Luisa kept screaming. Nils had taken Nalani in his arms to quiet her. Neither of them seemed to care that her husband’s blood stained her clothes now. Patrick had a hand on his husband’s back. Cat and Sami stood six or seven feet apart, both with stone faces, careful not to make a motion that would set off the smugglers.
“Okay,” Machii said, walking over to put his arm around Alex. “Damien’s going to stay here on the boat with your friends. We’re making a trade. We leave him, but we take you. See, you seem like you’re stupid enough to try something here. We’re going ashore. We’re gonna make sure there’s no trace of us in there, nothing we need, nothing they can use to track us down. And then we’re leaving as fast as we can.”
He raised the pistol, glancing around at the others. “We’re in a hurry, my friends. Our pets are fed. We’ve had our fun. I haven’t decided yet how many of you are going to be alive when we leave, but if you behave yourselves, maybe it’ll be all of you.”
Machii smiled. “Though I highly doubt it.”
He shoved Alex toward the ladder. “Let’s go.”
Sami said his name. Just once. Not a scream or a cry. She spoke his name.
Alex looked back at his wife and she nodded to him. Stay alive, that nod said.
He nodded back.
Then he climbed over the side, leaving his wife behind.
Below, the water churned with Devil Sharks and the blood of two good men.
CHAPTER 16
Alliyah jerked against the ground. The crack of the gunshot echoed across the water. Dev whispered something too quietly for her to hear. She dug her fingers into the hard ground of the little rise that sheltered them from view. When the men threw the body overboard—tossed it to the waiting sharks—she felt the tears come fast. From the way she heard Dev’s breathing hitch, she knew he must be crying, too.
Sick with horror, she listened to the distant shouts and screams. They were carried on the wind, drifting in and out like radio stations fuzzed with static. Another body went over the side. She wished she had binoculars, and then was glad she didn’t. Gabe, she thought. From the hair and the coloring, it had to be Gabe.
Something shifted inside her then. Hardened. She felt her tears dry as the wind blew across her back and the light turned gray with the oncoming storm, still a ways off but ominous, full of the promise of hard rain. The wind picked up as Alliyah and Dev lay there watching, waiting to see who would be the next person thrown to the sharks.
The water touched Alliyah’s toes. Reflexively, she drew her legs up a bit and glanced over her shoulder. The waterline had been much farther when they had arrived. The tide was coming in.
A motor roared and she settled herself beside Dev again, ignoring the surf as it touched her feet again. In the bay, gunmen were climbing down from the Kid Galahad, but they weren’t leaving alone. She held her breath as she watched Alex climb down the ladder.
Gunshots filled the air. She flinched with every crack of the air. Then she saw one of the smugglers lean over and fire a longer gun into the Galahad’s dinghy, which had been tied up alongside this whole time. This was no crack, no simple gunshot. The boom echoed across the water and she knew it had to be a shotgun, though she’d only ever heard one fired on television or in movies.
“Dev—” she began.
“They’re scuttling the dinghy,” he said, his voice hollow.
More of the smugglers, or whatever they were, joined Alex and the others in the pontoon boat, and then they cast off. The dinghy would be sinking, even now. No matter what else happened, their friends were trapped on that boat. Nobody would be coming for Alliyah and Dev, at least not today.
Her eyes tracked Alex’s head, where he sat in that small boat, but the gunmen didn’t return to their own ship. The pontoon boat cut a diagonal line across the inside arc of the atoll, headed directly for the Coast Guard station.
“There’s something there they want,” she whispered.
Dev said nothing.
She turned her head, keeping low. “We have to do something.”
“Don’t be stupid.”
Heat flushed her cheeks. “They don’t know we’re here. Whoever they are, they just murdered two people. They killed our friends.”
Dev looked at her as if she were the murderer. His tears had dried, but they were shot through with red. “They killed two people, Alli, and they are … I mean, it’s pretty clear they’re going to kill more. If help is coming, it’s not going to come in time.”
“We can help.”
