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SIX
Sadie
I jolt awake with an immediate,startled, panic-inducing rush of realization.
I don’t know where I am.
For a few solid seconds, I lie in bed, gasping as I frantically catalog details, head throbbing.
The light in the room isn’t right—darker than my bedroom. And the crack of sunlight is on the wrong side of the room. I don’t hear cars honking or the sound of my upstairs roommate’s bass vibrating through my ceiling the way it does every morning.
The sheets are too soft. The pillow is too firm.
And the underwire of my bra is digging into my ribcage, which tells me I must have collapsed into bed without doing my nightly routine. At theveryleast, if I’m tired, I’ll usually unhook my bra, wiggle it off through my sleeve, then toss it across the room. I’m wearing one of my sleep shirts, though, so I at least got that far. From the taste in my mouth, I did NOT brush my teeth.
I must have been exhausted when I got back. What was I?—
Memories slam into me like too-fast frames of a movie being rewound but in jumbled order.
The party, Lo and Merritt’s speech, German on the phone telling me to leave town, dancing with Benedict King for most of the night—I refuse to let myself slow down to linger on this—and stealing his keys to get to … hisyacht.
I sit up, my eyes adjusting well enough to take in the room, which I remember from his tour yesterday.
Okay. This is okay. I’m on Ben’s yacht in Oakley’s harbor.
I drop my head in my hands and breathe deeply for a few seconds, trying to regulate my system, still high on adrenaline. But as my heart settles down, I notice a few other things. My head is pounding, and my stomach is roiling.
Maybe I drank too much? But I don’t remember that—just one drink with Naomi and then I switched to water. Plus, I drove Ben’s car, which I wouldn’t have done had I been drinking. Ben never would have let me steal his keys.
It’s probably just emotional exhaustion. Finding out scary men might be coming after me will do that to a girl.
I stand up, needing to locate coffee and NOW before this headache graduates into a migraine. They don’t come often, but when they do, they knock me out for a day or two. Which means any old headache has to be treated like a precursor to the headache of doom and treated accordingly.
Caffeine. Water. Medicine, which I hopefully packed in my makeup bag.
Before I can take two steps toward the bathroom, I pitch sideways, landing back on the bed with anoomph. Okay, if I’m this unsteady, maybe I’m already dwelling in migraine land. It’s not unusual for them to impact my vision and my balance.
But then a horn blares, the room shifts, and I realize I didn’t fall over because of my head.
The yacht ismoving.
I make my way to the heavy curtains covering the balcony door and the floor-to-ceiling windows that line my stateroom. Jerking the fabric back, I gasp.
Yesterday, I stood on this balcony and saw the ocean and sky and then, off to the right, the jut of land that holds the black and white lighthouse I used to climb with my sisters every summer.
Now, all I can see is the endless blue of the Atlantic.
“No,” I whisper, then squint against the too-bright sun before I pull the curtains closed again.
I channel my rage as I stomp out of my room and throw open Ben’s door across the hall. Empty. He said he wouldn’t stay here, but I wouldn’t put it past the man to do it anyway. He also said the yacht would stay in the marina, and that clearly didn’t happen.
Even with the advance warning, I’m still unprepared when I step outside, blinking and squinting in the blinding sun. I spin a full three hundred and sixty degrees. Not only can I not see the harbor, I cannot seelandin any direction. We haven’t just left the marina; we’ve gone out to freaking sea.
“Benedict King.” I say his name like a curse. Somehow, it’s more satisfying than anactualcurse.
I grip the railing with one hand and shade my eyes with the other. My head gives a very serious and heavy throb.Right. I still need to procure coffee and take meds. But first I need to find whoever is piloting—captaining? driving?—this yacht and have them turn it right back around.
If only I could remember where things are. It was only yesterday when I toured the boat, but I feel completely turned around.
