Hoax

by C. L. Stone

I suspected he meant Blake. “Yeah. Blake’s here.”

  His face twisted into pure rage. He turned, and punched the wall.

  Wasn’t the wall made of metal?

  His skin split. The first two knuckles on his hand began to bleed. He glared at the now-dented wall, unfazed by the blood blooming on his hand.

  A mix of emotions made me hold my breath, wedging myself into the small space between a pipe and the wall. “We came back to help,” I said. “We came to find out…”

  He turned back to me, his eyes wide, desperate. “My little thief,” he said, a growl in his tone. “How could you?”

  How could I what? What was he saying?

  He touched my face, cupped my cheeks between his palms. “I knew you’d live,” he said. “I knew you would. I knew with him…” He took a deep breath through his mouth. He leaned in, pressing his forehead to mine. He was too close then for me to look at him directly. “You should have stayed away.”

  “I came back to help,” I said. “I didn’t want anyone else hurt…”

  He shifted his head, kissing my lips once briefly before tilting his head again to press his forehead to mine. “Sumasshedshaya devushka.”

  “I don’t know what that means,” I said, my voice getting higher pitched. I’d never seen Raven afraid of anything, but in this moment, I felt it from him. Fear. The bear was afraid.

  “You should have stayed on shore.” He drew his head up and looked me in the eye. “It was the hardest thing I ever had to do.”

  I gasped. No way. No… “You…”

  Pain took over his eyes and he brushed his fingers across my cheek. “You weren’t supposed to come back.”

  “You threw Blake over? And…me?”

  “I had to,” he said. “We were close enough to shore that I knew you would make it.”

  Time seemed to stop as I processed this.

  Raven, with his sorry and tortured big brown eyes, his body so close, his touch so gentle. Now.

  But last night up on deck, it had been him. It had been him who had ripped the tracker off me before he had thrown me over the side of the ship, possibly to my death.

  I couldn’t believe it. How could he?

  Before I could even think, my fist flew right at his face.

  It happened before I realized what I was doing, but once I struck his nose, the anger boiled over and my other fist sailed out, colliding with the side of his head.

  He backed off, covering his nose with one hand, lifting his other arm in defense.

  He didn’t fight back. He wasn’t fighting me. He would take everything I would give.

  Curses flew from my mouth as I whaled on him, hitting his face, arms, and torso. I pounded and clawed at him with every ounce of energy I had.

  He did nothing but stand there and protect his face and take it. Blood trickled toward his mouth.

  I stopped, seeing the blood, angry at him still and yet shocked at what I’d done, surprised at the throbbing in my hand.

  But I wasn’t done with him. “How could you?” I cried. I backed up to the wall, tears flowing. “I can’t believe it. You threw us over? Raven, you…”

  When he spoke, his voice was nasal. “I had to,” he said, lowering his arm but keeping his hand at his face.

  “You wanted to get rid of us?” I demanded. I pointed to my chest, unable to catch my breath. “I never would have thought you’d stab me in the back like that.”

  His hand lowered from his face, blood flowing from his nose, which was already swelling. His eyes widened. “Fuck that shit. That’s not what I did.”

  “What happened?” I said, seething.

  “They were going to kill you,” he said. He backed up, pressing his body against the wall. He gently touched his nose and winced. “They were going to kill you both.” He looked me in the eyes over his hand. “Where’s Blake?”

  “I don’t know,” I said, my anger turning to panic. “I haven’t heard from him since earlier today. But who was trying to kill me? How does that explain what you did?”

  He frowned and then winced again. “I might be too late.” He turned his attention to the wall again to glare at it. “I’m sorry. I tried.”

  I slid down the wall to the floor, too weak to stand anymore. No matter how much I tried to control my breathing, it felt like I couldn’t get enough air. My head was swimming. I wrapped my arms around my knees. “You…” I’d heard him say it but still couldn’t believe it. “You threw us over because someone wanted to kill us? So, what, you were beating him to it?”