“Alliyah, I want you to listen to me.” The wind skittered small stones and bits of sand across the ground around them. The surf shushed up around their feet. The pontoon boat’s motor still roared.
“Dev—”
“Alliyah, despite everything, I have been a good husband. We both had fathers who were very different sorts of husbands than I have been to you. I know why you left me, why you hurt me, and you know it was not easy for me to begin again with you. Maybe I was distant and made you feel alone, but I never tried to bully you. I never told you what to do. But you need to listen to me now. We’re going to lie here and do nothing. We’re going to stay hidden as best we can and hope that nobody discovers us.”
Her feelings for Dev had been complicated for a long time. But her feelings about this were crystal clear.
“Fuck you.” She slid backward, in the water up to her calves, and rose onto her knees and elbows.
Dev grabbed her wrist. “Stay here! You’re going to stay right here with me—”
“Or what?” she hissed.
“Or you’re going to get us both killed.”
Alliyah exhaled. Deflating. When she looked at him again, she made sure to let her face reveal all the disgust and sorrow she felt.
“One of my oldest friends died a little while ago. Maybe he wasn’t a very good friend, but he was one of the best friends I had, once upon a time. Now two more friends are dead, and I don’t even know who one of them was. Shot dead. Dumped into the water for … for fucking chum!”
“Sssshhhh.”
She yanked her arm back, breaking his grip. “Don’t shush me, you cowardly piece of shit.” She felt the rage fueling her, felt the spittle flying from her lips. It woke her up to who and what she was, what she and Dev were to each other, and her sadness deepened. “I’m a broken person, Dev. I think everyone’s broken in some way. But I never understood what a tiny, cowardly little man you really are.”
“You’re going to get me killed,” he said quietly. She noticed that he’d said us both before, but now it was just about him. At least now his fear wore an honest face.
“There are people I love on that boat,” she said. “And Alex Simmons … shit, Alex is just about the best guy I ever knew. I got to college, and Alex was the first guy who made me realize that not all men had to be selfish pricks.”
“So you slept with him. You’re going to get me killed because you once slept with Alex?”
Alliyah had listened to enough. “Dating Alex was a mistake. We weren’t right for each other and I was never in love with him. But did I love him? Do I love him? Absolutely, I do. Enough that I can’t lie here and let him, or any of the others, die. Not if there’s anything I can do about it.”
She scuttled sideways, crab-style, and worked her way down into the water.
“They have guns,” she heard Dev say, but a wave crashed around her and the words were wiped away.
She knew they had guns. She knew her only advantage was that the smugglers had no idea anyone else was on the atoll. She knew a storm was coming and the tide was rising. But she could see a path along this side of the atoll that would take her into the trees and flowers and eventually, if she kept low and stayed lucky, would let her emerge perhaps forty feet from the Coast Guard station.
More than anything, though, Alliyah knew that if she’d stayed lying on her belly on the ground like Dev, and she survived, she’d have to live the rest of her life knowing she’d done nothing wh
en her friends were being murdered.
Better to be dead than to live with that.
She stayed low, and she hurried as best she could.
And the sky grew darker, and the tide rose.
* * *
Sami sat on the deck with her back against the cockpit wall, the windows of the wheelhouse above her. Cat had asked if she could take Luisa below, but the big man with the gun—Damien—had refused. They were all staying on deck until Machii and the others came back. If the guests of the Kid Galahad behaved themselves, they might survive to be rescued. Damien said it as if he believed there to be a genuine possibility of them all living to see nightfall, and Sami didn’t judge him as someone who cared very much about lying to make other people feel better.
So she sat—hands in her lap and mouth shut—and she waited. Machii thought the Coast Guard was coming. They’d all be hurrying now, which was good but could also be dangerous.
Luisa had stopped screaming at some point, but Sami had barely noticed. The woman’s grief and hysteria had become as much a part of this terror as the rocking of the ship and the sinister presence of the sharks, not to mention the gun in Damien’s hands. Sami had never been this close to an assault rifle. The quickness of it, the ability it had to erupt, felt to her like what she imagined it would be to fall into a tiger pit.
