Page 72 of These Rough Waters

Rett does as I ask, and I lean back on the cabin. Clean up was a bitch, always has been but I feel too exposed here and the wall I’m currently leaning on I know is Maya’s bedroom. The bodies are out of view of the window and thanks to the darkness she shouldn’t be able to see them, but it made me anxious that she was so close. That they were so close to her.

What if I hadn’t come out when I did? What if they got inside?

Would I have found Maya and Harper dead come morning? Or missing.

This was a small town, literally in the middle of the ocean and these guys had specifically come here for her. How did they find her but more importantly what did they want?

There was no question about it now, I had to get her to talk, to tell me exactly what it was she was running from. I can’t protect her if I don’t have her story.

The truck rolls towards the side of the cabin slowly, Rett keeping the lights off and he pulls up as close as he can get to where I wait, hopping out to open the bed.

I bend and haul the first body over my shoulder, carrying it to the truck before I throw it into the back, probably harder than what was necessary.

“Just like old times, brother,” Rett grunts, throwing the second body next to the one I’d just placed there, “Aren’t you having fun?”

I just shake my head at my brother and his fucked-up attitude, “There’s something wrong with you.” I grunt, grabbing the legs of the last guy while Rett gets the shoulders, and we lift in unison.

“Don’t hate on me because you’ve now realized what you’re missing.”

“You take far too much pleasure in killing, Everett.”

“Do I?” He huffs, “I think I take just the right amount.”

“Get in the damn truck.” I order.

He just laughs and wipes his hands off before he gets inside and I take one last glance back at the cabin, seeing the curtain twitch as if someone was just there.

Where did you come from?I think as I climb into the truck beside Rett and start the engine, pulling away from the cabin.And what exactly did you just lead here to Ravenpeak Bay?

I find the old track that leads up the cliff, the truck ambling unsteadily as it rolls over boulders and steep inclines. This dirt road has never been maintained and it shows, and there was a reason it wasn’t used.

“I swear to fucking God, Torin,” Rett grunts, clinging to the handle above his head as he squeezes his eyes shut, refusing to look at the abyss to his side. We both knew it was a sheer drop and one wrong turn of the tire would have us both tumbling down into it. “Why couldn’t we just dump them out at sea!?”

“A boat would draw too much attention this time of night,” I tell him.

“I don’t give a fuck,” He growls, “As if the blaring white lights climbing through the trees isn’t going to draw attention.”

“Would you prefer I turned them off?” I say, poised to click the lights off.

“No!” He blurts and grits his teeth, “just hurry the fuck up.”

“The notorious Everett Avery, scared of heights,” I rip into him. I’d always known he had a fear of heights, but it still made me laugh since nothing else scares him and his attitude at life would suggest the man was scared of nothing.

“Shut the fuck up.”

I laugh as I take a sharp bend in the track and bring the truck to a stop, keeping the lights on to illuminate the space in front of us. We were deep in the woods that surrounded Ravenpeak now, far away from any civilization that these bodies will never be found, not that anyone would ever come looking for them.

The two of us get to work unloading the dead from the back, dumping them in the wet dirt and ridding them of their phones and any other personal belongings, including ID’s and wallets. I don’t even bother scolding Rett for robbing the three of them of any cash they had.

I’d get rid of the evidence later but for now, the two of us start digging the hole that will become these three’s new home.

By the time we’re done, and the bodies are buried six feet under, the sun has started to crest the horizon. I pull the truck to a stop halfway down the trail and climb out, leaving my brother in the car as I take all the belongings I took from the bodies and walk through the thick trees, the light of morning barely able to filter through the dense pines. The wind slams into me the moment I step out from the safety of the woods and brace myself against the biting cold.

The sea angrily rolls a hundred feet down, crashing against the sharp, craggy rocks of the cliffside, and across from me I can see part of the little town, looking more like a Lego town this far up. The beacon of the lighthouse flashes across the angry sea, cutting through the fog that rolls over the water.

Nothing could ever be simple.

Not my life, not Maya’s or whatever story we were telling ourselves.

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