by Tia Wylder
It was more than a slap in the face. It was like a punch to the gut, a sharp pain that was only just now beginning to dull after days without talking to Jack.
I couldn’t work for him. I couldn’t ever work for Trident Gold – not when I had these complicated feelings about Jack, and no way to deal with them. I felt like I was falling in love with him…and all he wanted to do was brush me aside and put me in some tiny office while he fucked everyone else in Boston.
After I’d been in Nassau for three days, the hotel began to flood. I noticed when I went downstairs in the morning to take more food from the pantry. There was at least six inches of water on the floor, and the way it was gushing in from the side of the room just made me feel worse.
When I got into the kitchen, Jack was standing there with a worried look on his face. He’d gotten to work putting all of the food we could eat on the top shelving units of the pantry, but his face was creased and lined with worry.
“We might have to go up to the roof,” Jack said. He shivered. “The tide is rising, and it doesn’t show any sign of slowing down.”
“Okay,” I said. I felt numb – I knew that if we had to leave the hotel for higher ground, there was no way we’d survive.
“It’ll be okay,” Jack said, as if reading my mind.
“I hope so.” It was all I could say.
Jack and I didn’t talk as we packed up supplies in coolers and plastic bags. We took ponchos from the gift shop and tried to wrap ourselves up as best we could. I was so scared that I was shaking – every time I looked out the windows of the gift shop, the storm seemed to be worse than ever before.
“Jack?”
“Yeah?”
I bit my lip. “We’re so stupid,” I said, shaking my head and clutching my hands nervously in front of me. “Jack, this is insane.”
Jack laughed. It wasn’t even a fake laugh – it was real. At first, the sound was uncomfortable and jarring. But after a second or two, I actually started to feel better. And to my surprise, I opened my mouth and joined in.
“Yeah,” Jack said, snorting. He set a stack of boxed chocolates down on the Styrofoam cooler that we’d found. “We’re idiots.”
When our laughter died down, I started to feel nervous again.
“Come on,” Jack said. “We should get out of here.”
Jack and I didn’t talk as we carried our respective burdens as high as we could go. When we got to the top floor of the hotel, I looked out the window and gasped. Outside, the water was churning and raging. The waves had to be at least twenty-five feet high, and they were pounding against the walls of the Hotel St. Charles with relentless, terrible speed.
“Oh my god,” I said. My heart seemed to freeze in my chest. “This is getting even worse!”
“It shouldn’t be long now,” Jack said. “I was able to get a satellite signal on my smartwatch. We’re in the thick of it now, but in a few hours I think it’ll calm down.”
His words filled me with a dangerous hope.
“You really think so?”
Jack stared at me for a long time before nodding. “Yeah,” he said. “At least, I want to think so.”
I curled up on the edge of the bed and watched the storm. Jack sat down next to me and put his arm around my shoulders. At first, I wanted to push him away. But his touch was warm, and I couldn’t deny that it was comforting.
“I really am sorry,” I said, turning to Jack and looking into his deep brown eyes.
“Don’t be,” Jack said.
“No, it’s my fault,” I replied. It was strange – I’ve never been good at talking about my emotions, but somehow being here with Jack was making me feel open and transparent. Maybe it was the storm, or maybe it was the fact that I was likely sitting next to the last person who would see me alive.
“Adele, don’t be so hard on yourself,” Jack said softly. “You were doing what you thought was right.” He sighed and covered his face with his hands. “And besides, if anyone’s to blame, it’s me. I’m responsible for two deaths – my pilot, and the captain of that charter boat you took here from Miami.”
I narrowed my eyes. “How are you responsible for that? I was the one who forced him to take me out in the storm.”
“If I hadn’t been here, you wouldn’t have needed to rush in like a white knight and save me,” Jack said. He gave me a rueful smile. “And Adele, please. I feel horrible about it already – I really do.”
“I know.”
We sat in silence for a long moment, listening to the waves crash against the hotel. The wind was still whipping through the trees, but it did sound like it was beginning to slow down.
“If I hadn’t insisted that you help me, neither of us would be here,” I said softly. “I take full responsibility for that fact, at least.”
Jack didn’t reply. He took his arm away from my shoulders and propped his elbow on his knee, resting his chin on his closed fist. When he looked at me, I felt a surge of affection between us that hours ago, I wouldn’t have been able to fathom. It was crazy – here I was, practically alone in Nassau, about to die in a hurricane…and I was falling in love?
I remembered Lisa’s words, her warnings, her cautionary advice. I wished I could talk to her. I wished I could talk to anyone from back home about how I was feeling.
“Adele?”
I glanced up. “Yeah?”
Jack put his hand in mine and squeezed. “We’ll be okay,” he said. “I know we will. You just have to trust me, okay?”
