Sophie threw her hands up in surrender. Sebastien’s mind was set. “Be careful,” she said. “These people are dangerous.”
His response sent a ripple of unease along her skin. “So am I.”
Sebastien stared vacantly into the darkness of the crate, the memory replaying in his mind. Several minutes passed before he reeled himself back into the present. He could feel the crate lower, settling firmly on the ground. Everything was dark and still inside his timber box.
He didn’t have to wait long before the side of the crate swung open. The beam of a flashlight drilled through the acrylic globe and into his eyes. He covered his face with the blanket.
“Sebastien?” He recognized the voice immediately despite its hushed volume. “Are you there?”
“Get me out of here, Diya!” He tossed the duvet to the side and climbed through the hidden hatch, gulping mouthfuls of air. She squealed as they held each other.
“It worked,” she said with relief, patting her hands over his face as though to confirm it was really him. “You’re here.”
Sebastien looked around to find himself in an unfamiliar part of the ship. The ceiling soared overhead above crisscrossing gangways and tracks of spotlights. His shoes clapped against the wooden floor as he stepped toward the black curtain that ran the length of one side. Peeking between the velvet partitions, it was his first time seeing the Odeon from this side of the curtain. Rows of plush turquoise seats and carpeted aisles stared down at him, waiting for his finale. He would take a bow before long.
“Let’s go,” Diya whispered. “Everyone’s waiting.”
He pulled himself away from the curtain and faced his fearless friend. “Do you think we can pull this off?” He couldn’t deny that his confidence had eroded like a beach against the tide. The uncertainty ached in his chest, but he remembered the words his mother used to say: And while your opponent thinks he has the upper hand, you better make sure your next move counts.
Diya stepped forward and held him by the arms.
“We’ve spent our entire lives running away,” she said, her voice soft but unshakable. “Now we fight.”
TWENTY-ONE
Premiere
“How did it feel when you hit Marcel Lamoureux?”
The woman was seated in a square, squat chair that must have been at least fifty years old, with upholstery the colour of overripe avocado. Her tangerine blouse, tweed skirt, and cateye spectacles complemented the seventies aesthetic that was too on-the-nose to be accidental.
Sebastien felt like a cliché as he lay on the chaise longue, itself out of place, given its sleek leather and contemporary design.
“I don’t know,” he said, staring at the ceiling of water-stained panels. “It was a long time ago.”
“It’s been a year,” the woman confirmed, her voice gentle yet uncompromising.
“Might as well be a lifetime.”
“I need you to work with me, Sebastien. I know you feel like you’re being forced to be here, but I want to help you.”
The ceiling was speckled with dots. They formed an erratic display of constellations.
“It didn’t feel like anything.” He uncrossed his arms and let them fall to his sides. “I felt angry before I hit him. My body was shaking. Everything was hot. But when it happened, I felt nothing. It was like my mind was severed from my body. I had no control.”
The woman looked at the notepad in her lap, pen poised between her fingertips, but she didn’t write anything down. It was the kind of pad he had always imagined lawyers to use, the type that flipped at the top edge rather than the side. He found it odd that his court-ordered psychiatrist used one of these pads but his lawyer hadn’t.
“How did it feel when you stopped hitting him?”
His hands balled into fists, sticky and warm. “I felt tired. I just wanted to lie there. The sky was so blue. I thought my limbs would break if I moved.”
“What about when you were escorted away from the field. How did you feel then?”
“Ashamed.” It was the easiest question yet.
“That’s good,” she said, nodding as if to confirm it were true. “You knew what you did was wrong.”
“I’ve never denied that, have I?”
“No,” she agreed. “But you’re not on trial anymore. There’s no more pressure to answer one way or another. So it’s good. Now, I want you to describe your anger. What does it look like?”
A tart little laugh slipped past his lips. “I don’t know. How should anger look?”
“Close your eyes. Think about graduation day. What do you see?”
His eyelids shut with a reluctant flutter. He lay there still as stone for several seconds. The woman waited patiently.
“It looks like fire,” he said. “Except it’s white instead of red. It starts out small, but then gets bigger, and brighter, until it has swallowed everything.”
“Does it have a face?”
Sebastien didn’t realize his head was nodding. “It has my eyes.”
The woman placed the notepad on the oblong table beside her before leaning forward in the avocado chair. “Do you remember what you said during the assault on the field?”
“No.”
“But you’ve heard the accounts from the witnesses.” It wasn’t a question.
“Apparently I was screaming nonsense.”
“That’s not quite true, Sebastien.”
“Why weren’t we good enough?” His voice was flat and emotionless. “That’s what I said, repeatedly, like a lunatic. At least according to the people who were there. I don’t remember. You know this already, Doctor.”
She nodded slowly. “Tell me about your father.”
“I don’t have one.” He adjusted his position, twisting his shoulders left and right.
“How do you feel talking about him now?”
“Tired. I feel tired.”
“Why do you feel that way?”
“Because I’ve already wasted too much of my life thinking about that asshole!” The confession burst from his mouth before he could stop it. “I’m sorry.”
“No need to apologize,” she said, her tone understanding.
