The Devil and the Deep Blue Sea - Amelia Wilde Page 0,1

go in?”

“Don’t question me,” he says on a snarl.

I sit up, concerned. “Robbie. What’s going on?”

He sits down, his eyes pleading. “Look, I don’t want you to get hurt. I don’t want you to even meet these people, but I really needed a fix.”

There’s a knot in my throat. I swallow hard. “I don’t understand.”

“They’re coming.” He glances behind him, and I stand up. Sure enough, there’s another ship in the distance. This one doesn’t look sleek and modern like Robbie’s pocket yacht. It looks like a shipping vessel, industrial and harsh. “Go to the cabin, okay? Just stay there, and don’t make a sound. Whatever happens, don’t let them see you.”

“Who are these people?” The answer to that is a little obvious. Drug dealers. But who deals drugs on the open seas? This isn’t like exchanging money in a back alley.

“Bad people, Ash.” His skin has gone pale. He looks less like a Hollister model now. More like a little boy. “It will be fine. I can handle them. I just don’t want them to look at you like this.”

My Gucci bikini had seemed cute in the store. It was pretty when I put it on earlier this afternoon. Now it feels like a glaring red flag to these nameless scary people coming our way. I grab my beach towel from the chair and wrap it around myself. “This is messed up, Robbie.”

There’s more I want to say to him. You’re in too deep. You’re addicted.

Now isn’t the time, not when he’s starting to sweat. I’ll go to our room, then I’ll figure out how to stage some kind of intervention for him. Our friends will help. We may not be true love, Robbie and I, but I owe him that much at least.

There are windows in the main cabin, and though I’m nervous, I’m far too curious to read a book while this goes down. An ocean drug deal? It feels like a reality show. Maybe a reality show following a coast guard. I trade the bathing suit and towel for a sundress, quick as I can. A window shaped like an oversized porthole looks out over the deck, so that’s where I go.

A man steps over the deck railing as casually as you’d step off the subway.

Another man follows. A third. A fourth.

They’re too rough. Too muscled. One of them has a scar that runs from the top of his head to his cheekbone, visible because of his shaved head.

My breath is a wheeze. Everything in me pulls down, down, down. I want to let my legs go out from under me. To collapse to the ground, where they can’t see me.

The one in front crosses his arms over his chest, and I tear my eyes away from him to look at Robbie.

He stands tall, hands in the pockets of his coral shorts. Easy. Relaxed.

As if he’s one of them, but that’s an act. He may take drugs, but he’s a good person. A kind person. Soft on the inside. His statement shorts make the wrong kind of statement.

The man in charge is saying something, cocking his head to the side. I can only hear the low vibration of their voices, not the words. None of them can be good. We’re alone in the ocean. Us against these people.

Robbie puts his hands up, laughing, the same way he does at frat parties when he’s being offered too much to drink. There’s a line, with people like us. When your parents donated a building to the university, like his did. Or an entire department, like mine did. There’s a line. When access to your trust fund is contingent on good behavior, there’s a line.

I focus all my energy on reading his lips.

No, no. I’ve got it.

Got what? Money? His access to money is a technicality. Even with good behavior, he’s not going to have full control of his trust fund until he’s thirty. He can’t give these men the yacht. We wouldn’t have anywhere to go.

The other man leans in, and this time, I understand what he’s saying.

It’s not enough, pretty boy.

Robbie makes a desperate motion with his arms. Wait, he says without words. I have more.

I’d scream if my breath weren’t choked off. I’d slap him if my fingers weren’t locked around the porthole’s frame. I’m so busy swallowing a howl of betrayal that I don’t see the gun.

The man is a foot or so away from Robbie. His hands are empty, and then one of them