by C. L. Stone
He walked with me slowly to the door and then, once we were in the hall, started talking to me conversationally about parts of the ship.
I put on a smile as best as I could and spoke only enough to say “uh-huh” and seem interested in what he talked about.
A couple of older women were heading to the library, and they scooted out of our way as we made our exit. I kept my eyes on Marc.
He never wavered. He held on to me, kissed my forehead, and cuddled into me, only the cuddle was supportive, holding me up.
It was odd because it felt like he wasn’t faking. He didn’t have to hold me so close, or even kiss me. He did it anyway.
My heart was pounding with fear about being discovered, but I was having problems with this new attitude from all of them. Acceptance? Marc had had plenty of time to ask me about Brandon and the others while he was waiting for me to get myself together, but he never said a word.
Maybe he didn’t think it was the right time, but…nothing? No consequences for allowing other guys to kiss me and do other things with me? For not telling him about it?
Or maybe I had been hit in the head harder than I thought, and I was misjudging every look and touch he was giving me.
Maybe I did have a concussion.
Maybe I was going crazy.
Heart True
The ship’s hospital staff was minimal that morning, but the doctor saw me right away, a nurse leading me to an exam room.
Marc argued at the door he should stay with me and be allowed inside, but the doctor kept him out.
It was immediately obvious as soon as the doctor looked at me that he remembered my face.
“You didn’t get this from cramps, did you? Did they make you fall again?” he asked as he examined the cut on my head.
“No,” I said. Marc had told him I’d slipped on the pool deck. No other real details. I didn’t want to make up some weird story and have to remember it.
After the doctor checked my head and cleaned the wound, he stood in front of me.
He pulled a red pen from the pocket of his white coat.
“Do you see this?” he asked.
I nodded. “Yeah.”
“Try not to move your head,” he said. He put the pen in his pocket. “You say you were at the pool?”
“Yes.”
“Did you eat breakfast this morning?”
My answer seemed to take forever to come to my mouth. “I had a muffin earlier.” How was this important?
He squinted at me. “What did I just show you from my pocket?”
I blinked at him. “What?”
“I showed you something from my pocket. Do you remember?”
For the life of me, I didn’t. I glanced down at his pocket and thought hard, way too hard, about what had just happened two seconds ago.
“Do you know who brought you here?” he asked. “Do you remember?”
I knew this answer, but it took me a full minute, literally, going through every name in my brain to draw up the right one. “Marc,” I said, then grunted. “My head hurts. Can’t I just have something for that?”
“I think you’ve got a concussion,” the doctor said. “You can have medicine, but I need to keep an eye on you and ask you more questions.”
He continued to ask me questions and interjected several times, showing me an object and then hiding it, asking me later what I saw.
Five out of six times, I got it wrong.
My heart went into overdrive on the last incorrect answer. “Is this bad?”
“No,” he said and he wrote something in his notes. “But hitting your head can be a serious problem. Stress can aggravate this, too. You might have other symptoms, too. Changes in smell and taste, inability to concentrate, irritability…” He looked over his notes at me. “Given your previous reason for coming here, you should check in with your doctor when you get home. I won’t keep you here overnight if you promise to stay in your cabin until we get to shore. Call room service. Just relax. Come see me if you experience any other symptoms or have any discomfort. I’ll give you a list of what to look out for.”
I wasn’t satisfied with that, but my head hurt so much that I didn’t want to ask him any more questions. It bothered me that I couldn’t remember things. How long would that last?
What other symptoms would I have?
He gave me medicine for the headache and told me again I was restricted to resting. No swimming and no activities.
“That won’t be hard to do on this ship, at least for a few days,” he’d said. “Check in with me tomorrow morning. Tell your boyfriend anything and everything that seems odd. I’ll need to tell him what to look out for.”
Rest? Right now was the worst time to rest. I wanted to go help Brandon.
But first I had to get out of this hospital. I lied through my teeth, promising not to move much for at least a week and to see my doctor once we got back to shore.
While the doctor went to get some medications for me, I checked the pockets in my slacks, finding Brandon’s cell phone and the USB stick he’d given me. I was surprised to find them and then felt lucky I hadn’t dropped them.
The USB stick seemed okay. I checked his cell, finding the pictures that I’d taken still there. At least I hadn’t dropped it.
I was flipping through the photos when I spotted a couple of me. I didn’t remember Brandon taking them, but it looked like I hadn’t been paying attention. There was one of me watching TV with Raven, the photo centered on me, Raven’s image cut off the edge.
There was another one of me in the hospital, sleeping. He and I had spent a while in that hospital room together and it was easy to recognize. There weren’t any stored photos from before that one.
I held on to the phone, tracing my thumb over the hard case. I was touched by how he’d kept photos of me, and then I became overwhelmed by sudden tears.
He’d started saving pictures of me after we’d been kidnapped. Something had changed in him to want to save those.
He’d said he loved me. Had he known then?
Had I ruined it? He’d said he understood why I backed off, but did he know that things like being sweet and saving pictures of me made it hard to choose? How was I going to tell him about Blake?
