“I… damn it, yes, it makes sense. If – and that’s a big if – these are the rocks, and the treasure is there, then yes, getting to them at low tide would be smart.” Avery couldn’t believe she was actually agreeing to this.
“Then we go,” Cherylynn decided.
“You could wait until morning,” Sara said.
“We need to get you out of here in the morning, not be spending time treasure-hunting,” Avery said.
“Besides, if the other groups get here in the night and they take the treasure, then we lose,” Lisette said.
“What are we winning, anyway?” Avery wondered.
“Likely we’ll automatically progress to the next round,” Lisette said.
“It would be a lot cooler if it was money,” Cherylynn grumbled, standing up and wiping the sand from the back of her legs.
“I can’t believe I’m agreeing to do this,” Avery said. “But – let’s go find that treasure.”
“Go get ’em, girl,” Sara said, swinging herself to a sitting position in the hammock, her legs hanging over the side. “I’ll keep the fire stoked while you’re gone.”
“Great, thank you,” Avery said.
“Don’t do anything stupid,” Sara warned. “I’ve already handicapped us.”
“I don’t think there’s anything bright about what we’re doing, so we’ve already lost there,” Avery muttered as they plodded along the water’s edge to where the line of rocks stretched far into the sea.
“It’s an adventure,” Cherylynn reminded her.
“Aye, matey, let’s find our gold doubloons,” Avery tried out, then added a “Yarr” for good measure.
“You’ll need to work on that,” Cherylynn decided.
Chapter 20
On the list of stupid things she’d done in her life – which honestly wasn’t that long if you didn’t count the stunts that Ruby pulled her into periodically – this had to be pretty high up there, Avery decided as they climbed over rocks slick with algae and covered with barnacles. Night had settled upon them and only the light from the two headlamps and the rising moon showed their path. They moved slowly, Cherylynn in the front with her light, Lisette in the middle with no light, and Avery in the back, lighting the way for both Lisette and herself as they did their best not to slip and slide across the rocks or get sliced by the sharp shells of the barnacles.
Lisette moved with ease and confidence, her bare feet hugging the rocks, and Avery could see more and more clearly that she was an ocean-going California girl. Nothing really seemed to gross her out or bother her, which was not what Avery would have expected when she first met her. She’d assumed that Lisette would be the first to scream at a bug or cry at a broken nail, yet she’d done nothing but be kind, easy-going, and funny to be around this whole time. It wouldn’t be hard for Beckett to fall in love with someone like her, Avery thought as they clambered over a particularly large boulder. The waves snapped against the rocks, slapping saltwater in their faces, and Avery paused to wipe her eyes so she could see again.
She herself, on the other hand, seemed to be a bit of a mess, she realized. Even though she’d had a nice epiphany on the beach earlier, it had been kind of like ripping the Band-Aid off, and now all sorts of emotions were flooding through her. The realization that she’d essentially become a hermit to protect herself was making her sad for the years she’d lost, not to mention the bitterness about men she’d also managed to pick up along the way.
It had hurt, more than she’d admitted to anyone, when her boyfriend had left her after the accident. He hadn’t signed up to help someone recover from such a catastrophic event, and had left her with a “Glad you’re not dead” shortly after she’d come out of the coma. Sure, they’d only been dating for six months, but Avery had expected he would stay by her side through a tough situation. The harsh reality of recovery mixed with rejection had spiraled her into a pretty low point in her life. Could anyone blame her for not trusting men after that?
“What are you muttering about back there?” Lisette asked as they continued to climb over the rocks, the light of the fire growing smaller by the second. Avery wondered if or how the cameramen were catching this – she couldn’t imagine that they would be climbing over these boulders with cameras on their shoulders.
“Um, just… nothing, really,” Avery said, pushing her stuff to the side to focus on the task at hand.
“Come on, give it up,” Cherylynn said.
“I… I had a bad accident a few years back. In the water. I don’t like talking about it, but it makes me leery of being this close to the ocean.”
