I called over my shoulder. I didn’t need to see Helena moving to know that she was doing what I asked.
The speedboat hit the dock going full tilt; the dock exploded into a pile of ruined, twisted wood, and something vaguely human-shaped was tossed from the wreckage. I forced myself to move even faster; my feet slogged through the sand. I barely felt the sting of stepping on chunks of broken seashells. I could worry about that later.
I hit wet sand and kept going; my eyes were on the person floating in the water, just beyond where the boat had flung him out.You can’t swim, I reminded myself, but the water only went up so far until the drop-off. Omar was close enough. I could do it. Iwoulddo it.
