by JA Huss
But that wasn’t the weirdest thing. The really weird part was when she said, “And we’re going to live forever, and ever, and ever. And be king and queen of the entire land.”
Even thinking back on it now it’s easy to dismiss it as some wannabe princess’ dream.
But in the context of everything I’ve learned over the past few days, I wonder.
Did she hear something? Was she present when some of the grown-ups were discussing this crazy plan to extend life? And did her little-girl brain twist it all up into some bizarre fantasy about royal weddings?
Or did she hear something and what she told me was actually the truth?
Was I meant to marry Charlotte Kane?
My father was with me that day and right after she said this he came up and dragged me away from her. We spent the rest of the party inside the “men’s tent” where every bored father was watching football on an outdoor theatre screen while smoking cigars.
It didn’t feel like a punishment back then. I was kinda thrilled to be invited into the tent with all the men. But looking back on it now, was my father trying to keep me away from Charlotte? Did he know about this project? Did her father—whom I have never met—want to make some kind of marriage pact with mine?
Obviously my father came through for me because Charlotte hooked up with Joey and ta-da, I now have a niece.
And that’s the end of that story, because now she’s dead.
Suddenly a series of clicks and whistles are coming through the speakers.
“Oh, no.” Megan lifts her head up off my shoulder and straightens her back. “No, no, no. This isn’t happening.” She turns to me. “That is not a dolphin.”
But just as I open my mouth to respond, there’s a great splashing off to the starboard side of the yacht.
Dolphins. Swimming and turning in the waves near the boat, exciting the plankton so that it lights their bodies up an electric blue.
“This isn’t happening. No way.” She looks at me and laughs. And it’s such a real laugh, such a pure, innocent, real laugh, that I laugh too.
I shrug with my hands. “I had nothing to do with that. Logan isn’t out there in the dark with some secret team of trained dolphins.”
She laughs harder. Then grabs hold of the handrail above our heads and leans forward to get a better look. “This is amazing.”
“Want to jump in with them?”
She looks at me like I’m crazy. “They’re wild animals.”
“They’re dolphins, Megan.”
“They could eat us.”
“I don’t recall ever hearing about dolphin attacks.”
“I’m not getting in the water.”
“OK,” I say, surrendering. “But you know… this is like a one-in-a-million experience. We could come out here to this same spot a million more times and it might never happen again.”
She looks down at the playing dolphins. One jumps straight up in the air like it’s showing off. Then looks at me. “No.”
“You’re sure?”
She looks at the dolphins again. “Nope. I’m not going in. No way.”
“Cool,” I say. But then I stand up.
“What are you doing?”
“You don’t have to go in. But I am. Because for as long as I can remember my life has been one disaster, one disappointment, one bad thing after another. And tonight this amazing woman comes along and encourages me to find the lost boy inside me, and you know what? That’s what I’m gonna do.”
And then I duck under the handrail and jump in.
Blue glow erupts in long, uneven crackles of light as I sink, my hands above my head in a reverse torpedo and faces of dolphins blurring by. I laugh, and a burst of bubbles come out of my mouth. Then I wonder if the microphone picked that up and Megan heard me.
I’m falling for her, I realize.
I’m literally falling for her right now.
I want the fantasy Charlotte Kane spoke of. Not with her, obviously, but with Megan. I want to marry someone. I want to have kids. I want to have a regular job, and a house with a mortgage that I worry about paying, and a car that doesn’t come with a driver.
I want family dinners, and holidays filled with laughter. I want quiet nights with my wife, and frantic moments when my kids need me, and a dog. I want a dog.
I want to think about private schools, and Friday night football games, and raising money for my daughter’s band class. I want to go on vacation I have to save for, and complain about long hours at the office, and force a smile at corporate parties because I’d rather be home at nine o’clock, asleep in bed.
I want that fantasy.
I have always wanted that fantasy.
But it took one woman and two days to make me remember.
A splash above my head jerks me back to reality and then Megan is floating down to me, her long, blonde hair waving around her face like she is, indeed, a creature of the sea.
I smile at her in the blue light.
And then she kisses me and it’s over.
I am fallen.
There is no hope of rescue.
Not even the angel of death could save me now.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO - MEGAN
We’re still kissing when we surface. I don’t even know where the dolphins are. I don’t even know if they’re still here. Johnny’s arms are wrapped around my middle and the water around us flickers blue and black under a moonlight carpet—a magic carpet that can take us away. Give us another life, with another chance, and a new ending.
One that’s happy. One we choose.
