In the night, underwater might as well be deep space. Just as cold, just as black. I heard nothing, saw nothing. I kicked my legs, but the knots remained. I could move my feet within the bonds, but not enough to pull them apart. The skin around my ankles burned, the only warmth in all that freezing water.
And then I broke the surface, not coughing, and sucked in air. The cold had shocked me awake.
Why was it so quiet? Where was the other boat, where were my rescuers? Where was Darren? I heard no splashing but my own, and the soft susurrus of waves against the side of the boat. I grabbed for it, but my fingers slid off the smooth underside of the hull, and then it slipped away. So cold. So cold.
No! I was turned around, or something. I couldn’t see. I couldn’t see anything, could barely tell where the water met the air. And my arms. My God, my arms. They hurt so much. I couldn’t do it.
“Help!” I screamed, and promptly went under.
Breathe, Amy. When you breathe, you’re lighter than water.
Who had said that? Poe? In his silly little swimming lessons? Dead man’s float. What an awful name. I clawed my way to the surface once more, took another deep breath, and let my face sink into the water. And amazingly, miraculously, it worked. The blood rushed from my ears and I could hear again. The motor was close now, people were shouting. I could see the light playing on the water from behind my eyelids. I lifted my face and breathed again. “Over here!” I shouted, and breathed again, quick. My arms, my arms…
There was a huge splash next to me and then an arm around my waist. Someone shoved something under my armpits, something that lifted me up out of the water.
“Amy, are you all right?” George’s voice. There was a light in my face.
I opened my eyes. “My feet…” I said, “…tied.”
I could see George’s expression flash to horrified. “Oh my God.”
And then I was being dragged against the side of the boat, hands on my wrists, scraping against the skin there, and I remember saying the word “Darren,” and then there was more splashing. I heard them say they’d found him, and then they covered me with blankets and I remember Jenny and Demetria holding me in their laps and crying, and crying, and crying…
“Her face…”
“…hypothermia sets in.”
“Keep her awake, keep her awake…”
George’s voice, in the midst of some unthinkable rage. “Tied her up. Tied her up!”
“Drink this.” I think it was Jenny, holding a mug to my mouth. I batted it away. No more drugs.
“Amy, please, it will warm you up.” I breathed in some sickly sweet smell and it was too much. I rolled onto my side, retching, coughing.
And then, I felt hands on my face, pulling my hair back against my neck, caressing my forehead and my cheeks. Demetria’s voice was very soft, and very firm. “She’s been drugged. Look at her eyes. This is what it looks like. The motherfucker…”
And then there was more screaming that broke through the fog of my brain. I blinked my eyes open. I was lying on the deck of the boat, and two people were holding Demetria back from attacking a bundle on the other side of the deck. Darren. He was wrapped in a blanket as well, holding a dark red towel to his head. No, it wasn’t dark red. It was just turning…
“He’s bleeding,” I said to Jenny, but she didn’t respond.
And now Demetria was screaming at the man driving the boat. “Take us right to the mainland,” she shouted. “Right to the police.”
“Too late,” Salt said, and steered us into the dock of Cavador Key. “We’re going to work this out right here.”
“Over my dead body,” Demetria said. “I bet he already got through to the coastal unit or whatever they’re called.”
“We’ll see, miss.” He turned off the engine.
Ben was crouched by Darren’s head. “The bleeding is worse than the cut,” he said. “Head wounds. But he’ll probably need stitches.”
Darren said nothing. He was looking at the dock in fear.
Every light was on, and a crowd had gathered. I saw the remainder of my club. I saw Malcolm and a host of other patriarchs. I saw the Gehrys standing there, waiting to climb aboard the boat the second Salt threw over a rope.
Or maybe not even that long. Because here was Mr. Gehry, right on deck.
“Darren!” he bellowed. “Son, are you okay?”
“Yeah, Dad,” he said.
“What the hell were you thinking? What were you doing? You could have killed this girl! Have you gone mad?”
Everyone was silent. Darren looked at the assembled crowd, and then at me, and then, at long last, at his father.
And burst into tears.
“Dad…”
“How could you?” Kurt shrieked. “Considering what we’re dealing with?”
“Dad…”
“Knowing everything we’ve been through?”
“Dad…”
“Is this how we raised you?”
“But I don’t know!” Darren snapped. His father stepped back. “You won’t tell me anything. No one will! You leave your job, you send me and Mom and Belle here, and you don’t let us watch TV, and you don’t let us make phone calls, and you don’t let us have our computers…”
“It was for your own good, son. You’re too young to understand…”
“I understand everything!” Darren shouted. “Do you think I’m stupid? I read it all on the Internet before you made us come here. It was D177’s fault. They ruined it all for you. He asked you to resign…he asked you to resign, and it’s all their fault. It’s because they don’t have any respect for you. These stupid college students dismissed you, and you lost your job because of it! How could I let that stand? They need to recognize what we can do! That’s what you always told me. That you need to show them how dangerous you can be.”
Kurt Gehry stood there for several moments, then he dropped to his knees in front of his son and pulled him close. “No. No, Darren.” He sighed. “No. That’s not why I resigned. I’m so sorry if I let you believe that. I’m appalled that I let you listen to those rumors and didn’t tell you the truth. It’s my fault.”
“Then why is Mom like that?” Darren sobbed. “Why is she always—”
“Darren?” Mrs. Gehry’s face appeared over the side of the boat, and she, too, scrambled aboard. “Oh, God, Darren, what did you do? You stole my medicine, you ran away, you’ve been hurting people!”
“Hush, Gail,” Kurt said, leaning back. “He made some pretty serious mistakes, but he thought he was doing it for us.” He looked back at Darren. “Son, we love you. We’d do anything for you, anything to protect you. I don’t know what you were thinking, but I promise, you don’t need to do anything to prove yourself to me. You don’t need to protect me. I can protect myself.”
“Tell me the truth!” Darren cried. “Tell me why we’re really here! Hiding…Why did Isabelle and I have to leave school? Why are we stuck here? Why are you ignoring us?”
“Not here, son. We’ll talk about it, I promise, but not in front of these strangers.”
“Bullshit!” Demetria yelled crossing the deck from my side to the family’s. “We all know anyway. And your stupid secrets almost got Amy murdered tonight. She was certainly assaulted. And certainly kidnapped. Don’t you think you’d better explain it to Darren before he has to face the police?”
“No!” Kurt Gehry said, and rose. “I will not have you using your hatred of me to destroy my son.”
“How about my hatred of your son?” Demetria said. “There is no way I’m letting this get swept under the rug. He did who knows what to Amy, and I think he did it with the help of drugs that you or your wife obtained illegally. I don’t need a doctor to tell me what she was on tonight. We’ve seen your wife on the same shit. Rohypnol, huh, Darren?” she hissed at the boy, and his mother held him closer. “Pretty smart of you, with the blue Gatorade. Quite the date rapist in training. Now you’re in real trouble, and there is no way I’m letting any of you get away with it.”