Page 91 of Betray Me
The orange foam jackets are old but serviceable, with straps that we help each other tighten against the boat’s increasingly violent motion. The simple act of preparing for potential disaster helps center my panic into something more manageable—not calm, exactly, but functional terror instead of paralyzing dread.
Another wave, larger than the first, crashes over us. This time, the water doesn’t drain away as quickly, pooling in the stern where it sloshes back and forth with each roll of the boat.
“We’re taking on water,” Luna observes with the same clinical detachment she once brought to psychological warfare at Shark Bay. “Not just from the waves—the hull integrity might be compromised.”
Erik is already investigating, running his hands along the boat’s interior surfaces. “Here,” he calls, his voice tight. “Small hole, deliberately drilled. There’s a plug that’s been partially loosened.”
Of course there is. Whoever orchestrated this trap didn’t just want us stranded—they wanted us sinking slowly, fighting for our lives as the storm closed in around us. A death that would look like a tragic accident to anyone who eventually found our bodies.
If they found our bodies.
The sky continues darkening, though whether from approaching night or the storm clouds gathering overhead, I can’t tell anymore. Lightning flickers in the distance, followed by thunder that seems to roll across the water like the voice of something ancient and hungry.
“How long do we have?” Max asks Erik, who’s still working on the hole.
“I’ve tightened the plug as much as I can, but it’s not going to hold indefinitely. Maybe a few hours before we start taking on serious water.” Erik’s hands are bleeding from working with the rough wood and metal, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Less if the seas get much rougher.”
As if summoned by his words, another wave crashes over us, this one large enough to send us all scrambling for new handholds. When the water drains away, I notice that more has stayed behind, the growing pool in the stern now reaching my ankles.
We’re going to die out here.
The thought arrives with crystalline clarity, cutting through the chaos of wind and water and desperate planning. We’re twenty miles from shore in a deliberately sabotaged boat, with a storm bearing down on us and no way to call for help. Even if we somehow survive the night, hypothermia will claim us long before rescue arrives.
This is what The Architect wanted all along. Not a ritual sacrifice or elaborate ceremony, but our deaths by apparent accident. The disappearance of the last four witnesses who could expose the full scope of the network’s crimes.
“No,” I say aloud, my voice cutting through the wind with surprising strength. “No, we’re not dying out here.”
Luna looks at me with raised eyebrows. “Belle, I appreciate the optimism, but we’re kind of fucked here.”
“We’re fucked if we give up.” I move toward the boat’s limited supplies, checking what we have that might help us survive. “But we’re not helpless. We’ve made it this far by thinking, by adapting. We can figure this out.”
Another massive wave crashes over us, and the boat shudders ominously. Water pours through gaps in the hull that weren’t there an hour ago, and despite Erik’s efforts with the plug, we’re fighting a losing battle against the sea.
We fall into a desperate rhythm—bailing water with whatever containers we can find, checking the horizon for any sign of rescue, huddling together for warmth as night falls and the temperature drops. The storm hits with full force around midnight, turning our small vessel into a cork bobbing in a washing machine.
Waves crash over us with terrifying regularity now, each one threatening to swamp the boat entirely. We take turns at the makeshift bilge pump Erik rigged, fighting to keep ahead of the water pouring through the loosened plug and over the sides.
“I can’t feel my hands,” Luna says during one of her bailing shifts, her lips blue with cold despite the life jacket and rain gear.
“Keep moving them,” Max instructs, taking the container from her numb fingers. “Circulation is everything right now.”
I find myself pressed against Erik in the limited shelter of the boat’s small cabin, both of us shivering uncontrollably as we share what little body heat we can generate. Outside, lightning splits the sky with increasing frequency, the thunder following so closely that I can feel it in my bones.
“We need to stay awake,” Erik says, his voice barely audible over the storm. “All of us. Hypothermia can make you want to sleep, but that’s how people die.”
“Tell us something,” I say, desperate for distraction from the cold seeping into my bones. “Anything. A memory, a story. Keep us talking.”
“Remember that professor at Shark Bay who always wore those ridiculous bow ties?” Luna offers, her teeth chattering so hard I can barely understand her. “Dr. Liderton. He used to lecture about Renaissance art while looking like he’d stepped out of a Victorian novel.”
“And he had that stupid little dog,” Max adds, wrapping his arms tighter around me. “What was its name?”
“Duchess,” Erik supplies. “She used to sleep through his lectures in that basket by his desk.”
We trade memories of our shared time at the university, clinging to normalcy as the storm rages around us. Stories of professors and classmates, of parties and pranks and moments of genuine happiness that feel like they belong to different people’s lives.
But gradually, our voices grow weaker, our responses slower. The cold is winning despite our efforts to fight it off. I can feel my consciousness starting to drift, my body’s desperate attempt to conserve energy in the face of hypothermia.
That’s when I see the lights.