Cat sat against the railing with Luisa, arm around her. She wouldn’t look at Damien, but she radiated hatred. Sami had no doubt that Cat would kill the son of a bitch if the opportunity arose, which was a thing she’d never thought about another person. Ever. Never had to think about it. If anyone had asked her that morning which of them was least likely to be willing to take another human life, Sami would have chosen Cat. Full of love and music, a kind and patient soul, willing to endure her friends’ flaws because she valued their better qualities. But yeah, no question in Sami’s mind now. Cat would kill this guy.
Sami couldn’t be so confident about herself. Harry and Gabe and James were all dead. Alex … just thinking of him made every muscle in her body tense. Alex had been taken at gunpoint off this boat. If she had to do it to protect him, Sami figured she could kill, even though every moment of her professional training had been about saving lives. But in that situation, yes. She thought she could kill a man.
But to get the drop on him, to push him overboard so the sharks would eat him—the easiest method, the method she knew they all had to be thinking about, even Damien—she didn’t know if she could do that.
“Oh, shit,” Patrick said. “I’m … I think I’m gonna be sick.”
Damien’s upper lip curled in disgust. He swung the barrel of his assault rifle toward Nils and Patrick, who were standing not far from the door into the wheelhouse. Patrick did look pale. He hung his head and gagged, then took shallow breaths, fighting back the urge. He took two steps toward the railing, and nearer to Damien.
“Hey! If you’re gonna puke, do it right there.”
Nils started to defend him, but Patrick held up his hands, taking more shallow breaths.
“Sorry,” he said. “I just … oh, shit, no…”
He stumbled forward, giving Damien a wide berth but racing past him. Damien shouted at him as Patrick reached the railing, bent over, and started dry heaving. He gagged, making choking noises.
Damien barked again. Then pulled the trigger.
Sami cried out and Luisa buried her head in Cat’s shoulder. The bullets punched into the deck, sending shrapnel flying. Patrick dropped to his knees, hands raised again, taking long breaths now as Damien shouted warnings—to get back with the others or the next bullet wouldn’t be aimed at the boat.
Patrick started back over to where he and Nils had been standing.
Only then did Sami notice that Nils had vanished. Damien saw it at the same moment.
“Oh, you little bastard,” Damien said, and he kicked Patrick in the back.
Patrick sprawled on the deck as Damien marched over to Luisa, who screamed as the big man dragged her away from Cat. He swung his assault rifle left and right to keep Sami and Cat and Patrick from trying to rush him, and then he put the gun barrel to Luisa’s head. Hysteria fled and Luisa fell unnervingly silent.
“Go and get your boyfriend,” Damien said. “I’m counting to twenty and this bitch is dead.”
Patrick leaped to his feet and lunged through the cockpit door, heading for the wheelhouse steps as he shouted for Nils to stop. He didn’t waste seconds trying to plead with Damien or correct the man’s observation of his marital status.
“One! Two. Three. Four. Five…”
Sami glanced at Cat and saw she had shifted onto one knee, her left hand on the deck as if she might spring at the gunman. Sami would have hissed at her, told her to stay where she was, except that she realized she herself had adopted the same pose. Luisa seemed to shrink, still in silence, awaiting the bullet that Sami hoped would kill her if it came. Better a bullet than the sharks. Better a quick death than screaming the way Harry had as they tore into you, feeling it and knowing what was happening to you.
Damien kept counting.
Sami wanted to weep, but terror had leeched away any chance of tears.
“Thirteen! Fourteen. Fifteen! Six—”
Nils stumbled onto the deck. He glanced around at the others, paused to gaze apologetically at Luisa; then Patrick followed him onto the deck. Damien hurled Luisa back toward Cat and swung the gun at Nils and Patrick.
“You,” he said to Patrick. “Go sit with the others.”
“Whatever you’re going to do—”
“If I felt like killing him, I’d just shoot you both,” Damien said, laughing quietly as if he’d just heard the world’s dumbest joke. “Go and sit your ass down.”