“Can you not swim?” Lisette stopped and looked back at her, genuine concern on her pretty face.
“No, I’m a great swimmer. It was a kayak-and-fast-rapids kind of accident. Again, nothing I really like to revisit. Just left some marks on me, I guess.”
“Well, yeah, duh. That sounds really scary. Were you hurt badly?”
“I was in a coma for a week,” Avery said before she could shut herself up. She’d promised herself she wouldn’t share this, as she didn’t want a pity party. When she’d been recovering from the accident, there had been nothing she’d hated more than people giving her those kind of looks when she was slowly getting up strength to walk again and so on. The last thing she wanted was to be treated with kid gloves in this competition.
“Holy shit, I’d say that’s a big deal,” Cherylynn said, shooting a look over her shoulder, though all Avery could see was the blinding light of her headlamp.
“Headlamp,” Avery laughed, throwing her hand in front of her eyes.
“Oh yeah, sorry.” Cherylynn looked down quickly. “But for real – how scary. And here you are crawling on these rocks with us. I’d say that takes some major cojones, girl.”
“I don’t get why guys get the credit for being strong,” Lisette complained. “Balls have to be, like, the weakest thing ever. Seriously, have you seen a guy get kicked in the sack before? Or hit accidently with something there? It’s like the world literally ends, I swear, the screaming and carrying-on they do. Rolling around on the floor like someone just threw acid on their face or something. Balls aren’t strong. Women should get the credit for being strong. We’re the ones who can push ten-pound footballs out of us and get up and walk the same day. Now you tell me what’s stronger? Balls or vajayjays?” Lisette demanded. She seemed to suddenly realize that the other two women had stopped walking to stare at her as she ranted.
“Well, shit, you’re right,” Cherylynn decided.
“Of course I’m right. Women are strong and amazing and all-powerful. So, yes, Avery, you’ve got some major vajayjay power to be out here climbing on the rocks with all this dark water swirling around you.”
If someone had ever told Avery that one day she’d laugh until she cried while perched on a boulder far from shore with dark water teeming at her feet, she would have called them a liar.
“Oh my gosh! X marks the spot! X marks the spot!” Cherylynn shrieked. Sara cheered from the beach, and they all turned. The fire looked impossibly far away, and Avery gulped at the dread that rushed through her. She forced herself to draw on this newfound strength inside her.
Turning back, she quickly clambered over the last boulder, ignoring the twist in her gut when her foot slipped a bit, and peered over Lisette’s shoulder. She did her best to ignore the water circling her feet, trying not to think too deeply about what was swimming around in there, and laughed when she saw what Cherylynn had found.
Tied to a trio of three rocks – which, up close, did look strikingly like the form of a woman or a seal, head thrown upwards and back arched – was a large X made out of driftwood sticks, with a silver pouch duct-taped to the middle.
“I wonder who got the job of bringing this out here,” Lisette said.
“I was just thinking that. Likely the same intern who made that crappy map,” Cherylynn decided. “Avery, you didn’t bring that knife, did you?”
“In my pocket,”
Avery said, and handed it over.
Cherylynn neatly cut the pouch away and tucked it inside her swim top for safe keeping. “I don’t know about you,” she said, “but I’m more than ready to get back to shore before this water gets any higher. Anyone else notice it creeping up our legs?”
Now that Cherylynn had mentioned it, Avery did notice the crash of waves getting louder. Panic loomed in her throat, and she put a hand to her chest, struggling to catch her breath.
“Now you just go on and breathe, honey. There’s nothing to it but one foot in front of the other all the way back to shore,” Cherylynn said, ignoring a particularly large wave that slammed at their knees. “Slow and steady. It’s when you rush that you slip up.”
“She’s right,” Lisette said, turning Avery firmly around and nudging her back toward shore. “Steady as she goes. We have plenty of time. High tide doesn’t just rush into shore in five minutes. We’ll be back on that beach long before these rocks are covered in water.”
