Page 111 of Hate Wrecked

RILEY

“Move,”Rowan growls, shoving Butch forward with the barrel of the gun. He stumbles ahead, snarling curses, as Chuck follows. The pit yawns ahead of us, dark and waiting. I can hear him there, yelling, calling for his friends—pleading for help that won’t come.

“In,” Rowan orders.

“You can’t be serious,” Butch spits.

“After what you’ve done out here,” Rowan says, cold even to my own ears. “Consider this mercy.”

Rowan shoves him, and Butch teeters at the edge, then half-falls, half-jumps into the pit, landing with a grunt in the mud and refuse. Chuck follows, grimacing as he drops down after him.

They scramble to their feet, glaring up at us. And for a long beat, the only sound is the faint slap of waves against the rocks, the ragged breath of exhausted men.

Then Rowan crouches by the edge, resting the gun casually across one knee.

“Talk,” he says. “What was your grand fucking plan?”

Butch sneers, blood from a split lip painting his teeth red. “Doesn’t matter now, does it?”

Rowan cocks the pistol. “Try again.”

Butch spits into the dirt. He shifts, uncomfortable, then finally says, “Captain Daniels—he was with us from the start.”

I step closer, my heart hammering against my ribs. I mourned him. I helped bury him. I wondered who might miss him.

“He heard your old captain,” Butch goes on, jerking his chin toward the sea. “Heard him boasting about landing a bodyguard for a rich celebrity. Figured if he took the job instead, he’d be in good with us again, after what happened.”

“How did he fall out with you?” Rowan asks, his voice flat.

Butch grins—a sick, broken thing. “Cathy was fucking around on her husband with him. It caused trouble. It’s why we had to kill the husband and shut her up. If he had kept his dick in his pants, we wouldn’t have been in that damn mess. There’s a time and a place.”

I glance at Rowan. “The picture on his boat. The woman. She’s…she’s who we found.”

“Daniels wanted a reason to come back out here…closure, I guess,” Butch says.

Silence stretches thin and brittle between us. Finally, Rowan speaks. “He sabotaged the original trip. To appease you.”

Butch nods, smirking. “Don’t act like you didn’t come out here for this. Tell me why you fucking came here, Rowan Finn. You heard about the shit in the 70s, right?”

“Yeah. I read a book about it. Figured I could write my own. Reality or fiction, what’s worse?”

“Reality,” I say, looking each man in the eye. Their hatred for me, someone they don’t even know, makes me shiver. Rowan presses a hand to my back, grounding me.

“You’re staying down there,” Rowan says. “Until the Coast Guard gets here. Hope you like each other’s company.”

I walk to the handkerchief on the bush, untying it. I toss it into the pit and look the man with the injured hand in the eye. “You might want to wrap that up.”

He sneers at me, but grabs it from the mud.

“Come on,” Rowan says to me, taking my hand.

We leave them behind, their voices chasing us into the waking sun.

I’M YOURS

RILEY

The sun is rising higher,brushing the treetops in gold as if the whole island is burning from the inside. It’s the kind of light that softens everything—the jagged rocks, the green life, and the reality we have been surviving for months.

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