“Excuse me!” I shouted as loud as I could. The captain didn’t flinch. Didn’t move. Didn’t acknowledge that he had heard me. He probably hadn’t, what with the roaring of the engine and the slapping of the boat against the water. “Excuse me! Hey!” I reached out for the safety rail at the bottom of the stairs and placed my trembling foot on the bottom step. “We’re going the wrong way! The island is over the—”
My words were suddenly cut off as a bandana was flung over my
head from behind and crammed into my mouth. I tried to scream, but the gag was already tied tightly. It shoved my tongue into my throat, and I started to choke. As I fought for breath, I was yanked backward off my feet and my butt slammed into the floor. Instinctively, I reached up to try to claw at my attacker, but my arms were quickly pinned behind my back and tied together with rough twine. I winced in pain as the rope cut my skin. My eyes rolled wildly around, begging the captain to look behind him, to see what was happening, to help me. But even as my feet pounded the floor, he didn’t move. I tried to squirm forward using my feet and glutes, but the guy grabbed my hair and yanked me back. The pain was sudden and unexpected and excruciating. Then he placed his hand over my forehead and slammed the back of my skull into the floor, which was still covered in Upton’s rose petals.
“Don’t bother, bitch,” he spat, his voice gruff, his face turned away from me.
I forced myself to breathe through my nose, but my panic was so great, I was barely able to take in any air. Pain radiated throughout my skull. Tears stung my eyes and coursed down my face, but I forced myself to stare at my attacker. Tried to commit any details I could to memory. He wore dark glasses that all but covered his face, and had a thick beard just like the captain, but this one was dark and wiry.
It was the last thing I saw before my eyes were blindfolded, and I was truly powerless.
About two seconds later, he threw me down the stairs like a sack of dirty laundry. My knees hit the ground first and I careened forward, slamming the side of my head against something sharp. I shouted out in pain and rolled over onto my back, my shoulder muscles straining as I pinned my already tethered arms underneath my weight. I struggled to sit up, the side of my head throbbing angrily, and felt blood trickling down behind my ear. The boat took a sudden turn and I slid across the floor, my entire body slamming into the wall.
That was when I really started to cry. Tears soaked my blindfold and my nose quickly stuffed itself with mucus. Suddenly, I couldn’t breathe to save my life. I gasped past the gag and my lungs constricted over and over and over again. I was going to die. I was going to cry myself to death.
Get control, Reed. Calm down. Just. Calm. Down.
Coughing a few times and sucking in a few more breaths, I
managed to clear my nasal passages. Then I sat for what felt like an eternity, breathing in and out, in and out, until my heart rate calmed to a relatively normal state.
Normal for someone who was suffering from multiple head traumas, who couldn’t see and couldn’t move, who was being kidnapped off the coast of a remote Caribbean island at a time when no one would notice she was missing for at least an hour.
I was completely screwed.
Overhead, I heard the pounding of footsteps and shouting voices. Obviously, my attacker and the captain of the boat were in on this together. So even if I’d gotten Red Beard’s attention, he wouldn’t have been any help to me. As I thought back to what little I’d seen of their faces, I started to realize that the beards were obviously fake. The glasses clearly a misdirect. So who the hell were these people? Was Daniel one of them? It made sense. Daniel hated Upton, and Paige hated me. Maybe the two of them had decided to kill two birds with one stone. Devastate Upton by getting rid of me. Maybe even send him crying into Paige’s arms. Was that why they had been hovering out there in their boat, watching the party? Were they waiting for Upton to leave so that they could put their plan into action?
My heart seized with a sudden realization. The guy who had been arrested for shoving me off the boat had been on the Ryan family’s payroll. Had Daniel and Paige orchestrated that too? Had they paid him off? Promised to take care of his family if he didn’t say anything to the police about them? It all made sense. The twins could have been behind every one of my near misses. I had been on their estate when
the horse took off and almost rode me off a cliff. One of them could have hidden in the bushes and spooked her. I had been on Daniel’s Jet Ski when it malfunctioned and almost killed me. He definitely could have rigged that. And I had been on their family’s boat when someone in their family’s employ had shoved me over the rail and left me for dead. Plus both Sawyer and Taylor had noticed the two of them taking off right around the time I’d gone over.
