Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
I pause, turning slowly to see her staring at us, her eyes wide.
“We’ve had enough of your shrieking, Rachel,” Aggie mutters. “What is your problem?”
“You just said it will serve you right for causing the fire in the first place.”
Aggie’s face falls, and I’m certain mine does, too.
“What?” Iris gasps, her eyes wide. “What is she talking about?”
“Aggie?” Zeke, who has perked up and is staring across at our boat. “Please fuckin’ tell me she misheard.”
Her eyes meet mine.
“Don’t look at her,” Rachel screams. “Tell me I didn’t just hear what I think I heard.”
Tatiana presses a hand to her chest, staring at us, as if she is imagining this all as a really bad dream that we are about to get her out of.
“Answer the question.”
Ace’s voice is like a whip, and even though a part of me wants to lie, I know the only way we will survive this is to tell the truth.
Aggie sighs, and her shoulders slump. “It was me,” she says, and her voice is so even, so naked that for a second no one reacts. “I rigged the cleaning chemicals and set the explosion. We had to do something before we docked, before—” She glances at me, a silent question.
How much do we tell them?
A weird calm fills me. Maybe it’s the way the water holds us, the hush of dread so complete it erases even Iris’s whimpering. If we die—and I’m starting to believe we could—then at least we could die telling the truth.
It’s the least I can do.
I look right at Ace, at the way his hands clench and unclench, at the raw betrayal darkening his eyes. “We didn’t do this for nothing,” I say, my throat scratchy as I try to raise my voice loud enough for everyone to hear. “My father, he was never sending us on vacation. He was going to sell us. All of us.”
I don’t know what response I expect. For everyone to hug me and tell me I saved them all? For Ace, or Zeke, or even Kellen, to call me a liar and say I’m out of my mind? But for a solid ten seconds, no one says anything. The silence vibrates; even the endless churn of the sea feels like it’s stopped to listen.
It’s finally Rachel who speaks, tears running down her cheeks. “What the fuck are you talking about? He’s your dad. Are you insane? As if he would do something so... horrible.”
“That’s where you’re wrong. He doesn’t see us as people, Rachel,” I say, my throat burning. “I overheard the conversation clear as day, he was going to sell us. We were never going on vacation, he had people waiting at the other end for us.”
Iris is crying now, real tears, not the superficial drama. Rachel stares at her, then at me, and then at the men—expecting, I guess, for someone to tell her this is a prank. Some big, unfunny joke. She points a shaking finger, mouth twisted. “So you decided to set the fucking boat on fire, instead?”
I shake my head. “We were trying to just set off an emergency response, create a disaster so they’d have to rescue us. We had no idea my father stripped the emergency equipment and that all the radios were fucking out. This was the safest way. The only way.”
She laughs, that ugly edge again. “Safest way? We’re all going to die out here, you psycho.”
“Well,” Adrian pipes up. “Statistically, we’re probably more likely to survive this than you ladies would have been if you were sold into the sex trade.”
“Fuck your statistics,” Rachel screams at him.
It’s Kellen, of all people, who snaps. “Fuck me, just shut up. Just—shut the fuck up, all of you.” He leans forward, his face hard and strange in the dawn light.
Iris hugs herself, rocking. The sun is a white knife on her skin. “We’re never getting home, are we?”
I want to lie, I want to promise, but I can’t. “I don’t know,” I say, and it’s the closest I’ve ever come to crying in front of these people.
Rachel keeps up the anger, but it’s hollow now. “So either we get sold, or we die out here. Great choices, Grace. Really fucking great. Did you ever think to go to our security, maybe seeing if there was another way...”
“As far as we were concerned, everyone might have known. We never meant to end up out here. Do you have any idea what would have happened if we got off at the other side? We would be fucking sold into slavery. What part of that isn’t making sense to you?”
More silence.
“We’re not dead yet,” Ace snaps, finally, after too long. I realize he’s been silent because he’s thinking, and when I watch him now, he looks different—but I can’t quite figure out how. “If they got a rescue call out, we’ll get picked up. If not—” He glances down at the water, sets his jaw. “We’ll survive.”