The Storm and the Darkness (25 page)

Please be okay, Ana. I know I’m a selfish fuck, but goddamnit I need you. You are the only one who has ever loved me. Protecting and loving you has been the only thing that has given my sorry ass a purpose.

Nicolas forced himself to keep his mind away from thought of what they might find when they reached Summer Island. Since the moment he decided to come, he had only allowed his thoughts of Ana to play on the surface, where it was safer. Whatever they faced, there would be no formal preparation for Nicolas. He would simply face it, with Oz by his side.

We’re coming, Muffins.
 

“Peacock,” They heard a low voice say from behind. Oz sniggered.

“Brown booby,” Nicolas replied with a sigh, and this time Oz outright laughed. “Yes, we’re both twelve, now where do we go?”

The captain led them to a small cabin cruiser at the end of one of the dock arms. The boat was smaller than Nicolas had expected, and his stomach dropped. Based on Oz’s expression, he felt the same. He wondered if this guy really knew what he was doing.
Perhaps there’s a reason he was so willing to accept cash for suicide
.

“He might not be all here,” Oz said quietly, so only the two of them could hear. Nicolas pursed his lips, wanting to disagree but not sure he had grounds to defend his opinion just yet.

The ship’s lights were turned off. The closest lighting was about fifty feet away, and penetrated little more than 20 feet effectively. Between the insufficient lighting, and the increasing snowfall, they could see only a vague outline of their ship.

Oz grabbed onto the rope and pulled himself up first, Nicolas hoisting himself up after. The captain said that they should both go down into the cabin and relax, because the ride would be rough. Nicolas asked how long the crossing would take, but apparently his generous payment didn’t include the answering of questions. There was a low rumble, followed by harsh vibrations that rattled the entire cabin. Then, a sudden jerk, where upon Oz nearly lost his footing, and they were off. Nicolas peered hopefully out the tiny, murky window into the darkness, but was unable to see anything at all.

“Ana once told me it’s about an hour from the island to the mainland, and since this is the
Super Secret Spy Ferry,
I’d guess we can expect it to be a little longer than that,” Nicolas speculated. Oz was gripping the small rusted pole near the bench he was sitting on, with his face touching his knees.
 

“Goody,” Oz grimaced.

Nicolas rolled onto the bench across from Oz. The hard metal was poking his back in cruel synchrony with the strong vibrations of the ship. All internal power was off, so not only were there no lights, but also no heat, and Oz was curled up in a ball, shivering dramatically. Nicolas rolled his eyes with a stifled laugh, then rummaged through a nearby drawer looking for matches, or anything that might give them some light. Finding nothing, he gave up after a few moments. He heard Oz mutter something like:
not so prepared after all.

What they were doing was reckless, but Nicolas wasn’t bothered by it. In the grand scheme of things, paying for a small fishing boat to cross the stormy Casco Bay was pretty low on the scale of scandalous things Nicolas had found himself involved in over the years. Had the reason not been serious, he would have been up on the deck enjoying the thrill of it!

But the reason
was
serious, and as Nicolas was no good at dealing with serious things, he decided to lighten the mood.

“Ozzy?” He asked, as they both lay on the flat, uncomfortable benches.

“Yes?” The annoyance in his friend’s voice was amusing.

“Hypothetically speaking, if Captain Jack up there came down and said to brace ourselves for imminent death, would your first instinct be to have sex with me, just once, before we died? Hypothetically speaking, of course.”

The pillow whistled across the room and smacked him in the face. Nicolas smiled, satisfied. If he was going to die, this was the man he wanted to die beside.

They were officially headed to the St. Andrews house, and Alex still had no plan.

It had been easy enough to decide to pull out the gun. Granted, one he barely knew how to use, but that was beside the point. And it was obvious he needed to go to the house with Finn and get to the bottom of what was going on. But what would he do once he got there?

Are you really going to shoot someone? What if you get there and everything is fine? Or, what if you get there and everything is
not
fine, and you have to take action? Are you going to take them both down? What precisely are you going to do now that you’ve gone rogue? You put these plans in motion, and now there is no going back. As soon as you put the gun to the head of Finn St. Andrews, a man you’ve known twenty-seven years, there was no pretending this didn’t happen. The wheels are moving forward, whether you’re ready or not.

