by Kyla Stone
“The answer is complex, of course. But warmer temperatures and unstable weather patterns increase mosquito strength and territory as well as altering avian migratory patterns. Global warming has—”
Declan snorted. “We're being tested. Only when we return to our God-fearing roots will we be blessed again. Prosperity through unity is the key to our country's restoration.”
“So says Madam Vice President and her Unitarian minions,” López said.
Declan arched his brow. “You don't agree?”
López shrugged. “You Unitarians come across a little strong. I believe Americans still value their freedom, what freedoms they have left, anyway.”
A strained silence settled over the table. Declan’s face darkened. His hand clenched the stem of his wine glass. Amelia’s pulse echoed in her ears. Her father must be incredibly stressed. He never spoke like this—at least, not in public.
She cleared her throat, resting her hand on the senator’s forearm. “Senator, you clearly care about your constituents. I'm sure they're grateful for your leadership.”
“Let's all drink to that,” her mother said brightly, raising her glass. “We're all working to benefit the people. This was the purpose of National Health Day, after all. Now, who would like some delicious prosciutto cheese and melon appetizers?”
Amelia took a sip of red wine. The conversation droned around her. Her head felt thick, as if stuffed with cotton.
Across the table, her mother pursed her lips in concern. Amelia smiled wider. I'm fine.
The waiter returned, pausing at the captain's side. “May I take your order, sir?”
She only half-listened as the other guests ordered braised veal chops, fresh lobster served on a bed of steamed asparagus, and seafood salad. “I'll have the chilled Malossol caviar,” Declan said. He inclined his head toward Amelia. “She'll have the poached blue lobster tail, hold the caramelized butter, and add a side salad, no dressing.”
She didn’t even like lobster. The dull roaring in her ears intensified. She was hot all over, her skin prickling. She needed air. She grabbed her clutch and pushed back her chair. “Please excuse me.”
“Amelia? Are you all right?” her mother asked.
“She's fine,” her father said behind her.
She hurried through the main doors of Oasis and ducked into a small alcove. She opened her clutch and grabbed one of the cigarettes nestled next to her auto-injectors. Her epi-pens, as she tried to think of them. They weren't really epi-pens, and they weren't for allergies. It was what her father told her to call it, so no one would question her. She tapped the top of her cigarette with trembling fingers, and it self-lit.
“You’re not allowed to smoke inside.”
Amelia jerked her head up. It was a security guard, one she recognized from the added detail that followed Declan Black and several of the senators around on the ship.
He leaned against the wall, his arms crossed. He was tall and well-built. Even in his white officer's uniform, she could see the breadth of his shoulders, the muscles in his arms and chest. His skin was dark bronze in the light, and his straight black eyebrows and scruffy goatee gave him a serious, brooding look.
“These are non-cancerous.”
“Is that what they tell you?”
She shrugged. “It doesn't matter, anyway.”
“Why? Because your father has the cure for cancer?” There was something in the way he said it, an undercurrent of hostility.
“No, of course not. And it's not really a cure.”
“No? You take the medication, you live. Seems like a cure to me.”
Amelia was tired. She didn't want to argue about things that didn't matter. “Okay. You win.”
He shook his head, a shadow passing across his face. “Sorry, I didn’t mean it to come out like that. Let’s start again. I’m Gabriel Rivera.”
“Amelia.”
“It’s nice to meet you, Amelia.” He nodded at her cigarette. “Cancerous or not, they’re still illegal to smoke in here.”
“Oh. Sorry. I’ll just put it out—” She waved her hand, flustered.
“You can smoke outside. There’s a spot just around the corner on the deck, out of sight of the dining room windows. I can show you.”
She hesitated, then nodded. She needed fresh air. “Yes, thank you.”
She followed him through a set of glass doors to the starboard side of Deck Six. The breeze pulled at her French twist, tugging several strands of hair free to whip around her face. She leaned against the glass railing and breathed in the salty air.