“I’m afraid,” he says, wiping saltwater from his eyes. “I’m afraid, Megan. I’m gonna hurt you, or they will hurt you, and then I’ll get hurt too. And you know what? Here’s the thing, OK? I’m not sure I deserve love. I’m not sure I deserve happiness. I’ve ruined people. And if I fall for you, I’m gonna ruin you too. And I don’t wanna do that. I really don’t. I don’t want to fuck up your life, or change your mind about things, or push you into a corner so there’s no way out but me. And the scariest part is that… I bought into it, ya know? No one held me down and poured this life down my throat. No one beat the shit out of me because I tried to change things the way they did my dad and uncle. No one forced me to do any of it. I just went along. And if you don’t fight back, if you don’t tell me to get the fuck out of your life and never come back, if you don’t throw me away and kick me to the curb, you’ll be going along too. And I can’t live with that. I can live with, and have lived with, a lot of things, Megan. I have made a lot of mistakes. I will die and when I do, there will be a special place in hell waiting for me. I will live with that. But what I will not live with is taking you down with me.”
My heart hurts. Not just for him, but for me too. Because I’m afraid as well.
But he’s wrong.
I’m afraid I’m part of something too big to fail. I’m afraid that it’s too late. That I’ve already done something so monumental, so world-changing that it can’t be stopped. I’m afraid that if I get lost in this man’s beautiful innocence I’ll lose sight of the evil he’s hiding underneath and then I’ll succumb to it. I’ll embrace it. I’ll do whatever it takes to keep him with me.
But he is wrong.
“I’m gonna say this once, Johnny Boston, and only once. We are probably bad people. We are probably the villains in the story. We are probably going to make things worse before we’re done. But listen to me, OK? And you listen good. I don’t need a fucking prince to save me. And I know it appeared that I did when you waltzed down into my dungeon and carried me back to this fairytale yacht, but that was a lie. It was a setup. So… my point is this. No matter who they are, no matter what they do, no matter what we do, or don’t do, or how we end up when this is over—be it dead, or alive, or wishing we were dead, or sweating our asses off down in our special place in hell, or hating the world, or hating each other, or crying our eyes out, or being responsible for a shit show of epic proportions… I want you to kno
w one thing. Just this one thing. And that one thing is this… I can take it.”
We stare at each other, treading water in the middle of the ocean, awash in natural neon light. I reach up and cup his face with both my hands. “Do you understand me?”
He nods and says, “You had me at ‘we are probably bad people.’”
I splash him in the face with glowing blue water. “You’re stupid.”
“You’re stupid.” He splashes back. But then he gathers me up in his arms and I wrap my legs around his middle, and we bump foreheads like teenagers and stare into each other’s eyes.
And I whisper, “Do you want to be my partner in crime?”
And he says, “I do.”
It’s so romantic with the dolphins, and the blue light, and the moon, and the yacht, and the stars above us. Johnny was right—we could come back here to this spot a million more times and never have another night like this—but here’s the thing…
I’m keeping a very big secret.
Like huge secret. And yup, I’m part of that whole gonna-live-forever shit show, but that’s nothing. That was a stupid fluke of a project as far as I’m concerned. And OK, maybe it works. Maybe the Way will find a way to reverse aging, and maybe the lucky upper class of the next generation will all live to see their two hundredth birthday.
But my real project wasn’t so innocent. It wasn’t innocent when it started and I only knew half the facts. But something Johnny told me back inside? About those migrant camps? If he’s right, then what I’ve been doing is just so much worse.
And I get it. Just the first part of that is bad. If Johnny’s right and the Way is using populations of displaced people to test anti-aging drugs that I had a part in making, That’s evil and I’m still responsible.
But it’s an innocent kind of responsible because my part wasn’t intentional.
This other project was one hundred percent planned, and plotted, and intentional. And if this new information turns out to be true then… then I’m not Wendy at all.
I’m just Mrs. Captain Hook.
And when I tell him this—because I will have to tell him this eventually—what will he think of me then?
I don’t know.
And maybe I’m just like him. I don’t deserve love, or trust, or anything good whatsoever. But what kind of human would I be if I didn’t at least try to get some of that? And what kind of future do I have if I just give up on the fairytale ending now, just when it presents me with this perfect partner in crime?
The justification is weak. I get it. But here’s the other thing… if you don’t at least try to be happy then you might as well just jump down into that black hole of despair and get it over with. Just check out and be done.
Choose your weapon and walk to your death on your own terms.
And I’m not quite ready to be done just yet so I’m gonna keep my mouth shut for now.
We take our time swimming around the back of the boat where there’s a submersible ladder to get back on board using the swim platform. The dolphins are gone. Maybe we scared them away with our evil midnight confessions or maybe they just found us boring and moved on, but the plankton is still cool. The night is still magical. The future still bright.
Sort of.
He gives me hope, at least. I need a partner in crime. I really do. Because while I can take it, that’s about survival. I don’t want to take it. I don’t want to be evil. I don’t want to be left in dungeons to starve and die of thirst. I don’t want to kill people.
But like Johnny said—every story needs a villain and if you’re stuck playing that role, you might as well embrace it.
And I’m sorry if this makes me a bad person, but having Johnny by my side when this whole thing goes down makes me feel a whole lot better about being Mrs. Captain Hook.
Because I don’t want to do it alone.
“Here,” Johnny says, offering me his hand as he stands on the deck, dripping with water. “Let me help you.”
It’s like he’s reading my mind. Like he heard those thoughts and this is his offer.