“Okay, got it,” Avery said, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth. She forced down the panic that licked at her stomach. “Go slow, Avery, go slow, Avery.” She chanted it to herself the whole way back to shore, focusing on the words and her steps, whispering it like a mantra over and over until once again her feet touched sand. Had she been a more dramatic person, she would have dropped to her knees and cast her arms to the stars, praising whatever universal energy was out there for seeing her safely back. Instead she turned and hugged her friends.
“Thank you for your help,” she said. “I’m sorry I had a moment out there.”
“Honey, if you call that a moment, then I don’t know what we’d call it when I have a moment. A tornado?”
“A tantrum?” Lisette suggested.
“A tsunami?” Cherylynn said.
“A car crash?” Avery said. They all laughed, hooking arms and running back down the beach, excited to show Sara what they’d found. She stood by the fire, the crutch under one arm, and added more wood.
“I am so glad you all are back,” Sara admitted. “I have to admit, you looked really far away out there. I didn’t like thinking you might slip and hit your head or something.” Then she whooped when Cherylynn pulled the pouch from her top. “You found it!”
“We’re okay. It was tricky, I’m not going to lie,” Avery said, plopping down on the sarongs that Sara had laid out next to the fire. “But we did manage.”
“Boy, am I glad we’re back, though,” Cherylynn said. “I just wish we had some wine.”
“Well…” Avery said.
The whole group turned with their mouths open in shock.
“Please tell me you didn’t carry heavy bottles with you in your pack,” Sara demanded.
“Or please tell me you did?” Cherylynn asked hopefully.
“Not bottles. I took the bag out of a box of wine they had in the kitchen and shoved it in my pack last minute. Just in case.” Avery laughed and dug the bag of red wine from the bottom of her pack.
“You are officially my new favorite person,” Cherylynn decided.
“Let’s see what’s in the bag,” Avery said, blushing at their compliments. Opening the wine, she took a drink from the nozzle, and then handed it out. As the ladies passed the wine around the circle, Avery began handing out power bars for dinner.
“Sara, you open it.” Cherylynn handed it off.
“No, I shouldn’t,” Sara said, guilt crossing her face.
“Open it. We’re a team,” Lisette insisted, taking another swig of the wine before passing it back to Avery.
“Ohhh, gold coins.” Sara giggled and held up four fake gold coins. “They say, ‘Automatically advance to the next round.’”
“Sweet! I feel like I just got one of those extra life mushrooms in the Mario games.” Cherylynn laughed. “Cheers, ladies! I know it’s going to be a long night, but hopefully nothing else eventful will happen and we can get out safely in the morning.”
A haunting, ethereal howling rang across the water, and the women froze, eyes huge in their faces, as the sound continued. It wasn’t quite a song – as there was no rhythm or melody to it – but it still tugged at Avery’s heart. In its own way, it was beautiful.
“It’s the rocks… the siren rocks,” Lisette said, looking out to where they’d just been.
“They’re singing for us,” Avery said, happy to have been back on land and not near the rocks when they’d started up. She could see now why they warned sailors away from the rocks – as the water came in, the rocks were barely visible.
“It’s incredible,” Cherylynn decided.
“I’ll always remember this moment,” Avery said. “Cheers, ladies. Thank you for sharing this with me.”
Chapter 21
Avery wasn’t sure what woke her or, frankly, where she was for a moment. She blinked up at the palm leaves fluttering over her head and took a few seconds to calibrate her brain. Turning her head, she saw Cherylynn and Lisette, both comfortably sleeping by the fire that had died down to just embers. Sara snored in her hammock, and the moon had risen high enough that its light illuminated the beach.
They’d finished most of the wine, which was likely the reason the other women were sleeping so comfortably right now. Avery had drunk far less than they had. She’d never been one to hold her liquor well, so typically two glasses of wine was more than enough for her. She didn’t like the feeling of being out of control that came from too many drinks, instead enjoying the light buzz she got from just one or two glasses. The rest of the women had no problem with wine, and had indulged themselves while telling stories about their past boyfriends that made Avery laugh so hard she’d had to go use her toilet bush again. All in all, it had been a fun and successful evening, and the camaraderie they’d built together was something that would warm Avery’s heart for a long time to come.