“My father is nobody.” Sebastien closed his eyes and softened his voice. “He’s just a man who left my mother before I was born. That’s all. Nothing more.”
“Describe what he looks like.”
He drew an audible breath, crossing his arms over his stomach. “I’ve never seen him,” he said. “But my mother tells me I have his eyes.”
The doctor reclined in her chair, analyzing the young man lying in front of her, deciphering the mystery beneath his skin.
“Have you heard of cognitive restructuring?” she asked after a prolonged silence.
“No.”
“Anger is irrational. It causes people to think things they know aren’t true. But the stronger the anger, the easier it is to believe these irrational thoughts over one’s own logic.”
Sebastien pulled his eyes away from the ceiling to look at the woman in the chair. He noticed for the first time she had a kind face.
“For example,” she went on, “anger often causes people to think everyone is against them. They know logically that can’t be true, but the negative thoughts make it easy to believe. It’s also common to think in extremes. People are either good or bad. A decision will either lead to unimaginable success or complete failure. This is over-simplified thinking, but an angry person might not see any middle ground.”
“You’re talking about me, right?”
“Not necessarily.” She clasped her hands in her lap. A gold wedding band squeezed her ring finger. Sebastien wondered if she was happy. “I know you’ve had challenges in your life. You expressed earlier that you feel your anger is justified. I’m not here to cure you or validate you. My job is simply to give you tools to manage your anger. To tame it. The most important tool is logic.”
“Logic.” He repeated the word as though he’d never heard it before.
“Anger is misunderstood. It doesn’t need to be a weakness. The goal isn’t to eliminate it, but to gain control over it.” She softened her voice, allowing her human side to peek through the professional exterior. “What Marcel Lamoureux did to your mother was reprehensible. Your anger was an appropriate emotional response to that. Anger is passion. It’s conviction and agency. That’s what I see when I look in your eyes, not hatred. There can be power in anger when you learn how to harness it.”
His muscles felt less stiff when he pushed himself off the chaise longue at the end of the session. He walked toward the door but found himself not quite ready to leave.
“Dr. St-Germain?”
She turned to him, still seated in the clutches of the aging armchair.
“Am I dangerous?”
A soft smile appeared on her lips.
“No, Sebastien. Emotion is like water. Some people keep it in a well, drawing from it by the bucket. Others put it behind a dam. But you — you are an ocean.”
Palma de Mallorca sizzled beneath the sun as the Glacier pulled into the harbour. The island’s capital had come a long way since its days as a far-flung camp for the ancient Romans. It had evolved into a hotbed of all things glitzy and gaudy. Luxury yachts flagrantly crowded the harbour in the shadow of Le Seu, Palma’s most dignified cathedral. The austerity of its stone walls and gothic towers had stood guard over the seaside port for the past eight hundred years. Now it was subject to the narcissism of package tourists and jetsetters alike taking too many photos of too much bare skin.
The Glacier had departed Barcelona the previous night, veering south to the lauded hedonism of the Balearic Islands. It was the destination’s first appearance on the ship’s itinerary that summer, so most officers were eager to join the guests in losing themselves in the narrow lanes of the old town or in searching for a plot of sandy heaven to claim.
The staff and crew were notified that they wouldn’t be permitted in port that day by order of the hotel commander.
The mood on board had been peculiar since Sebastien was evicted. The hours that passed were uneventful, staff and crew keeping their heads down and doing their jobs with perfected smiles, but something electric simmered beneath the calm surface. The corridors in the lower decks of Hades were alive with whispers. Furtive glances were exchanged between people with no obvious connection. The resistance lived on, but for now it was kept hidden.
Kostas was no fool. He knew Sebastien hadn’t acted alone, and he knew evicting the wild-haired provocateur would only elicit sympathy and anger from those who shared his hopeless mission. Kostas kept a list of people who would soon be receiving knocks on their cabin doors. The ship would be lighter when they arrived at their next port: Cannes.
Until then, he would continue to show them who was in control. The curfew remained. Neither staff nor crew had guest privileges except while on duty. The morality code was enforced so effectively that most people hid in their cabins during the evenings.
A new rule had been implemented as punishment for the black-banner stunt in the port of Palermo — the crew and staff bars now closed two hours before midnight. Kostas almost felt sorry for them, but they had brought it upon themselves. They had taken their freedoms for granted, foolishly thinking they were entitlements, and now he had no choice but to show them what happened when they made demands without power.
The bright passageway that ran straight through A Deck was quiet as two Filipina housekeepers pushed their supply cart past offices and storage rooms. One woman was round while the other was thin. They wore matching grey uniforms with pink aprons.
“Rosa, are you sure you know where you’re going?” the thin woman asked her companion.
“Trust me, Imelda.” Rosa shot her a stern glance. “I’ve been here many times.” It wasn’t true. The only other time she’d visited the elite wing inhabited by the commanding officers was that day in Cyprus, when she delivered the special cake to Giorgos.
Imelda looked doubtful as she pushed the large cart ahead of her.
