Chapter Seventeen - Victoria
He disappears. Dives right between two rocks as waves crash over them. I’m getting sprayed with the leftover mist even though I’m a good ten feet away.
“Weston?” I call out as I try to see below the surface of the water. “West?” It’s no use. The water is agitated and murky even though two hours ago it was calm and clear.
I wring my hands and look up at the sky. The rain stings my cheeks and makes me blink. The clouds are gray and black and the purple ones are closer than ever.
That mass of swirling air has to be something bad. Something very, very bad. Like a tropical storm or a hurricane.
Oh, God. What if it’s a hurricane?
I look around the island and realize how vulnerable we are. How many feet above sea level does the little house sit? Twenty? Thirty?
We could be swept away. This whole island could be swept away. Already the sandbar we swam out to is gone. The tree is gone too. Jesus Christ. The little tree got swept away! We’re totally fucked!
Keep calm, Victoria.
I look back at the spot where West disappeared. He could’ve been bashed up against the rocks when he dove. He might be down there drowning right now. I’m going to get stuck here all alone. No one will ever come back for me. West will die and I will die and—
He pops up out of the water, gasping for air. But just as I’m about to let the relief wash over me, he dives back down.
“Weston!” I yell. “You asshole!” I’m so mad at him. So fucking mad at him. He’s always been this way. Completely oblivious to how his actions affect other people. Does he care I’m up here ready to freak out because he feels the need to play provider? No. He doesn’t. He has never cared about anything but his grand plan. He has never cared about anyone but his family.
And those stupid fucking friends of his. Those stupid men who dragged him into all that controversy ten years ago.
The Misters.
I hated them for making him into something he wasn’t. Weston Conrad was good before those men in that house made him into this man today. He was good.
I want to cry right now. How the hell did this job I didn’t even want turn into a life-or-death situation?
West pops up again and I hold my breath to wait and see if he’ll go back under again. But he doesn’t.
“I got them,” he says, laughing like a boy who has never had a care in the world. What must it be like to be him? So confident, and powerful, and… happy.
“I got them.” He laughs again. This time he holds up his white dress shirt. He’s made it into some kind of catch bag and inside are… things. I guess lobsters or whatever it was he went down there for.
The waves crash over him and slam him into a rock. I gasp, but he ignores it, even though his head is bleeding.
He throws the makeshift sack towards me and I catch it instinctively, but almost drop it when the things inside wriggle and twist.
“If you drop that, Victoria,” West says, pulling himself up out of the raging sea, “I will be pissed.” He hops from one rock to another until we’re on the same one. I look down at his feet. He’s lost his shoes and there’s blood pouring out of a wound on his ankle. “Come on,” he says, grabbing the sack from me. “Let’s get inside and dry off.”
We are soaked. And the fact that we have no clothes to wear as we get dry doesn’t escape either of us.
West is unfazed. He strips out of his boxer briefs and walks around naked like he’s some kind of Jungle Boy. He even starts cooking the lobsters. He got two of them this time.
“Tomorrow,” he says as I stand in the middle of the room, hugging myself and shivering like crazy, “I’ll get us something different.”
“W-w-we’re going to be here tomorrow?” I ask through my chattering teeth.
“Would you take those fucking clothes off, Victoria? You’re soaked. You can’t warm up wearing wet clothes.”
“You d-d-didn’t answer my question.”
“Well,” West says, looking out the window as he deals with the simplicities of cooking lobster, “it’s not looking good, Tori. We have to assume no one is coming until this storm passes. It could be a day or two.”
“A day or two?” I take a deep breath. “Which do you think?”
“There’s no way to tell. Take those fucking clothes off. There have to be towels somewhere. People who put up beach houses with off-grid electricity will definitely have towels.”
I look around, still shivering. But he’s right. There has to be more to this place. There are two doors we have not checked yet, so I walk over to the one closest to me.
I’m hoping for a bedroom with a nice soft bed when I open it, but no such luck. It’s a closet and it does have towels.
“Cool,” West says, reaching past me. But he doesn’t pick up a towel from one of the shelves. He picks up snorkel gear from the floor. “I’ll use this stuff next time. Then I’ll be able to see better. The fucking visibility is shit right now.”
“Here’s a first-aid kit,” I say, picking up the little white box with a red cross on it. “For your ankle. And your head.”
“I’m fine,” he says, walking over to the other door. He grabs the handle and pulls, but… it’s locked. “What the fuck? They leave everything unlocked, including the house, but they lock this door?”
I’ve stripped out of my wet clothes, including my bra, and I wrap the towel around me before West can catch a glimpse. I take one for him too. I can’t have Naked Man walking around all night.
He’s not even paying attention to me, so I had nothing to worry about when I stripped. He’s just staring at the locked door.
“What do you think is in there?” I ask, walking over to him and holding out the towel.
“Hmm,” he says, taking the towel without looking at me. He wraps it around his waist and says, “Something good, obviously.” He scans the room, finds something he likes, and walks away.
He grabs a fire extinguisher off the wall and comes back to the door.
“What are you going to do with that?”
He bangs the tank on the doorknob, bending it and breaking the lock.
“Oh,” I say.
He messes with the handle for a few seconds and then pulls the door open. “Ho-lee shit.”
“What?” I ask, leaning past him to see. “What’s in there?”
West turns around and looks at me. “Guns.”