Beyond the ship's lights, the water was black as pitch. What secrets did the dark ocean hide? She tried to imagine the world down there, the immense creatures gliding beneath the depths.
“The real ones are better,” he said. “Have you ever had one?”
“They’re bad for you.”
He shrugged. “That’s what makes them so great, isn’t it?”
She watched the glow of the cigarette in her fingers. The engine rumbled far beneath them. The wind buffeted her, wisps of hair flying into her eyes. She tucked them behind her ears.
“You feeling okay? You don’t look so good.”
She touched her cheek. “I’m always pale.”
“Is that why your hands are trembling?”
She tightened her fingers on the cigarette, her face heating. “It’s just hot in there, that’s all.”
There was silence for a moment as they both gazed over the railing. She tried not to think about how her father would react to tonight’s fiasco. Senator López would never confirm his secretary of Health appointment. The stress of the evening was like a load of bricks pressing against her chest.
“When I have a bad day, I always come out here and just relax for a while, you know?”
She cleared her throat. “I can’t get enough of the ocean. How beautiful it is. How it feels like it goes on forever. It gets inside you out here.”
He nodded. “Yeah, I get that. Like your music.”
She looked up, meeting his eyes. She took a long drag of the cigarette to steady herself. The intensity of his gaze was unnerving.
“I’ve heard you play. It’s not bad, but I’m sure you know that.”
She thought of the letter back home, hidden in her drawer. “Not as good as I should be.”
“I doubt that.” He ran his hand through his hair. “How do you like the Grand Voyager? Is there any place you’d like to see? Backstage at the Galaxy Lounge? The bridge?”
“I've already been to the bridge. With my father.”
“Of course. How could I forget? You have access to whatever you want, whenever you want.”
Her stomach twisted a little. It felt like he was subtly mocking her. It wasn't something she was used to. “I should go back inside.”
“Do you want to go back in?”
She didn’t answer, only breathed out a tendril of faux-smoke. The breeze took it and flung it out into the space surrounding their little boat on the vast, empty sea.
“This is your vacation, after all. Aren’t you supposed to only do what you want?”
She snorted. “I wish.”
He took another step closer. He smelled like a combination of something musky and male, like cedar or pine, a deep and wild forest. “I’m serious. You clearly deserve some fun. Come with me.”
“Excuse me?”
He smiled, his eyes going even darker. “Come with me. I'll show you the ship, her inner workings, her guts. The stuff you don’t see on the official tour.”
She should leave, go back inside and charm the stuffy, boring politicians and CEOs like she always did. She didn't have a handle on this conversation. She didn't have a handle on him. He seemed to waver between friendly and slightly hostile. It made her nervous. He made her nervous. She licked her lips. “I really should go.”
“It'll be fun. And I'll be a gentleman, I promise.”
She took a step away from the railing, away from him. The ship r
olled beneath her, and she fought off a wave of dizziness. “Isn't there some rule about crew and passengers not fraternizing with each other?”
He cocked an eyebrow. “Is that what you want to do? Fraternize?”
In spite of herself, she blushed. For one second, she imagined what it would be like. To take off, to defy her father. How furious he would be when he realized his only daughter, his prized possession, wasn't coming back to his dinner of honor. That she'd dared to disobey him. “I’m sorry, I really can’t.”
Before she could say anything else, the double glass doors slid open with a hiss. Her mother walked out, clutching her purse and wobbling a bit in her heels as the deck swayed. “Amelia. I have your pills. For your headache.” She always kept a bottle of Amelia's medication in her purse, just in case.
“I'm fine.”
Her mother's eyes slanted at Gabriel. She frowned slightly. “Come back to dinner, please. The meal is about to be served. And your father wants you to play.”
Amelia nodded goodbye to Gabriel, tucked her clutch under her arm, and obediently followed her mother back inside. Elise paused outside the entrance to Oasis. “Why are you talking to that boy? Your father wouldn’t like it.”