When they reached the locked door at the end of the hall, Rosa pulled the plastic key card from the pocket of her apron. It was used by her friends who were authorized to clean the cabins and deliver food in the exclusive wing. She gave Imelda a decisive look before inserting the card into the slot on the door. The dot of green light flicked on.
A tiny gasp escaped Imelda’s mouth when she saw the grape-coloured floors and emerald wallpaper. Rosa’s eyes scolded her. The sound of the cart’s wheels were muted as they rolled along the carpet.
The hall was empty when they turned the corner. In front of them stood the door they were searching for. The location was engraved on a bronze plaque:
A66
“Good morning,” Rosa said in her sweetest, most motherly voice. There was a broad smile on her flushed face.
Sitting on a chair in front of the door was a young man wearing the blue uniform of Nikos’s security staff. His square shoulders were slouched. The hallway was blocked by his outstretched legs. He looked at the two women with boredom etched across his face and gave them a curt nod.
“We’re here to clean this cabin.” Rosa’s smile remained as she pointed to the door beside the man.
“Not this cabin,” he said. “Go on to the next one.”
The two women glanced at each other from across their supply cart. Rosa turned to the man, her smile widening. “We were given orders to clean this cabin. A66, yes?”
“No one’s allowed inside,” he said, the impatience seeping into his voice. “If you have a problem with that, you can take it up with Nikos Antonopolous.”
“But sir —”
The man stood up from his chair in an act of intimidation over the shorter women. “I said move —” His eyes blinked several times as the words trailed off. He’d been interrupted, but he wasn’t sure by what. Gravity pulled his chin downward, and he saw the dart sticking out of his chest. What looked like a bundle of pink feathers sprouted from the end.
He looked up, shocked. The thinner woman held a gun the size of an assault rifle in her spindly hands. The larger woman’s face reflected his surprise, but the one with the gun had no hint of apology in her humourless eyes.
“You shot me with a tranq?” Scowling with disbelief, he pulled the needle from his chest and dropped it to the ground. “These things don’t work like they do on TV, you know. It can take up to an hour to take effect. You stupid bitches.”
Rosa yelped as the man stepped toward them, but he stumbled, as though his legs were no longer in sync with his mind. The angry look on his face dissolved into bewilderment. His shoulder hit the wall with a thud, then he rolled over the closed door, struggling to remain standing. His eyelashes fluttered delicately before his entire body toppled to the carpeted floor.
Rosa smacked Imelda on the side of the arm. “We weren’t supposed to use that unless we needed to!”
“Exactly,” she said, “and we needed to.”
“I had the situation under control. I could have talked our way in.”
“I guess we’ll never know.” The thin woman looked at the tranquillizer gun, on loan from the Filipino Mafia. She liked how it felt in her hands.
Rosa crouched beside the security guard to confirm they hadn’t just committed murder. “He’s breathing,” she said with a sigh of relief, her fingers darting across her bosom in the sign of the cross.
“He’s a big sleeping baby.”
“What is in these things?” Rosa held up the dart with the pink feathers.
Imelda shrugged.
Remembering their mission, Rosa patted her apron to find the key card and inserted it in the door of cabin A66. A few seconds passed, but the dot of green light permitting entry didn’t appear. She tried pushing the door, but it remained locked. After a few more attempts of inserting the key card with the same result, she turned to Imelda. “They must have deactivated entry to this door,” she said with a helpless look on her face.
Imelda appeared unperturbed as she scanned the hallway. She stepped over the security guard’s body and disappeared around the corner, leaving Rosa standing there in a state of confusion. A minute later, Imelda returned holding one of the fire extinguishers that sat in glass boxes throughout the corridors of the lower decks. She motioned for Rosa to step aside, then grunted as she lifted the heavy silver cylinder above her head. It came down swiftly, severing the door handle with hardly a sound.
With a nod of approval, Rosa pushed open the door. She stepped into the room and saw exactly what she was told she would find inside.
A frightened young woman with long black hair and eyes as large and present as an owl’s stood in the middle of the cabin.
“Who are you?” she asked, her voice shaking.
“We’re friends.” Rosa put her palms up in a calming gesture. “Sebastien sent us. We are here to help you.”
“The green-eyed boy with the crazy hair?”
Rosa let out a sweet laugh. “That’s the one.”
Athena helped the two housekeepers drag the security guard by his feet into the cabin. They bound his wrists and ankles with twine from the supply cart. Rosa pulled three energy bars from her apron and removed the foil wrapping. She propped the man up against the wall and placed the bars in his lap.
“He’ll be hungry,” she said to the other two women.
The front of the supply cart held a canvas hamper for dirty towels and sheets. They helped Athena inside, and covered her with a fluffy duvet.
“You’re safe now,” Rosa whispered into the hamper. They closed the door behind them and rolled the cart away.
Laughter resounded from the table of imposing figures. Kostas Kourakis had honed his storytelling skills as a young sailor circumnavigating the globe from the swaying decks of a cargo ship. The present-day hotel commander knew how to regale an audience with the right combination of titillation and candour.
“I didn’t say that,” little Kristo protested, his face flushing red as he listened to the story his father had just shared at the dinner table.
The Rebellious Tide Page 23