Wait, had I told him about Blake? I tried to remember. My head was swimming with thoughts of that morning, of Axel last night, of Raven’s face. Waking up to Marc’s.
I was still trying to figure out what was in the doctor’s pockets.
I hid the phone before the doctor returned.
When I was finally released, the pain medicine I’d been given started to take effect. I wasn’t sleepy, just hungry, and it was even harder to think clearly. He’d given me pills for pain and different ones to help me sleep.
Marc was allowed to come in the exam room at the end to help me leave.
I didn’t have the wig anymore and the contacts were gone. The only thing left was the makeup, but that might not be enough to hide my identity. I hid my face behind Marc’s shoulder as he encouraged me to hang on to his elbow again.
“Just in case,” he said, although a coy little smile played on his lips.
I didn’t understand him at all. Marc usually toyed with me, and now he seemed too nice. Was it because I had bumped my head?
We took a long route around the ship to avoid people, but I realized at the last turn we were heading toward Doyle’s lair.
I groaned.
“I know,” Marc said. “He’s annoying, but we’ve had to make Doyle’s place the center for every bit of information. He can pass on anything to everyone.”
“What about Blake’s old spot?”
His cheeks reddened and he shrugged. “Compromised. It was my fault,” he said. “We were streaming in and out of there to drop off information, and it attracted the attention of some crew members. We had to shut it down. At least on this floor, there’s only the occasional crew member. Avery assigned
me, and Kevin got assigned to this area to stop too many of them from coming by.”
When we got to the storage room, the normally thick cloud of smoke had dispersed a little. Fluorescent lights were on overhead, but Doyle appeared to be sleeping on a cot in the corner. Hadn’t he been awake before talking to Brandon?
It felt like seconds ago to me. Maybe more time had passed than I’d realized.
Liam was at the computers, staring at a monitor. He was still in the blue shirt and jeans, his sleeves rolled up past his elbows. When he raised his head, he spotted me, and then his rusty eyebrows squished together. “Man, you look weird.”
“Thanks?” I said and then realized he meant the makeup. “Looked better before I got hit. Nice to see you, too.” Wasn’t I supposed to be mad at him? My gut told me I should be, but I was having a hard time remembering why.
“Sorry,” he said with a smile. He motioned for me to come closer. “I’d come to you and give you a hug, but I can’t leave this spot.” His eyes switched from me to the monitors.
Give me a hug? Why? Oh wait, he was being nice because I’d hit my head. Maybe he was nicer than he had seemed at first.
Doyle made a noise like a snore but then quieted.
“He’s not really asleep,” Liam said.
“Not easy to sleep around here,” Doyle said in a low voice. His leg twitched. He was in jeans and his chest was covered by a black bomber jacket.
Liam brushed his palm over his short reddish hair and focused on the screens again, eyes darting between them. “Why don’t you help me here? I’ve got to keep an eye on things while Doyle pretends to sleep.”
“I’m not pretending,” Doyle said.
“You’re talking,” Marc said.
“I talk in my sleep.”
Marc found the only other rolling office chair in the room and rolled it over the linoleum flooring to the tables, pointing at it until I sat. Liam made room, allowing me to watch the computer monitors with him.
The table held up three monitors. Each monitor was split digitally six ways, showing black-and-white footage.
“These are the security cameras in most public areas around the ship,” Liam said. He moved the mouse and clicked on one of the six videos on the monitor right in front of me. The video enlarged, taking up the entire screen. “You click on one to get a better view. Click it again to send it back.”
I studied the screens, but it was hard to watch all of them at once. “How do you pay attention to all of this?”
“You don’t have to watch everything all at once,” Liam said. “There’s security downstairs watching for the general sort of trouble. You can focus on any major players, and follow our team members when they come into the frame. We’re limited since no one spends all their time in these areas. I honestly doubt we’ll witness anything significant; our suspects are not likely to do too much in such public areas.”
Doyle grumbled and shifted. There was a clicking noise, like a button was being pushed. “Blake, Axel says fuck off.” Shifting noises, another click.
I was about to say something to the effect of how everyone should get along, when Liam touched my arm to get my attention. “Ignore it. He’s incapable of relaying information verbatim. You have to read between the lines…kind of.”
Marc examined the supplies on the shelves in the storage room. He shifted through files I recognized as Blake’s dossiers and notes about the ship. Nearby were two square plastic containers filled with hard drives.
Marc spoke as he checked out the stuff. “We’ll have to hang out here for a bit. Once Brandon’s sure no one else is following him, he’ll need to come up here and hide.”
Liam sat back in his chair and drummed his fingers on the computer table. “I can stay with her,” he said. “If you want to go…”
“I have to stay with her,” Marc said, his tone determined.
Liam glanced at me, his brow wrinkling. “It’s not a problem.”
“I’m not leaving,” Marc said over his shoulder, a little louder. He wasn’t looking at either of us, so it was hard to read what he was thinking.
Liam checked in with me, an eyebrow raised.