“Why? It’s just talking.”
Her mother’s brow furrowed. “I’m serious, Amelia. Be careful.”
“I am. I will.” She took a deep breath, steeling herself.
She didn’t get to just up and do whatever she wanted. What she needed to do was focus on doing better. Being better. She pushed Gabriel Rivera and his questions out of her mind and went back inside.
8
Micah
The light from the setting sun glittered across the waves like red and gold diamonds. Micah hardly noticed. All around him, couples in fine evening gowns and handsome tuxedos preened on the decks for the photo drones. The walls on Deck Six outside the Oasis dining room were already lined with thousands of vids, and this was only day four of the cruise.
The Grand Voyager had just departed from its second port, Grand Cay in the Bahamas. They were headed for Grand Turk to restock on provisions and provide the nine hundred and eighty passengers on board a glimpse of the best the Caribbean had to offer.
But he didn't care about beaches and sunsets, or even his responsibilities as a waiter at the Oasis dining room, which he was currently abdicating. Gabriel had avoided him for two days. He wasn't in his cabin last night and Micah couldn't find him in the crew bar, mess hall, or officer’s deck. He wasn't answering his messages or his phone.
Last night at Oasis, he’d glimpsed his brother monitoring the outside decks while Micah served middle-aged men nursing sunburns and rich women giddy with the 'deals' they'd bartered off the poor in the bustling shops of Grand Cay. Outrage had been burning a hole in his chest since he’d discovered the drugs two days ago. He couldn't wait any longer.
It was still early in the dinner hour. Guests were just starting to be seated, but not yet expecting to be served. Micah convinced his friend Javier to cover for him. “Ten minutes, tops,” he'd promised. Now he headed for the starboard side of Deck Six.
He found Gabriel at his favorite smoking spot around the corner from the Oasis dining room, sprawled in one of the patio chairs. “I need to talk to you.” His voice came out hoarse, weak.
Gabriel waved his hand dismissively. He took a drag of the cigarette. “I’m busy here.”
Micah’s anger built up inside him. He would not be pushed aside. Not today. “I've been searching for you all over the ship.”
Behind Gabriel, the sky was a burnished palette of red, gold, bronze, and pink, the sun a fiery orange ball about to dip below the lip of the horizon.
“Can't you see I'm working?” Gabriel choked back a laugh, smoke sifting between his lips.
“Like I'm supposed to be,” Micah said. “I only need five minutes.”
Gabriel leaned back, lacing his hands behind his head. “What?”
“Gabriel.”
“Oh, fine.” Gabriel untangled himself from the chair and sauntered toward him. “This better be good.”
His face felt overheated, his ears burning. “I was in the laundry. I saw the drugs.”
Gabriel smoothed a stray wrinkle in his crisp security uniform. “What drugs?”
“The drugs you've been smuggling on the ship.”
“Hold up, now. What are you talking about?”
A fresh wave of anger swelled over him. Gabriel was a smooth liar. Always had been. But Gabriel wasn't supposed to lie to him. He wasn't supposed to lie to his own brother. They'd promised. “Zhang told me.”
Gabriel spit over the side of the glass railing. When he glanced back at Micah, his expression was placid, his eyebrows cocked in mild curiosity. “Zhang is a piece of trash. A little rat scurrying around the bowels of the ship. He's looking for someone to blame. I don't have a thing to do with any drugs. Why would I?”
Micah wanted desperately to believe him, but the evidence told him otherwise. It explained so much. The nice clothes. The hushed conversations. The way Gabriel’s face would harden at some innocuous question or comment, shutting Micah out for no reason. “Then you won't have a problem when I report this to the captain.”
“The captain? You need to follow the chain of command and report to Chief Security Officer Schneider.”
“Schneider is in on it. But you know that.”
“I know nothing of the sort. It's against protocol to break the chain of command. You'll be disciplined—if they don’t just kick you off at the next port.” But something changed in Gabriel's face, a hint of anxiety around the eyes. He wasn't worried about Schneider. He was worried about the captain.