His internal dialogue was obnoxious-–on a positive note, at least it was not in his father’s voice-–and it seemed to continue no matter what he did to stop it. He tried responding to it, ignoring it, thinking about something else. Nothing helped. His mind continued to throw questions at him…challenging him, making him doubt his decision to get involved.
Too late now. Time to man up
. But what did that mean?

Finn wasn’t talking, but he wasn’t trying to run or get in the way either. At first Alex was afraid he might, but when he saw Finn’s face as the young man started to wake up–first the shock, the anger, shock again and finally, worst of all, the betrayal–he knew Finn would not be a danger to him, for now. It would be a different story once they arrived at the St. Andrews house. Given the intensity of the storm outside, Alex wondered if they would even make it.

When they did, they would catch Jon by surprise. Even if Finn managed to signal to him, by the time he did it would be too late. There was no cell service and the land-lines were all down. Alex vaguely recalled Finn mentioning their house radio stopped working last year, and knowing how flaky the boy could be, he doubted if Finn had bothered to get it fixed.
You better hope he hasn’t.

The silence in the cab was almost worse than the debates raging untamed in his head. He had killed any chance of conversation in putting a gun to his neighbor’s head. Oh well, he wasn’t ready to ask Finn questions or start talking about what he thought might be going down back at his house. Even if he came out and asked Finn if they were keeping Ana Deschanel as a sex slave, torturing her and making her bend to their every whim, would he admit it? Alex chuckled at the thought of how that conversation might go.

“Nothing funny about this shit, Alex,” Finn observed beside him.

“Was just thinking about something else,” he said, apologetically. He mentally punched himself.
Don’t be weak Wexie Woo, he’s the psycho here!
His father’s voice was back.

“Well, better start thinking about what you’re gonna do when I get this thing home, because I am not keen on being cornered without an explanation,” Finn said.

“Oh, you’ll get your explanation,” Alex said with a sinister laugh.
Try to sound scarier, and confident
, he told himself. “You and Jon both.”

Finn laughed.
Christ almighty. He can see right through me. I hate him
. “Laugh now, while you can,” Alex threatened.

Finn kept laughing, shaking his head. “I wish you could see yourself, Alex. I really do.”

Alex’s face was scalding. He wanted to hit Finn, but he was afraid he might swerve the vehicle, and any wrong move could be a disaster. “Like I said…” he said, and left the rest to interpretation. He didn’t want Finn to see how angry he was at not being taken seriously.
I have a gun, for the love of god!

Yes, you do have a gun. Once you know Finn isn’t going to kill you both in a freak accident, you can use it to your advantage. And you have the element of surprise. Jon doesn’t know you’re coming, and walking in with a gun to his brother’s head won’t leave him with a lot of options to defend himself. Let Finn laugh now, because the feeling of satisfaction when he sees what a tough guy you are will be that much greater.

“Can this thing go any faster?” Alex asked, making his voice sound tougher than he felt.

“Depends on if you want to get there in one piece or not.” Finn was straining to see. “As it is, we might need to stop somewhere until this storm passes.”

“We’ll stop if I say we stop,” Alex commanded, but internally he conceded that Finn was likely right. They would need to seek refuge soon if they did not want to end up stranded inside the snowcat, freezing to death.

You shouldn’t be in a hurry, anyway. You need a plan. And it better be good, because it isn’t just the girl you should be concerned about. You could be in a serious pickle if this backfires.

Aye
, his father’s voice responded,
you best remember you ain’t cut out for what waits for you in the pokey, though come to think of it, it might make a right man out of ya, fer once...

Alex shivered, shaking off the disdainful voice. Hateful or not, his father was right again.
If I sense things are going south
,
I ain’t going down alone
.

“Do you even know where we are going once we reach the island?”

Nicolas looked up from his cell phone. He had been trying to get a reception, but as Ana’s cell phone hadn’t worked a day since she got to the island, Oz thought it was a futile effort. Nicolas, being stubborn, insisted he just needed to find the “sweet spot.” Even if it worked for a little while, it would be useful.