I shrugged, unsure what he wanted. The medicine, and possibly the concussion, were making it harder for me to focus. I turned my attention to the monitors. What did it matter now who stayed? I was stuck here for possibly the rest of the trip.
Was Liam not okay with Marc? Hadn’t they talked?
Liam sat back in his chair again, sweeping his eyes around the room in thought. “Okay, then maybe I’ll…”
Doyle violently flipped over onto his back. The cot skidded, the metal screeching against the linoleum, hurting my ears. Doyle blew out some air between his lips in a rush. “I don’t care what you do,” he cried out. “I should have never come on this boat.”
“Sorry,” Liam said. “We’ll get quiet.”
“You should learn to sleep while people are talking,” Marc said. “It’s really helpful when you have to share space.”
“Don’t care. I’m too tired for this.” Doyle sat up and ripped a headset off his head. The bomber jacket fell in a heap onto the cot. He left it behind as he headed to the door. “I’m going to go get more food and cigarettes. Then I’m going to watch girls in bikinis and take a nap on deck.”
He opened the door, then stopped, turned, and pointed at me. “If you touch one thing in here, I’ll know, and I’ll curse you and your children and your children’s children, and all the children everywhere. You’ll be responsible for babies being cursed. So don’t touch.” He walked out, and the door shut hard behind him, echoing in the room.
Liam scratched at his forehead and looked at me. “He really doesn’t like you.”
“I think I ruined the man-crush he has on Blake,” I said absently. Then I worried about bringing up Blake around Marc, and I waited for a flinch, or a comment.
Marc looked right at me and laughed, his mismatched eyes lighting up. “He said girls in bikinis, but maybe he meant Blake. Wouldn’t surprise me.”
I raised an eyebrow at him. Nothing? No…fight? Didn’t we normally fight? I lightly pressed a palm to my temple, hating that my memory was a little fuzzy. I felt like I was supposed to be angry at him, too, but I couldn’t remember why.
Marc went to the cot and pushed the jacket aside until it fell to the floor. He fished out the headset. It was attached via a wire to a handheld keypad.
“Doyle hasn’t left this room since he’s been on the boat,” he said. “It’s only fair he gets out for a bit.” He placed the headset over his ears and turned the microphone toward his lips. He pushed a button on the keypad and spoke into the microphone on the headset. “I’m taking over for Doyle. Start over.”
“I’m going to go keep an eye on our friend,” Liam said, standing. When I started to scoot out of the way, he redirected me to the chair in front of the monitors. “Watch things, will you? I don’t like leaving anyone on our team alone.”
Our team? Wasn’t he with Henry? Wasn’t he mad at me, too? “So…you’re on our side now?”
“Always was,” he said. He checked in with Marc, waving at him and signaling that he was leaving.
Marc nodded to him but continued to talk into the headset, relaying messages.
Liam turned back to me. “Just let Marc know if you see anything funny going on,” he said before he left.
I wasn’t sure how to tell if there was something funny going on, but I’d keep my eyes on the monitors and do my best. While Marc talked to people using his headset, I got used to navigating the images, enlarging every video to see if I could identify faces and locations.
I sat in the chair, leaning back, my elbows propped up on the armrests. My head was swimming, a little high from the medicines, but at least the chair was comfortable. It was tempting to go take a nap on the cot, but I didn’t want to leave Marc to handle both tasks.
It could wait until…who was going to come bac
k? I wracked my brain, picturing faces one by one in my head, including my brother’s and my father’s. Frustrated, I gave up trying to remember things.
Focus. Watch monitors. That was my job now.
I studied the black-and-white images. The dining areas were easy enough to identify, as were the shops, but all the different sunning areas looked the same to me. There were some other places I didn’t recognize at all. The ship was bigger than I had thought.
The video feeds changed every few minutes to other cameras at other angles of different rooms. Just as I thought I was getting familiar with a location and might recognize a face, the video changed. It was hard to keep track.
This was going to be difficult.
Where was this goon that had hit me on the head? Shouldn’t we be watching him?
“Axel’s following him,” Marc said, spooking me. I turned to see him sitting on the cot, messing with the hand controller connected to the headset he was wearing. He took the set off, looking at it, adjusting it. “Only Colt is chasing him down. Blake was following Axel, only Blake needs to get here because this is probably our guy.”
I stared at him and blinked. Was he talking to me?
“Yes, I’m talking to you,” Marc said, but he was still looking at the headset. “We don’t want to approach yet. He’s a security guard. So we need to be careful or we might find the whole security team chasing us down.”
Oh wait, if he’s holding the headset in his hands, then he’s probably not talking to anyone else. I realized my mouth was open and promptly closed it.
I was going crazy, saying my thoughts out loud without realizing. I clamped my hand over my mouth, trying to ensure I didn’t start doing that again.
It was easier to use one monitor at a time, expanding the video feed to take up the entire screen. This way, my attention wasn’t split so much. I focused until I was familiar with what I was looking at. When I was sure all the faces weren’t people I knew, and that all seemed peaceful in that feed, I’d minimize and move on to the next.