Micah bit the inside of his cheeks, his gut twisting. He forced his voice to sound confident. “I'm going to Liebenberg tonight. If you're clean, you don't have anything to worry about.”
Gabriel gripped the glass railing with both hands. “Wait, Micah.” He stared out at the sea, the dying sun highlighting his features with a soft glow. “You know how many people would be affected by this? I'm worried about their welfare. A dozen crew fired, and what are their families going to do? They'll starve. These guys are just trying to earn a living, Micah. You know how hard that is. You know what it's like now.”
“I know.” Before they’d scored the jobs on the ship, Micah and Gabriel were in the same tough spot. And they didn’t have families they needed to feed. He remembered what it was like though, how hard their parents had to work just to keep the electricity going and food on the table. But even at the worst times, his mom never hurt anyone else. Even his father, always so angry and defeated, only took Silk, never sold it. “But it’s breaking the law.”
Gabriel made an exasperated sound in his throat. “You don't get it. The law is nothing but a weapon the elite use to oppress the rest of us.”
“It's wrong. Those drugs are dangerous. They hurt people. You remember Dad? You remember what that was like?” Micah’s voice cracked. “I'm going to report it, with or without you.”
Micah turned and walked away. He prayed his brother would stay silent, clinging to a thread of hope that he was wrong, that somehow Gabriel wasn't involved. Maybe Zhang was lying. Maybe it was some mistake. Maybe everything could continue as it had been, his brother still his best friend.
He hadn't gone five steps when Gabriel spoke. “Stop.”
Micah turned and faced him.
“You turn in those drugs, and you're turning me in, too.”
Micah’s heart cracked open inside his chest. All the things he wanted to say—Why? How could you do this? How could you lie to me?—stuck like burrs in his throat. He swallowed. “I have to.”
“You don't have to do anything, man. I promise you, it's for a good cause.”
“I have to,” he repeated, like the rest of the English language had suddenly deserted him.
“No. You don't. And you won't. This is me. You know me. I wouldn't do this if not for a good reason. Trust me.”
“Trust you? You’re smuggling drugs!”
“It’s not what you think.”
“I can’t let you do this.” Pain churned in his gut. His whole life, he’d always tried to do the right thing. His mom taught him that, with her faith and her Bible stories. Her faith sustained her, even in her last days. Micah tried to live the way she would want, the way God would want. But Gabriel was different. He had his own code.
“I'm your brother,” Gabriel said. “I'm blood. You've got your faith. I admire that. But loyalty trumps all. Blood trumps all.”
For a long moment, neither of them spoke. Further down the deck, a woman squealed with laughter. Inside Oasis, the string quartet played something by Mozart. The sky deepened to cobalt blue. It was hard to make out the details of Gabriel's face. Micah couldn't read him anymore. If he ever really could.
Gabriel rubbed the back of his neck. “Look. You've got work. So do I. I know you'll do the right thing.”
“What’s the right thing, Gabriel?”
“The right thing is to trust me. And to trust in the greater good.” He spoke with such confidence, such certainty.
But Micah felt anything but certain. He was teetering on the edge of a gaping hole, about to fall. “Gabriel—”
But his brother’s expression closed, slamming shut like a door. He pulled his phone out of his pocket and glanced at the time. “I have a meeting. I have to go.”
Micah frowned. “What meeting? With who? We’re not done talking.”
But Gabriel didn’t answer him. He smiled wryly and slapped Micah on the back. “Don’t worry so much, okay? I’ll see you later.”
Micah watched him saunter across the deck and disappear around the corner. Gabriel acted like it was no big deal, like Micah’s world hadn’t just splintered into a thousand pieces. Questions tore at him, jagged as glass. How could he live with himself if he didn’t turn in the drugs? How could he live with himself if he did? How could he betray his own brother?
