Page 13 of Wayward
“We need a plan.” Calvin paces behind me.
“We need to keep quiet.” Sam points above my head. And he’s right. There’s a speck about the same size as the one we found in our cabin, behind me on the wall.
“I’m fucking done with being quiet,” Calvin yells, and the door slams open.
Chapter 6
Code Breaker
Zane
Holloway hands me off to another guard, one I haven’t seen before. There’s a shit ton of them. Holloway, Durant, Collins, Hughes, Harris, and at least five others. Ten or more, total. But with as many deckhands and stews as a ship this size requires, how many more can there be? There has to be a maximum. The Rosewood’s big, but it’s still a bloody boat.
The guard takes me three doors down on the right, not back to our cabin. “Go in. Be fast, and leave the door open.”
“Fine, but I’m warning you: I haven’t had proper food in a long time, and it’s not agreeing with me.” There’s a little pang of disingenuousness, as Dante’s food is more than proper and this is back to normal for me. But I really just want to see if I can find anything out about Haley.
His forehead furrows, but he gets my drift. “Right, then fucking turn on the exhaust too.” He pulls the door shut.
The WC has another exotic, dark veneer on the walls and a mirror that goes from the ceiling to the marble-topped counter.I flick on the vent, turn on the water, and make my way to the small porthole above the window. A quick yank, and the wooden blinds are up. We are underway, but I knew that already. There’s no land to see outside. I drop the blinds and do what I need to, then wash my hands and leave the water running while I flush. I search under the cabinet, but there’s nothing there but a stack of neatly folded towels. And unlike so many other yachts, there are no sanitary products for women. It’s weird. I guess there’s no women on board at all. There aren’t even spots for normal things like cotton buds or cotton balls?standard on all the yachts I’ve worked on. And nothing to use as a weapon.
The guard pounds on the door. “Are you done?”
I turn the water off and open the door. “I’m good, mate.”
“Not your mate,” he growls at me.
“It’s an expression.”
“Yeah, still not your mate or your friend.”
“Yeah, you’re loyal, like Harris.”
The guard scoffs but then schools his expression.
Interesting. “What’s the deal with Harris?”
“Nothing.” He scowls at me.
I shrug and turn my attention forward down the corridor, away from the conference room. The doors are all closed, and no one is walking around. “You must be happy to be heading back.”
He grunts. Like he’s upset with himself for letting something slip. He wasn’t back at camp when Dante confronted Harris about working with him on the Russian boat.
There are footsteps back toward the conference room. Our heads snap that way. Haley’s there, Easton behind her. She’s wearing different clothes than she had on this morning. Easton too. There’s a bandage over the top of his eyebrow.
“You good?” I’m moving toward them before my guard tells me to move. But he doesn’t tell me to stop. And neither does the muscle behind them, another guard I don’t recognize. Thatbrings us to at least eleven. He opens the door to the room and ushers Easton and Haley in. I don’t know which of them I’m asking, Little Bird or Easton with his bandage.
“We’re good,” Easton answers for the both of them. His hair is wet and slicked back.
Haley pauses at the door and takes my hand. She flinches when she sees the room. “This is different, quite the private conference space.” So it’s not the place she had dinner with Z last night. Crazy to think that was only last night.
“It’s private, to a point,” Z says, his voice bouncing into the room. He’s appeared in the doorway like a king scoffing at his subjects, and I want to punch him in the throat. Maybe more of Green and Rockwell has rubbed off on me than I thought. “All right, class, pens down. You can pass your little drawings to the front of the room.” Z glares at Calvin, who’s sitting at the end of the table.
“Assigned seats?” Calvin pushes back and stands. “By all means, it’s all yours.”
Z and Calvin stare at each other eye to eye. Calvin’s got Z by a couple of inches, but their shoulders are the same width. They’ve both got their an asshole glare going on.
Haley clears her throat, and heads turn to her. She sits and pulls the chair next to her out for Calvin. Without taking his eyes off Z, Calvin sits next to her. And I take the other side. I grab her hand under the table. I want to feel relief, but it’s too soon. From what Calvin told us back in the room, Z’s dad wants us dead. So the younger Z is toying with us. Having some sort of sick, twisted fun.