It all made sense.
But knowing this didn’t make me feel any better. If anything, I was even more terrified. They had been trying to kill me for days. And now they had me out in the middle of nowhere with no one looking for me. If I was late to meet Upton, he’d probably think I wasn’t done partying yet. And no one on the private island would realize I was missing until tomorrow morning.
I felt my eyes start to well up again and forced the tears down. If I was going to survive this, I was going to have to be strong. Maybe they weren’t out to kill me. Maybe they were just messing with me. Playing a prank. Teaching me a lesson. God, I hoped that was true.
The boat took another sharp turn and I skidded across the floor again, falling onto my side as my leg slammed into the opposite wall. I shouted out in pain, but it came out as a pathetic gargle thanks to my gag. A few seconds later, the boat jolted and the bottom scraped across rocks or sand. Whatever it was, wherever we were, we’d run ashore.
There was more shouting. I sat up straight and tilted my ear toward the ceiling, trying to make it out. The two voices were definitely male,
but I couldn’t tell if one belonged to Daniel. Maybe Paige and the other girls were in on the planning of this insanity but just didn’t want to mess up their manicures by doing any of the dirty work. Whoever the men were, I couldn’t make out their words. Footsteps pounded across the deck and I heard something bang against the side wall of the cabin. They were still talking as the hatch overhead opened, letting cool night air pour over my semi-clothed body. The only words I heard were the tail end of a sentence. Words that stopped me cold.
“. . . then find somewhere to dump the body.”
This was no prank. These men were going to kill me.
“Please. Please, please, please, please, please.”
I tried to beg, but the gag in my mouth distorted the words. I tripped forward across the deck as they dragged me by one arm. My head throbbed in several places and my knees and thighs were sore with the beginnings of nasty bruises. I heard a splash. Someone shoved me from behind and my feet hit the water. I started to fall forward, but the second guy yanked me to my feet and pushed his hand into the small of my back. I fumbled ahead, my feet unsteady as I navigated the shallow incline toward the shore. Soon, my toes hit dry sand. The moment they did I was shoved again, and fell face-first into the sand.
My captors—my executioners—laughed. Rage surged through me like white-hot fire. One of them tugged at the knot on my gag and it fell free. I coughed as I rolled over, still blindfolded. There was no light coming through the slits at the top and bottom of the black scarf
that was tied over my eyes. Definitely still night. Apparently, we hadn’t been on the water for very long.
I felt proud of myself for noticing these things, for trying to assess my situation, even though I was terrified for my life.
“Any last words?” one of them asked.
I swallowed hard. I was pretty sure it was Red Beard speaking. At least it sounded like the boat captain’s voice. But now I felt a shiver of recognition. I swore I had heard that voice before. But where? I thought back to every man I had met on the island and couldn’t place it. Could it be Daniel disguising his voice?
“Please don’t kill me,” I blubbered as I was dragged to my feet again. I hated that I couldn’t even see them. That they wouldn’t even look me in the eye. That I was standing on some beach somewhere and I didn’t even know what it looked like. What the place of my death looked like. “Please. You don’t have to do this.”
“God, just shut her up,” one of them whispered. “Enough already.”
I pulled in a shaky breath. “Why are you—”
My words died in my throat. Something hard had just been pressed into the back of my skull. I heard the click as the gun’s hammer was cocked.
“No!” I screamed at the top of my lungs, releasing every ounce of my soul into the air. Fear coursed through my body like cold shock waves. I trembled, more terrified than I had been that night on the roof of Billings with Ariana. More terrified than I’d felt looking down the barrel of Sabine’s gun. At least then I had known where I was, had had the benefit of sight. Had known there were people around who
could help me. But now, I was alone. Completely blind, completely helpless.
Images flitted rapid-fire through my mind. Josh, Thomas, Billings, Noelle, my home in Croton, my parents, my brother, my dog, my first bike, my first soccer uniform, my turtle—God, I’d forgotten I ever had a turtle—my dolls, my baby blanket, my room.