Nils gave his husband a gentle shove. Patrick watched Damien with rapt attention. Sami could see a vein pulsing on his neck as he sat down beside her. She took his arm, looped hers through his, both in comfort and to keep him from lunging.
“You, over here,” Damien said, gesturing for Nils to come and kneel on the deck by him. Fifteen feet from the nearest other person—fifteen feet from help.
He kicked Nils in the face.
“Fucker!” Patrick growled, trying to jump to his feet.
Sami held him back and he tried to pull free as Damien kicked Nils again. Blood flew from Nils’s mouth.
“That’s enough!” Cat shouted.
Patrick broke free. Sami grabbed hold again and was dragged to her feet as she tried to stop him.
Damien pressed the barrel of the gun against the back of Nils’s head, staring at Patrick.
“Stop!” Nils snapped, and it was clear he wasn’t talking to the man hurting him, but to his husband. “Just let him do what he has to do.”
Damien grinned, then swung the gun toward Patrick and kicked Nils in the ribs with enough force to loft the smaller man off the deck. Nils flopped on his side, gasping for air. Patrick’s fists opened and closed, but there was nothing he could do that wouldn’t end with one or both of them dead.
“Now listen,” Damien said. “Machii would’ve killed you both. I figure you went for the radio, which makes me wonder why. Maybe help isn’t coming after all. Maybe all that shit about the Coast Guard was a lie, although you guys were pretty much stranded when we got here, so I don’t know. All I do know is that if anyone tries anything else … anything at all … I’m going to make you guys choose which one gets shot and dumped over the side to our hungry friends. We clear?”
No one spoke. The rigging clanged against the masts. A few droplets of rain began to patter on the deck.
“Are we clear?” Damien asked. “Come on, don’t throw mercy back in my face. We could just get all nasty right now if you’d rather.”
“We’re clear,” Nils said, spitting blood as he rose slowly to his feet and stumbled, clutching his ribs, back to his husband.
But Sami saw that Cat remained ready to lunge, and she felt it herself, in every muscle. She glanced at Patrick and Nils, and saw
that they too were ready. Waiting for the right moment. Luisa, though … Luisa remained utterly silent, barely breathing, almost folded in upon herself on the deck.
Sami had never had a premonition before, but she felt seized by a terrible certainty in that moment. She felt sure that Luisa would die out here.
Then it occurred to her how stupid the thought was. After all, she felt pretty sure they were all going to die out here.
She just hoped Alex came back before it happened. She liked these people, but she didn’t really know them. Alex, at least, loved her. If she had to die, she wanted it to be by his side.
* * *
The pontoon boat skidded up onto the sand. Benjie and Joriz were out first, both of them rushing at the Coast Guard station with weapons leveled, as if they expected armed resistance from the abandoned building. Alex watched the crisp motion and professional execution of this simple act, the way they moved without having to be told, and he knew his suspicions were correct. Most, if not all, of these guys were ex-military. They were efficient as hell, and had proven themselves to be ruthless.
When Alex climbed out of the pontoon boat onto the beach, he figured he was never leaving Orchid Atoll.
“You look like I just broke your favorite toy,” Machii said as he fell in beside Alex. The surf crashed behind them.
“Or like you just fucked his wife,” Blue Eyes added. He didn’t laugh. It wasn’t a joke.
Alex said nothing. He trudged up toward the Coast Guard station with the two men flanking him. They left the pontoon boat with its pilot, a short, barrel-chested guy named Hannigan, who hadn’t spoken a single word while he’d ferried them across the lagoon.
“Not your day, is it?” Blue Eyes asked, marching beside Alex.
“It’s not ending the way it started, no,” Alex replied. He glanced up at the gray sky, where the clouds were thickening. Raindrops had begun to fall.
Machii clapped a hand on his shoulder. “It’s not over yet, my friend.”
“Yeah,” Blue Eyes agreed. “It could still get worse.”
Up ahead, Benjie and Joriz took the door of the Coast Guard station like the ATF busting in the doors of a meth lab. It would have looked foolish if not for the guns, and the two men these ruthless pricks had already killed.
Devil Sharks Page 14
