by Amber Bardan
They’re not that dumb—except, as usual, for one.
I catch sight of Ash, staring brazenly.
“You’re not alone.”
A wave of sadness saps my bravado. My shoulders curl. “I’m going to bed.”
I take a step toward the veranda, then another. Make it almost to the stairs.
Solid footsteps match mine.
So close, so damn close.
I stop, swivel toward him and don’t wait for Julius to catch me because today I won’t be caught. A flash catches my eye over his shoulder. Ash nursing a beer, and twisting the white-and-rose-gold ring on his finger, far closer to us than wise. He’s not keeping his distance and maybe soon that will mean not keeping his life.
My teeth gnash, then I sink my full attention onto Julius.
Tension throbs in the air.
Maybe the wine gives me something, courage, because I take the devil by his horn.
“Yes,” I say before he can ask. Truth and lies bleed into my vocal cords. “I want to kiss you good-night.”
There’s only a flash of recognition, a brief moment of triumph that curls his lips and lights his eyes. Then he’s moving. His mouth crushes over mine. Fingers burrow against my scalp.
My head spins.
His lips smother my lips. He devours me. Not pleasant, overwhelming. This is what it means to be consumed. But there’s a rush to being pulled apart, a thrill I’ve never known. Then there’s air in my lungs, heavy air flowing from his mouth into mine, sustaining me. His tongue drives between my lips. The heat in me is no longer confined to skin, it bores down to bone. Warmth travels my veins, and a rushing need.
He fills my senses and his fingers tighten in my hair. My eyes sting. I’m not standing anymore. I’m balanced against him. Held up in his grip.
What have I done?
He sucks my bottom lip into his mouth, but lets me go, makes me stand, head tilted back, at his mercy. A squeak leaves my throat and my lip slides free.
Too much oxygen hits me all at once. I grab the railing. Wipe my mouth on the back of my wrist. Don’t look at him. My lips throb—grazed, swollen and engorged by my pulse.
He stands there as though he, Julius King, has no words to say.
There’s a hurricane inside me. A whipping madness I can’t contain or explain.
“Good night, baby,” he whispers, then goes back into the poolroom.
Apart from the shaking, I’m rooted to the spot, but my eyes flick up. He’s gone inside, yet Ash remains half-outside. Standing in the threshold. Did he even pretend to be doing something else?
Doesn’t matter anymore, the foolishness is done with.
His knuckles strain white around his bottle. But now he knows, now he understands I’m not his to have. Not his to console.
I’m alone in hell, and I’m not too pure to be undeserving of my place.
He moves inside, but I catch the disappointment he’s too late concealing. My heart sinks into my churning belly. A feeling I haven’t experienced in so long I almost forgot I’d ever known it.
Regret.
The choices I’ve made leave a burn in my chest and a boulder in my throat.
Bloody Birthday
3:15 p.m.
My father lies in my lap, ropes loose where I pried them off the chair.
He’s dying. Bleeding all over my party dress. No one notices. No one cares. They’re all distracted with their guns and violence. I hold my hand over the spurting place in his chest. It makes no difference, my lap only gets wetter. He bleeds from front to back.
I can’t cry. I can’t cry.
I have to keep it together. Have to find a way out of this.
“Sarah.” He coughs. Red flies from his lips. He grabs my sleeve, drags me closer.
I lean over him, my throat thick as though I’ve swallowed mud. “Dad.”
I stare into the rugged face of the man who did the best job he could raising me and my brother since the car crash that took my mother and almost took me. His blood pumps through my fingertips.
It’s too late.
Nothing can save him now. Nothing can save us.
“J—” He coughs again.
“Don’t talk.” I hardly see, a film covers my eyes. “Whatever it is, it doesn’t matter.”
I know what he wants to tell me. My father hasn’t always been a good man. He’s made mistakes. That’s why we’re here.
I always knew he wasn’t perfect. I don’t care. He loves me.
I love you, Dad.
He opens his mouth, more blood comes out. My stubborn dad’s still trying to talk.
“John Fury.” He pants. “Come for you.”
I frown, my racing heart getting a little more frantic.
I’ve heard the name. Heard it at night. Heard it when I should’ve been sleeping but instead joined the boys by the fire. The things you hear around the bonfire when all the guys drink their beer.
I heard about Fury—the Pirate. The man starting fires. Taking ships. The ghost taking down the worst of the worst.
Taking down men like the one standing a few yards from us.
The fingers on my sleeve tighten.
“Julius King.” He gasps.
Wet sounds leak from his throat. My father doesn’t take his eyes off me, his mouth doesn’t stop moving, stop trying to tell me something I need to know. “Fury—”
The rest is gurgles but I wipe my eyes, watch his lips.
I won’t let Dad down.
“John Fury will come for me?”
Dad jerks his head. Close enough to a nod. His eyes widen. He’s drowning—choking.
“Dad,” I shout.
Everything stops.
His body goes loose, his expression limp. Everything shuts down, everything except the leaking blood, which still flows, just not as hard. There’s nothing pumping it now.