“I have the address, if that’s what you mean.”

“And how is that going to be helpful, exactly? Do you have a map? GPS? The roads are closed and the island is covered in snow.”

Nicolas was still fiddling with his phone. Waving it around, squinting his eyes, and in general being annoyingly obtuse. “We’ll figure it out, don’t worry!”
 

Oz had always been exasperated by Nicolas’ laissez faire approach to life. We’ll get there when we get there. We don’t need a plan. Oh, let’s see where this road goes.

“Nic,” he said evenly, “please, tell me you have a better plan than that.”

“No, not really Ozzy,” he replied casually, moving around the small cabin with his arm outstretched. “But the island is small, so how hard can it be?”

Oz laughed, followed by a weary sigh. “We’re screwed.”

He was tired and cold, and consumed with worry. On top of that was guilt, and no small measure of fear about what might have befallen Ana. Nicolas was free to label what they were doing an adventure, but by all sane measures, this was very high-risk behavior. Nicolas’ whole life had been one “adventure” after another. Oz had hoped this time he might have a different approach, given what was at stake.

Nicolas gave Oz a peculiar look. “I’ll ask Captain Jack up there. Maybe he can help. I know that she has a dock outside the property, so maybe he can just drop us off.”

Oz laughed again. “Oh right, ferry valet. Make sure you have an appropriate tip ready.”

“Ah, fuck off, we paid him well enough. Why wouldn’t he help?”

“Because he doesn’t have to? Because your cousin’s ‘dock’ is likely only big enough for small, personal use? Because you can’t put a square peg in a round hole? Because this is already dangerous enough without adding more levels of difficulty? Because he’s a jerk? Because the sky is blue? Because-“

“I get it. I get it.” Nicolas put the phone away and Oz felt immediately better. At least he was paying attention and not blowing off what Oz saw as a very critical point in the success, or failure, of their mission.

Hah, mission. Now I sound like Nic.

“What do you suggest then, Ozzy?” He sat on the bunk, leaning forward attentively, with his elbows on his knees.

“Well, I would have come prepared. I would have known what side of the island we were going to dock on, and I would have had a map of the island with Ana’s house on it so we could at least make our way there if we have to walk through a bunch of snow.”

“Thank you, Captain Hindsight. That’s really helpful for the next time we are in this situation. But since I didn’t do any of that, what do you suggest now?”

Oz didn’t have a clue. People always looked to him for ideas, but he hated making decisions. He wanted Nicolas to be better prepared, not to have to figure it out himself. Adrienne always looked at him like he should know the answer, too. “I don’t know,” he admitted. “But I think you better start sweet talking our friend up top.”

Nicolas sighed. “Fine.” He stood up and motioned Oz toward the stairs. “Ladies first.”

The captain was on deck, having a cigarette. Oz got his first good look at “Peacock.” He was in his fifties, rotund, and had terrible, weatherworn skin. His pockmarked face blurred his features, except for a scar that ran from his middle forehead to the tip of his nose. His skin sagged around his mouth in a way that would disguise a smile, had he bothered to try one on.

“Almost there,” he said gruffly, without turning around. He was pretending they had walked away.

“Awesome. So where are we going to be putting down anchor?” Nicolas asked him. He positioned himself in front of Peacock, against the railing, so the man was effectively cornered.

“Where the ferries dock,” he said, still looking out to sea.

“And where would that be?” Nicolas prodded.

“Where they dock,” he repeated in the same even tone.

Oz stepped up, sensing Nicolas’ growing agitation. “Sir. We need to get to the Deschanel property.” No response. “The property that’s normally overseen by Alex Whitman. It’s on the southeastern corner of the island. Can you at least give us some general direction?”

Peacock took a long, deep puff on his smoke, then flicked the butt out to sea. It disappeared quickly into the fog. Oz had no idea which way was north, let alone where the nearest land was.

“I can’t drop you off there, if that’s what you be askin’,” he answered finally. He coughed and spat off the side of the railing