  “I stopped him.” One fist was clenched at his side. Every muscle on his body was tight. “We got too close and you were in the middle of it. Blake was getting too cocked.”

  I raised an eyebrow. “Cocky?”

  “Sam,” he said. He uncovered his nose and looked at the blood on his hand. His broad nose was swollen, completely red, and a little crooked. There wasn’t as much blood as I thought there would be if I’d really broken his nose, but I wasn’t a doctor either. He lifted the hem of his shirt, pulling it up to his face and using the fabric to wipe it. “He thought he could waltz in and make up all sorts of lies, but he pushed the wrong people.”

  “I can’t believe you did that. I could have died. I almost did.”

  He turned to me, letting go of his shirt. “It was the only choice. You needed to disappear from this ship before they found you. Now I have to go find Blake, but I can’t promise he’s still alive.”

  I pushed a hand against the wall to steady myself and stand again, ready to go find Blake. “Why? They probably don’t even know we’re here. And why did you set fire to the room?”

  “They knew,” he said. “They were listening.”

  “Who?”

  “Last night, they found the signals. They’ve got this radio down in security that can pick up the…” He rolled his eyes. “Waves. I think. Corey would know.”

  I got the gist. The radio frequencies that Doyle had set up to transmit our conversations from the earpieces to the headset had been discovered. Crap. “Why kill it now? Why didn’t you just tell them last night to shut things down?”

  “Because they were listening,” he said. He grumbled, picking up his shirt again to wipe the blood from his upper lip around his nose. “And I only learned after I found out they were going to kill you. After you and Blake were gone, I kept quiet.”

  “You were going to let them continue to listen in?”

  “At first, it was working. Our team was looking for you, so when I told people you were gone, they just watched them scramble around. They made it believable you were really gone. It was safer.”

  “How was any of this safer?”

  “It’s not now if you’re here. They might catch up to us. They’ll know I lied and they’ll kill you and me. They might already try to come after me if they find Blake.”

  “How do you know all this?”

  “I’ve been listening, too.” He pulled an earpiece out of his ear and dropped it on the floor. “It’s dead now.”

  I pressed a palm to my forehead. The medicine was fading, or the stress, or getting jostled over Raven’s shoulder, was getting to me—it could be any or all of those things, but the result was the same: my head was beginning to throb. “You should tell Axel,” I said. “They’ll be looking for us. He needs to know.”

  “No. Too many people are watching. We’ve been compromised.”

  I frowned. I braced my back against the wall, pushing my body up to stand against it. “Who all is involved? Just security? They just wanted to protect their hookers?” That didn’t make much sense. Prostitution was nothing compared to murder on your rap sheet. They couldn’t have a trail of bodies floating outside the ship just because someone got a little too close.

  Sirens began to blare in the hallways. People were asked to go to their rooms for the moment and they would be released when all was clear. There was a reminder not to smoke on the ship. Sounded l
ike people had found out about the fire.

  Raven waited until the announcements ended. His thick lips twisted. “You and Blake stirred up too much trouble. You exposed yourself.”

  “I didn’t say anything.”

  “You called yourself the investor. Someone found out you weren’t who you said you were.”

  Not good. “How long have they known?”

  “I’m still working that out. If I made you and Blake disappear, then security would stop looking for you both. It was working for a while.”

  I waved my hand, trying to follow him, but either my concussion or the pure shock was making it difficult. “Axel’s not going to stop looking for us,” I said. “Not now that we’re both gone.”

  “Good. We need to let Axel and the others think you are missing and have them look for you. They’ll just have to do it without the radios. They shouldn’t trust anyone.” He brushed his fingers around his nose, wincing. “They knew I did it, but they wouldn’t admit it to themselves. I should smack them all. It was so obvious. They should have known there was a reason.”