Death. I see it, I’m looking at death, just can’t grasp it yet.
The garden spins. I hear sounds again. Voices, and shouts.
I glance up. He turns to me. Him—Julius King. The man responsible for the corpse in my lap. My father’s corpse.
Pain rises through me like a tide, but there’s something else too, something on the shore to reach for—hope.
John Fury is coming for me.
Chapter Five
Sweat trickles between my breasts. The sun’s cruel blaze has long since worked its way through the cotton covering my back to poach my kidneys like eggs. Not even the fresh basil agitating the air can mask the odor of dirt and hard work clinging closer to me than the damp sections of my dress.
“Don’t be throwing that away now, you got to shake it out.”
I glance at Pa over the enormous parsley plant I’ve just pried out by the roots because apparently it’s gone to seed.
He leans on a shovel like a walking stick. Three years ago he’d have been the one prying the parsley out. Age, though, she’s a bitch. So is arthritis.
But neither as much as the nagging conscience that has me actually gardening. He’s a demanding pain in my ass but I don’t want him getting heatstroke or a hernia.
I press my free hand to the ground and stand slowly. Blood rushes back into my tingling feet.
I hold up the parsley and give it a shake.
“Harder, lass, shake out those seeds.” Stiff joints don’t impede Pa’s quick gaze. The pedantic old bastard sees all and cuts no breaks.
I shake vigorously, and seeds fall like glitter.
“That’s the way.”
I turn my head and wipe my face on my arm, then toss the parsley plant into the pile of weeds.
“You got your shears ready?” Pa adjusts the shovel handle.
Bloody hell.
“Why don’t we let Richie take care of the roses today?”
Pa grows an extra three inches taller when he lifts the shovel off the ground to direct the end at me. “You think I’m too old to prune my own roses, lass?”
I press my lips together. Might be a valid point if he were actually the one pruning; unfortunately for me, help will only ever be accepted by Pa under the guise of teaching.
“Of course not, Pa, but there’s a full-time groundskeeper. We could let him do his job.”
Pa snorts and slams the blade of the shovel back into the dirt. “He’ll butcher the roses over my decaying corpse.”
“Fine, you’re right, no one can look after them like you.” I find the shears from the gardening basket. “Why don’t you show me again how it’s done?”
“That’s the attitude that’ll get you places.”
My thigh muscles seize.
Where in the actual hell do I have to go? Pa moves his not-a-walking-stick across the ground, and makes his way toward the roses. I watch his back dip on one side as he hobbles along. I’m not sure just how he’s linked to Julius. Pa’s not his father, and Pa and I don’t talk about Julius. Just like we haven’t mentioned how he’s been gone since Sunday without a word, and it’s now Friday.
Or that I haven’t seen him since we kissed.
Pa glances at me over his shoulder and cocks his head. I start after him. Breathe in slowly. So, I have a soft spot for Pa. He has one for me, of that I’m sure. But what happens when the time is up, will Pa help me?
Will he even try?
“You know, I think you have the hang of this.”
I press on the shears, severing a dying limb off what must be the zillionth rose. “Yeah, practice will do that.”
“Don’t be smart.” Pa uses his shovel as a crutch again, because God forbid he actually use a stick of some kind.
An escaped curl makes its way into my eyes. I drag it back with the part of my wrist above the gardening glove. If ever I make it off this island, if it’s ever possible to get away from Julius, I’m going to live in an apartment building. A skyscraper. I’ll take the penthouse on the top floor.
No gardens.
No ocean.
No muggy nights.
I’ll sleep with the heater on. My love of flowers will be indulged by a florist delivering weekly arrangements. I’ll never touch a set of shears. I’ll never live under another person’s thumb.
Sound hammers through the sky.
I look up. A plane soars overhead. My heart lurches.
Pa shields his eyes. “Now, that doesn’t look good.”
Julius almost always choppers in and out, that’s how he splits his time so effortlessly between here and the mainland. The guys usually take the speedboat, they don’t come and go as often as he does. The plane, though, the plane means the cavalry’s coming home.
I tug off the gloves and throw them on the ground, rub my wrinkled, pruned fingers on my dress and jog from the path at the back of the big house, across the lawns, into the bush. I duck under branches, sandals crunching on leaves until the trees part. I stand on the lip of earth where the ground falls away, offering a view of the far side of the island.
The plane touches down on the runway. The sun flashes off the windows. I shield my eyes, glancing long past the runway to the beach. An enormous luxury speedboat, sleek pointed bow cutting through water like a futuristic torpedo, closes in on the dock.
My fingers flex. The airplane door opens and the steps come down. Five male bodies flow down the stairs. I glance back to the dock. The speedboat reaches the pier.
Julius leads his men, large body sprinting the path toward the stairs up to the house.
My heart pounds so hard it pulses in my mouth, in my tongue.
Is it possible—could it be?
He’s come for me...
I slink back into the trees. Hope spreads my insides, adrenaline makes my feet light. I could sprint a marathon. On the off chance he has finally come, I can’t let Julius get to me first.