I laughed. In the deserted hotel, it was an empty sound.
“Yeah,” I said. “Trust that we’re not going to be washed out to sea, or die of starvation.”
Jack smirked. It was the first time I’d seen a trace of his old confidence come back since the storm had started. “No,” he said. “Although I might die if I have to go a week without a shower.”
I laughed.
“And you’ll probably die, too,” Jack continued. He shook his head and snorted. “I mean, have you ever been around a man who hasn’t showered for a week?”
I laughed even harder. “When I was still in undergrad, one of my lab mates never showered.” I wrinkled my nose at the memory. “Lisa and I used to dab peppermint oil under our noses because it covered the smell, but that only worked for like, an hour. I think he thought we were cokeheads or something because of how often we kept rushing to the bathroom to put more on.”
By now, Jack was laughing too. He threw his head back, and the sound filled the room. I felt warmer just hearing it.
That night, we “feasted” on scavenged food from the pantries – cheese and tinned fruit. Jack ate half a jar of capers before making a face and throwing the half-empty jar outside into the wild storm.
“I’d rather starve,” Jack declared.
I rolled my eyes. “You might just get your wish,” I said, shaking my head.
Jack smiled ruefully. “No,” he said. “No, somehow, I don’t think I will.”
We lapsed into silence again, and I closed eyes and sighed. It was dark outside, and the rain was lashing against the windows, but I didn’t feel tired. If anything, I felt more awake than I had since leaving Boston.
Eventually, Jack and I curled up on the massive, California king-sized bed. It was so big that it felt like there was an ocean of space between us. Jack didn’t even try to touch me. He pulled a duvet over my legs and tucked me in, which I found oddly endearing. He closed his eyes and flopped on his side, snuggling up with three of the giant hotel pillows. To my surprise, I heard his snoring within minutes.
Well, it can’t be the worst idea in the world to catch a little bit of sleep, I thought as I watched Jack’s face twitching in his sleep. I mean, I do need to keep my strength up.
Before I knew it, I found myself drifting off into an oblivious world of black.
CRASH!
I bolted upright in bed and gasped. The room was pitch black, and my heart was thudding like a jackhammer. Beside me, Jack was sitting and groggi
ly rubbing his eyes with both fists.
“What the fuck was that,” I asked in a quiet voice.
“I don’t know,” Jack answered. He got to his feet and wrapped his arms around his muscular chest as he walked to the window and glanced outside. “Maybe a tree or something?”
CRASH!
I jumped and yelped as the same sound reverberated through the hotel.
“That wasn’t a tree,” I said nervously. Climbing out of bed, I wrapped myself in one of the hotel’s plush, terry-cloth robes and joined Jack at the window. To my surprise, the storm looked like it was starting to dissipate. The waves were still crashing, but they were much lower, and the sky was grey and cloudy, but it wasn’t raining anymore.
“I have a bad feeling about this,” Jack said. He grabbed his pants from the floor and pulled them on over his muscular legs.
“What are you doing?” I asked.
“Stay here,” Jack said firmly. “I don’t know what’s out there, and I don’t want to put you in even more danger.”
His words were both intriguing and chilling. A shiver crawled down my spine as I watched Jack reach into his pocket and pull out a small handgun.
“You have a gun!” My voice was practically a shriek. “What the hell, Jack?”
“I think it might be necessary,” Jack said darkly. He checked to make sure it was loaded, then slipped it in the back of his waistband.
“Wait,” I said. “Are you talking about Franchot? Do you think he’s…do you think he’s here?”
“Not in the hotel,” Jack said ominously. “But I need to go look.”
“Wait,” I said. I yanked my jeans over my legs and took my sweater from the back of a chair where it had been drying.
“You’re not coming,” Jack said harshly. “Adele, there’s no way.”
I stood up straight and tall and crossed my arms over my chest. “Jack, listen to me. You and I are in this together. And if I don’t go with you, something bad could happen to you. Hell, something bad could happen to me! Don’t you ever watch horror movies? The first rule is that you’re never supposed to split up!”
Jack gave me a long, hard stare. He chewed on his lip and exhaled loudly. “Fine,” he said. “But stay close to me, and don’t let me out of your sight.”
I laughed dryly. “Like I could do that,” I said. “We’re the only two people on Nassau.”
Jack raised an eyebrow and shook his head, but there was no laughter in his eyes. “We’ll see about that,” he said darkly. “We’ll see about that.”
Before we left the room, I grabbed my cell phone. I didn’t even know if it was still working – it had been submerged along with me when I’d fallen from the boat – but I figured that any chance was better than nothing. Jack handed me a Hotel St. Charles-branded poncho, and we left the room, running down the stairs together in silence.