I accept his hand and let him pull me out of the water. And then we just stand there. Hands begin to wander immediately. Mine find the flappy back pocket of his soaking-wet shorts and his come up to cup my face.
We kiss like that.
I’m filled with uncertainty and doubt but this kiss is like a promise. The seal on a deal, so to speak. And when he pulls back I open my eyes and just stare at him.
“Come on,” he says. “Let’s get out of these wet clothes. This night isn’t over yet.”
“I’m not sure I’m ready for more.” But I let him lead me down below, our wet feet leaving small puddles as he takes me into his room and opens his closet.
“Holy shit,” I say. “Nice closet. My room doesn’t have anything like that.”
He walks inside the closet, grinning. “To be fair, you don’t have any clothes here. Yet. We’ll have to remember to go back to the bungalow and pick up all your stuff.”
And that makes me think about those presents he bought me. Why did he do that? Was he planning this all along?
God, it’s so hard to trust him. He’s so good at manipulating people.
“Here,” he says, tossing me a t-shirt and a pair of boxers. “Put those on.”
I strip out of my wet clothes and change. He does the same and exits the closet wearing nothing but a pair of sweat pants cut off at the knees.
My eyes linger on his upper body. The hard, sculpted muscles of his chest and the strength hiding under the curve of his shoulders. All those secret words inked on his arms in a long-forgotten language.
He stops to stare at me too. Then he blinks and walks forward, taking my hand to lead me out of the bedroom.
“Where are we going now?”
“Back outside. I’ve got one more thing to show you.”
I follow him up the stairs but we’re just passing the helm, heading for the patio doors at the far end of the salon, when the satellite phone lights up, buzzing.
I startle at the unexpected intrusion and Johnny lets go of my hand.
“Go on out,” he says. “I’ll meet you on the bow. It’s Logan.”
I pause for a moment, waiting to see if he’ll pick up the phone so I can at least hear some of the conversation. But he waits. Lets that thing ring until I sigh and walk out of the cabin.
I’m just passing the windows on the side deck, heading for the bow, when I spot him inside as he reaches for the phone, puts it to his ear, and says hello as he disappears downstairs for privacy.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE - JOHNNY
I watch Megan as she makes her way to the bow, then turn and jump down the stairs to the lower level and press the accept button as I pace the hallway. “Yeah,” I say.
Nothing but a long, heavy exhale of breath on the line.
“Logan? Is that you?”
“They killed them,” Logan says.
“What? Who?”
“They killed them all. Blew the whole place up.”
For a moment I think he’s referring to the lab on the island. I think he’s talking about the women we left behind there in the cells. My heart skips a few beats as I wonder what kind of infectious disease they were carrying and whether or not it’s airborne. Start calculating how far it might travel on the wind. Which nearby islands might be affected? Because while we did kill all the scientists, we left those women in their cells to die.
I couldn’t chance it. We couldn’t go into the cells. We couldn’t blow it all up. It was too risky. We don’t know enough about the disease they were carrying to let the fucking thing loose.
“Everyone at that helicopter place is dead, Johnny. They traced it and killed everyone at Aerial Island Tours. The whole fucking building, all the hangars—they’re just… gone.”
“What? Jesus Christ,” I say, running my fingers through my hair. “Why? What happened? Are you sure?”
“They thought that place was mine, dude. They thou
ght I was quartered out of the building or something. I’m not really sure. No one to ask, obviously. But that has to be it. They traced the helicopter back to Aerial Island Tours and just… took it out. I had ten men over there.”
“Aw, fuck. Logan. I’m so sorry, dude. I’m so fucking—”
“It wasn’t me though,” he says, cutting me off. His voice hard, and low, and very fucking pissed. “I’m gonna get them for this. Those guys were my friends. They trusted me. They—”
“OK,” I say. “OK. Calm down. We’ll figure—”
“Fuck you, calm down! I want heads rolling off platters. I want Megan to give me every single GPS coordinate for every fucking island they have. I will take out every goddamned place. I will—”
“Logan,” I yell. “Listen to me. OK? I get it, you’re angry. And we’re gonna take care of this. Very close to figuring this out. I just need a little more time.”
“With Megan, you mean?”
“Look, man. She knows something. Something big. And I’ve almost got her to trust me.”
“Trust you? Oh, I trust you. But what I want to know right now is why are you trusting her?”
“Because she’s… different. She’s not a part of the plan I told you about.”
“Then she doesn’t know shit.”
“She does. She just doesn’t know she does.”
“Dude, you’re blind. You’re insane. Lust has gone to your head. She knows everything. She set you up. You’d be dead right now if you didn’t call me asking for guns a few days ago.”
“I know. I owe you—”
“That’s not what I’m saying, OK? I’m telling you not to trust her. I’m telling you the only way out of this now is one hundred percent retaliation.”
“Fine,” I say. “That’s fine. Tomorrow we blow up everyone. But we need her to do that. We need her to get there. So just give me one more night. OK?”
Logan growls on the end of the phone. “One night. That’s it.”