And Upton. Upton, Upton, Upton waiting for me in his bedroom on St. Barths. The bottle of wine, the look of anticipation on his face. My heart felt as if it was being shredded by a raging lion as I thought of him.
“I have a rich boyfriend!” I shouted, sounding like a pathetic crazy. “He’ll pay you. He’ll pay you anything. Please just don’t shoot me!”
For the first time, my captors were completely silent. My heart swelled with hope. Clearly I had gotten their attention.
But then they laughed.
“That’s not going to work,” one of them said. This one, I realized, hadn’t spoken until now. His English was clipped. As if he was concentrating on his words. It must have been the second man. The one who had gagged me and thrown me around the boat. “You see, we are already being paid to kill you.”
The air rushed out of my lungs. “What?” I breathed.
“I don’t know what you did, little girl, but you’ve definitely pissed off some very important people,” Red Beard said.
People.
Plural. Daniel and Paige. It
had
to be them. That family was just crazy enough to spawn a plan like this. Just rich enough to have the money to do it. But why? Why go to all this trouble to get rid of me?
In a week I was going to be back at Easton and they’d never have to see me again. The gun pressed deeper into my skull.
“Wait! But Upton . . . he’s a billionaire. Trust me, whatever you’re being paid, he’ll double it.” I took a deep breath as the pressure of the gun lessened. “Think about it for a second. You can walk away with twice the money and no blood on your hands.”
The gun was lowered and they shoved me to my knees. For a second I thought they were just going to pull the trigger and I pressed my eyes closed under my blindfold. I couldn’t breathe. My whole body involuntarily flinched over and over and over again, thinking each second was my last on earth. Waiting for the shot was torture, pure and simple. My teeth clenched together, and every inch of my body shook.
But then the gun was lowered, and I felt them walk away. Felt their eerie, looming presence subside. Their voices carried to me on the wind in snippets as they discussed my offer.
“That kid . . . would never . . .”
I twisted my hands around, trying to loosen the twine that bound my wrists together. The rope only cut deeper into my flesh. I bit my lip to muffle my cry and kept twisting. This pain was preferable to getting shot.
“. . . say we just get it over . . .”
Slowly, I sat down on my butt and swung my legs around in the sand so my feet were in front of me.
“. . . is true, we could just get . . .”
Holding my breath, I pushed myself up to standing, sidestepping a bit for balance.
“. . . no idea what she’s talking about . . .”
I took a step forward, not knowing what the hell I would find up ahead, but knowing it had to be better than what I had here.
“. . . but that fa— Hey!”
My heart seized at the sound of his shout. Within two seconds the gun was pressed into my skull again, right against one of my many fresh wounds. The pain was so sharp I choked out a cry.
“Where the hell do you think you’re going?” Mr. Stilted English spat.
“Please! Please, don’t,” I cried.
“Jesus. If we’re going to do this let’s just do it,” Red Beard said.
“Fine.”
I waited for the gun to go off. Wondered if I would have time to feel the pain.
And then he released me.
“We’re gonna go talk to that pretty-boy billionaire of yours,” Red Beard said. “Good luck not freezing to death out here.”
I heard them moving off through the sand and relief rushed through me. All my emotions welled to the surface and I started to cry. Bawl, actually, but I no longer cared. I just let it all out. I was alive. That was all that mattered. For the moment, I was alive.
The boat’s engine roared to life. I was still crying when it faded to nothing in the distance. They were going to talk to Upton. Upton was going to save me.
Everything was going to be all right.
Or not.
As soon as the boat’s engine was out of earshot, I realized the hopelessness of the situation. I wasn’t dead. That was something. But I
was
standing on the middle of a beach, blindfolded, with my hands tied behind my back. It was the middle of the night and I was wearing only a skimpy minidress, with nothing to protect me from the cold breeze that was kicking up off the water. I assumed the island was deserted, which meant no one was about to stumble upon me and help me. But there could be animals. Huge, scary animals that liked to tear apart human flesh.