Outside, the weather felt strange. The air was heavy and humid and charged somehow – breathing felt like trying to breathe underwater. I followed Jack into the woods, keeping close behind him just like I’d promised. As we moved, the noises grew louder and louder. I knew then that Jack had been right – there was no way this was a result of the hurricane.
“Be quiet,” Jack hissed, turning to face me just after my foot had stepped on a twig.
I nodded. “Sorry,” I whispered.
Jack nodded. His face was tense, and his jaw was locked. He stared intensely into my eyes. “We’ll be okay,” he mouthed. “Just trust me.”
I nodded again. My heart was in my throat, but what could I do? It wasn’t like I could run away.
Jack turned back to the woods, and we resumed our slow, steady pace. The trees began to thin, and I saw a large clearing ahead.
That was when I saw the yellow bulldozer, pushing down a wide wooden structure. My stomach twisted and churned with anxiety but I took a deep breath and shoved my fear to the side. Reaching into my pocket, I pulled my phone free and held my fingers over the speaker as I tried to turn it on.
Come on, come on, I thought desperately as I pressed the home button over and over again. The screen stayed black, and just when I was about to give up hope and throw it into the trees, I saw the telltale white loading screen. Gasping with relief, I gripped the phone tightly with shaking fingers and opened the camera.
I stepped up to Jack and held the camera out, filming the clearing. As the bulldozer moved past again and again, I bit my lip.
“Look,” I whispered to Jack. “We’ll have something!”
Jack nodded. He glanced down and then back to the site. “That bastard,” he whispered, clenching his hands into fists at his sides. “I can’t fucking believe it!”
“I can,” I whispered. “But don’t worry. We’ve won.”
Jack didn’t reply. He looked over my shoulder as I kept filming. When a large, balding man in a suit and a raincoat stepped into my frame of vision, I froze in place.
“Keep going!” The man called loudly in a French accent. “Everything must be destroyed!”
We’ve got him, I thought as I took a deep breath. It’s finally over.
Chapter Sixteen
Jack
I couldn’t believe it. Adele, the genius girl beside me, had finally done it. She’d gotten exactly the kind of evidence we needed. Franchot and his thugs had destroyed my construction site…but now that we had proof, we were going to destroy him.
I tugged Adele’s elbow. “Come on,” I said. “We need to get back.”
Adele looked up at me. She nodded and slowly lowered her phone. She’d taped about ten minutes of coverage, and she hit stop before sliding the phone into her pocket.
“And keep that on,” I warned. “We need to make sure the video saved.”
Adele and I practically ran back to the hotel. The storm was clearing – I could even see a hint of the sun trying to peek out from the heavy layer of clouds. I grabbed Adele’s hand and pulled her close once we were a safe distance from the construction site.
“I can’t believe it,” I said, leaning down and kissing her. “You’re incredible!”
“I’m just glad it worked,” Adele said. She sighed. “When can we get out of here?”
I glanced up at the sky. “Judging by the way everything looks, I’d say pretty soon. Maybe even tomorrow,” I said. “If we can get cell service, we can arrange for a boat from Miami.”
Adele nodded. She pursed her lips. Just as she was about to speak, I heard my name being yelled from the direction of the hotel.
Shit, I thought. Franchot must’ve sent some of his thugs to the hotel! But how did he see us?!
When I looked at Adele, there was obvious fear in her eyes.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said, reaching for her hand and squeezing. “I’m sure it’s fine.”
Adele didn’t look convinced, but she followed behind as I began to run towards the hotel. When we reached the front of the building, my jaw dropped.
Rico was standing there, looking more dead than alive. His skin was sunburned bright red, and his clothes were in tatters. But when he saw me, a huge smile broke out across his face.
“Oh my god,” I said as I broke into a run. “Rico!”
Rico nodded. “Yes,” he said. He shuddered. “After the plane went down, I found refuge on part of the beach, in a cove, until the waves started getting too bad.”
“I can’t believe you’re alive!” I said, wrapping my arm around him and pulling him into a close hug. “I can’t fucking believe it!”
Rico pulled away and laughed. “Yes,” he said. “Neither can I, Mr. Nathan.”
“Jack, please,” I said. “I almost killed you – I think you should at least be able to call me by my first name now.”
Adele joined me. When she saw Rico, she gasped.
“Holy shit,” Adele said. She covered her mouth with both hands. “Rico, have you seen anyone else? Or a boat?”
Rico shook his head. “No,” he said. “I am sorry, but I have not.” He sighed. “I’ve bee
n on the other side of the island, hiding from the storm. But when the sun came out today, I thought I might find Mr. Nathan.”
“My god,” Adele said. “I’m just so glad you’re alive!” She began gnawing at her lip, and I reached out to touch her shoulder, knowing that she was thinking of the charter boat captain.