  How foolish we’d been. Maybe the evidence had been staring us in the face the whole time and we’d just been too sure he’d never do something like that to me. We had the right person, just the wrong motive, so it had thrown our suspicions off. Had our attacker choked or hit us, we probably wouldn’t have made it, but he’d thrown us over without other injury. Then he’d disappeared.

  “Why didn’t you tell me what you were doing?” I asked as I rolled my head back, feeling the cool material of the wall. “Why didn’t you tell Blake?”

  “I didn’t want a fight—we didn’t have the time.” He pointed to his nose. “You would have done more than this to me if I’d let you see that it was me. Him, too. Easier to do it quickly. Like a bandaging.”

  He meant Band-Aid, but I didn’t want to correct him. I wasn’t really sure his analogy worked, either. “If you thought we should have disappeared, you could at least have warned us. Why did you do it in the dark? Why fight with us? Why couldn’t we have taken a lifeboat?”

  He smirked. “It takes time to take those down, and it would have been noticed if it went missing. I already risked throwing a few life preservers over after you went, as many as I could find. We’re dealing with the security team on this ship, and who knows who else in the crew.”

  I groaned. “I didn’t get a life preserver. And you could have warned me.”

  “No time. Believe me, I thought of everything I could do. Getting you to swim to shore was the only way to make sure you disappeared. You couldn’t just hide. They’d find you eventually. They were coming for you, right then.” He leaned his back against the door. “I made you and him disappear, and then I told them I helped. Let’s just hope they don’t find you now. The only thing that really convinced them was Axel and the others running around asking about you.”

  “Who was trying to kill us?” I asked.

  “The investor,” he said. “The real one. It has to be.”

  “What? We were looking at Sam.”

  “It’s not Sam.”

  “But who is the investor?”

  “I’m not sure,” he said. He stepped toward me. His nose seemed to have stopped bleeding. He looked over my face. “When you told me to go talk to Sam, I did. Now I’m in with Sam because of this, but he’s not behind it. They’re just muscle. He got a message from upstairs to kill you and Blake. I’ve been trying to find out who made the call, but it got harder when Axel started looking for me, too.”

  I stared at his chest. He hadn’t been trying to kill me. He had been trying to save us. If we were outnumbered on the ship, with a whole security team looking to kill us, in Raven’s own way, he’d done the best he could. “I almost drowned.”

  “You’re strong,” he said, his voice raspy as he moved closer. “Little thief, I knew you’d make it.”

  I shook my head, my eyes closing, feeling the tears. He had no idea. “I almost didn’t. I wasn’t even going to try.”

  The room stilled, the only sound a low rumbling coming from the pipes.

  He lowered his face slowly, looking up at my eyes, trying to get me to look at him. “Tell me why.”

  I covered my eyes with my palms, partially to keep my head together since it felt like it was about to explode. “I…was in the water, going down, and I let myself go for a while. I didn’t know Blake had gone over. All I knew was someone was mad enough at me to toss me over. I thought… I messed you and the others up, after everything I said and had done. Maybe you all were better off without me.”

  Silence swallowed us both for an eon. With my hands covering my face, everything was so black, and I welcomed the darkness. I hadn’t dared to admit that to anyone else.

  Big hands covered mine gently, urging mine away from my face.

  I gritted my teeth, sucked in a breath through my nose, and held it as I let him take my hands in his.

  I finally looked up at him. His big brown eyes glistened. “You’re my little thief, girl. You just don’t know it yet.”

  I shook my head, looking away. “You don’t understand…”

  “I do.” He took both of my hands into one of his and used his other to capture my chin, drawing my face around to look at him again. His gaze darted from my eyes, to my mouth and then slowly back up. “You…and Corey.”

  My heart raced, and I tilted my head, an eyebrow going up at the last name I would have expected him to say. “Corey?”

  He brought my hands to his lips, kissed the knuckles and then spoke against my fingers. “He loves you, too, you know?” He smirked. “I’d tease him, saying you were all mine. It’d make him so mad. I liked making him jealous of both of us.”