I creep through the trees on high ground, toward the back of the island where the generators and sheds sit right next to the completely uninhabitable mangroves that render that section of island useless. The trees break and I run across the graveled path between sheds to the driveway, taking the sloping path down to the sandy side of the beach. I sprint past the other smaller pier, sandals sinking into hot sand, and make my way around the island to the dock.
Chapter Six
Curls stick to my skull and plaster my cheeks. I pant and gasp, but keep running, keep my thighs forcing one leg in front of the other. My body’s one big burn. Muscles, lungs, skin, it’s all on fire. I follow the curve of white sand. The guest pier comes into view. My steps slow. I stumble closer to the embankment, crouch down and watch the speedboat.
My chest expands, over and over, but my heart doesn’t recover, still out of control.
Men emerge one after the other.
I creep closer, keeping to the scrub.
The bulky figure of a man steps cautiously down the boardwalk. His hair ruffles in the wind. The strength flees my legs and I sink to my knees. A sting penetrates my kneecap. Shells gorge my skin.
This isn’t help.
It’s the fucking Connellys.
Not the help I expected, or the rescue I was promised.
A scream builds in my lungs. I ball my fists. Can’t let the sound explode down the beach. I can’t let Julius know. He can never know there’s hope.
When, when, when?
Why has it taken so long?
The growing voice of hopelessness inside me warns three years is plenty of time for a pirate to get himself dead. I watch them take the path toward the house. Jack tucks a handgun into the back of his pants.
Salt coats my lips, dries my tongue.
Something has gone wrong. Don’t need to be a psychic to see that. A shipment was meant to be delivered tonight and yet there’s nothing at the back pier.
Now all the Connellys have arrived.
Pa was right, this isn’t good.
I glance up at the big house, perched at the top of the hill. There’s nothing left in me to make it up the stairs to the front door.
I rest on my heels. The speedboat floats by the dock.
Empty.
There’s no one on the boat.
I glance at the men mounting the stairs. I could sneak on board. See if they left the keys. Most likely they did. Who’s going to steal it here? I’ve seen which direction everyone flies in and out. Watched the boats come and go. Know we’re not all that far off the mainland. We’re out of sight, but not that far out of reach. I could make it without losing myself at sea.
The water ripples, and the hull of the speedboat bobs. The tiny flicker of determination in my chest caves to the logic speaking in my head.
Maybe I could escape—if Julius didn’t possess everything that means anything to me.
The only way to leave is for him to not be alive.
I pull myself to my feet. Brush sand off my knees. Wetness and grit scrapes my palm. I turn my hand over, and stare at the blood.
Blood on my hands.
My fingers twitch. I stumble to the water, and wash my hands, again, and again, and again. Then splash salt water over my legs, ignore the sting and try to rinse the stain away.
More blood flows from tiny cuts on my knee.
I wipe wet palms over my scorching cheeks, then down my arms. Warm waves lap around my ankles. I shake myself and start marching, past the dock, past the boat, past the concrete stairs up to the house, and around the beach, all the way to the other side where the land gently meets the beach and the bungalows nestle amongst the trees.
I reach my bungalow, walk around
the side to the back of the structure.
Ash sits on the stairs, elbow resting on his knee, forearm dangling. He looks up, sees me and rises.
I close my eyes briefly. There just isn’t energy in me for this.
“Where have you been?” Ash demands as I brush past him.
Moisture trickles down my ankle.
“None of your business.” I reach the top of the stairs.
“Julius wants you.”
I turn and gesture to my leg. “Tell him I’m not up to it.”
Ash looks down to where blood dribbles from my knee. “What happened?”
“It really doesn’t matter.”
He comes closer. “Are you okay?”
I back away.
“Are you okay, Sarah?”
My shoulders roll forward. Maybe it’s the tone in his voice, the way it’s soft like someone who cares, or maybe it’s the sound of my name, the fact that he says it, that I haven’t heard my own name spoken in so long, that makes my insides concave.
His hands curl over the tops of my arms, to catch me I think, then he looks down at me. I blink. His face hovers above me.
He really does have soft eyes.
“Well, isn’t this sweet.” The voice that slices through the air stops my still-racing heart.
Julius takes the steps up the veranda, his jaw tight enough the corners could cut glass. “I’m this fucking busy, and you make me come after you when I’ve given you such a simple task?” He speaks to Ash like I’m not here.
Ash drops one of my arms, and looks at Julius. “She’s hurt.”
Julius’s expression shifts, sharp angles morphing as he frowns. His gaze sweeps over me. “What happened?”
“I fell over. It’s nothing.”
Julius reaches us, and Ash’s touch leaves me completely.
I lick my salt-covered lips. My thighs ache, I’m sick of standing. Can’t be bothered moving away.
He pushes up his glasses, then tugs his pant legs up and crouches in front of me. His fingers slide to my calf. My spine curls. He draws me off balance, tilting my knee forward. The touch at that sensitive crease at the back of my leg sends electricity up my body, and makes my skin prickle. My eyelids droop. I’m vaguely aware of the fact that I still really, really stink.