The sound pulled her head up once again, and Avery squinted out at the ocean. Were the rocks singing again? It sounded different this time, she realized, much more melodic. If she’d been a betting woman, she would have put money down that there was a woman out in the water, singing her very heart out.
Desperate to see what was creating such a hauntingly beautiful song, Avery slipped from her hammock and crept toward the shore, leaving the sleeping women behind. As she approached the water, the song grew louder, and it began to wrap around her, seducing her gently with its notes. She didn’t realize she was crying until a tear ran down her cheek and plopped onto her hand.
What sorrow hung in those notes, Avery thought, her heart aching in her chest. She found herself running down the beach, desperate to help this woman singing of love and loss. The words were indecipherable, a language unknown to Avery, but the melody translated everything she needed to know. She was dying of a broken heart, whoever she was, and Avery needed to help her.
“There she is,” Avery whispered. She froze, not even realizing that she was already waist deep in the water. A woman rose from the sea, far out in the deep. This wasn’t a normal woman – oh no; she was an ethereal being, a goddess of the sea, her hair slicked wet in coils around her head, her skin alabaster white and glowing in the light of the moon that bathed her.
Her eyes locked on Avery and for a moment, Avery felt like someone had shot a million beams of light into her very soul. Then the woman dove into the water, brandishing a tail that flashed a rainbow of colors, and the song died with her disappearance.
“No,” Avery gasped, going deeper into the water. “Please don’t go. Don’t be sad. I’ll help you. Whatever you need, I can help you.”
“What do you think you’re doing?” A hand grasped her arm and wrenched Avery back, plastering her against a very wet, very muscular, and very angry Roman.
“I… I…” Avery threw a glance over her shoulder back out at the dark waves, where the line of light from the moon shimmered in a path across the sea, and then down at where she stood, almost up to her neck in the dark water, and then up at Roman.
“Are you insane? Do you think you can just walk into the dark water at night? All alone? Far away from help? I should throttle you,” Roman bit out, his face thunderous, her body still pressed tightly against him. She squirmed, but he held her caged against him as he regulated his breathing.
“Did you see?” Avery gasped, looking once more back to the sea, a torrent of emotions racing through her. Shock raged with lust as her body began to respond instinctively to being pressed against Roman’s muscular body, and she wondered when the last time was she’d been held by a man.
“I saw you being an absolute fool and wandering into the water. Was I not clear on the rules?” Roman asked, his grip loosening a bit, and Avery eased back, realizing that his anger was a mask for fear.
“I’m sorry. I have no idea what came over me – but did you see?” Avery asked, looking back out over the water. As long as she lived, she knew, she would never forget that moment.
“See what? Just how much did you have to drink tonight?”
Avery narrowed her eyes at him, anger quickly surging over the torrent of other emotions that knotted her stomach. A part of her wanted nothing more than to drag Roman’s lips down to hers and kiss him with all the longing and abandon that the siren’s song demanded, and a part of her wanted to shove her fist into his gut for leaving them out here and insinuating she was stupid enough to drink and jump in the water.
“I barely had anything to drink. I’m not a big drinker, which is why I’m not currently passed out in the sand,” Avery hissed, stabbing a finger into his chest. He grabbed her hand and pulled her with him, hauling her out of the water. Finally they stood back on the moonlit sand, both of them dripping wet, Avery gasping for air.
“Then what the hell were you doing?”
“Didn’t you hear? The song? And – wait just a minute. Where did you come from, anyway?” Avery demanded, her hands on her hips. “I’ve been wondering where you were all day. Sara’s hurt and you idiots have done nothing to help her.”
A Good Chance (The Siren Island Series Book 3) Page 12