  Jealous? He loves me, too? Corey. Sweet, lovable Corey? His brother had told me he was gay, and I’d believed him—a twin would know, wouldn’t he?

  Yet, Corey had cuddled with me, and kissed my forehead. Memories of sweet times with him filled my brain; I’d just assumed we were dear friends.

  Though looking back, Blake had never believed me when I’d said Corey wasn’t interested in me. And Liam had been adamant about including Corey when I’d told him about everything.

  Only I hadn’t been listening. Excitement filled me at knowing Corey felt for me in ways I had only secretly wished he would.

  Then the other part of what he’d just said came into focus in my head. He’d said he liked making Corey jealous of both of us. At the thought of Raven and me being together? Wait…did he mean…Corey…and Raven?

  “He likes you?” I asked.

  Raven nodded. “He doesn’t know I know, but I have for a while.”

  I tried to figure out the questions I wanted to ask. My hands were still in Raven’s and I wiggled them free to rub at my eyebrows. “His brother told me he was gay. I believed him. I mean, why wouldn’t I?”

  “He likes who he likes. He doesn’t care.” Raven placed a palm over his heart. “Me, too.”

  Bi. They were bi. They liked each other. They liked me.

  I hadn’t totally been into Raven at first, thinking he was a brute, but Corey I’d adored from the start. I’d grown to feel strongly for Raven once I’d gotten to know him.

  Then I was thinking of them together—how different they were but how they’d complement each other. The room was already hot, but I felt even more flushed all of a sudden, embarrassed at how excited I was. I would never have pictured it, but now I could.

  Raven smirked. “When you told us last night how you were feeling, I knew exactly what it is like.”

  Because he couldn’t decide between Corey and me? “But you—”

  Footsteps echoed from down the hall. We quieted. Raven reached over, turning the light off.

  He picked me up, pushing me toward the pipes. He remained quiet, but he urged me to climb over them.

  I did, testing them to see if any were hot, avoiding one that was, and doing my best to get in behind
them in the dark.

  I squeezed down, ducking.

  Raven climbed in behind me, covering me with his body, and positioning himself so he could launch out at anyone who might spot us.

  The door opened and I held my breath as the light went on again. I couldn’t see who it was but didn’t dare move.

  Silence.

  The light went off, door closed.

  We remained behind the pipes until those footsteps disappeared. Raven went out first. He turned the light back on so I could see my way out.

  “We can’t stay,” he whispered. “That had to have been security. If it was Axel, he would have looked back here. Axel or the others might be here soon.”

  “But why do we need to hide from them?”

  “For now,” he said. “Make it believable that you and I are gone. Security will be following them close to see if they’ll set up camp like before, or if they’ll give up for now. I got lucky hearing you.”

  “You heard my voice,” I said.

  “I was talking to you on the headset?”

  “They were listening,” he said. “You were talking to me but they were listening to all the lines. They knew about Doyle’s room and they were heading there to see if it was you, so I lit it up.”

  When I was talking to him, I was hearing piano music. He must have either been near Corey or he wasn’t at all near Corey and another piano was playing somewhere else.

  And it would explain why I couldn’t hear voices around Corey. I wonder how Doyle knew I’d spoken to Raven and how he knew they’d been listening.

  “But all that work,” I said. Colt’s phone I’d stolen. Other drives and phones we had duplicated. All those files. “The drives. The—”

  “Duplicates,” he said and waved his hand. “We got them once, we can get them again. In fact, we don’t need them.” He opened the door, peeked out and then closed it again. He looked back at me. “Don’t you see? We have him. The investor, that’s all we really need, and if I can continue to get in with Sam, he might tell me who he is.”

  “You’re still going to try?”

  “I don’t know who they thought was talking, but I knew it was you, so I had to come get you, especially since they were on the way. I have to find Blake and make sure they didn’t find him. I’m worried they have. If he had an earpiece and talked on those lines at all, they know he’s here. Especially if they used his name.”