Reckless Girls(44)

“I’m just going to talk to him,” Jake says, but his mouth is set in a thin, hard line.

“Jake, for fuck’s sake,” Eliza says, and he looks over at her sharply.

“What? Do you want him snooping around in there, Eliza? Really think about that before you answer.”

“I don’t,” she snaps back, “but I also think this macho shit is unnecessary and frankly a little embarrassing.”

Jake scoffs at that. “Terribly sorry to embarrass you, darling. How will you ever cope?”

“Can you two cut it out?”

That’s Amma now, her hands fisted at her sides, her gaze darting between the shore and the rest of us. “He’s coming.”

Robbie is making his way into the shallows now, water running off his skinny body, his cutoffs dark with it, and Brittany steps closer to me.

“Did he say anything to you?” she asks. “On the boat?”

I don’t know why I don’t tell her—or any of them—all the shit he said. Maybe I don’t want this tense situation to escalate more than it already has. And it’s not like he hurt me or anything. I held my own, and even now, I remember how it had felt, holding that knife on him. Seeing that littlest bit of fear in his eyes.

I don’t want to tell them that part, either.

I shake my head. “Nothing important.”

Robbie is in front of us now, his hands on his hips, that same grin he always wears on his face.

“Y’all having a party without me?” he asks, and Jake steps forward.

“What were you doing on my boat?” he asks, and Robbie’s grin never slips. He just shrugs.

“Checking shit out. I thought this was a whole mi casa es su casa scene, you know?” He gestures at all of us, flinging one hand toward the lean-to.

“Well, it’s not,” Jake says, “and if I see you on my boat again—”

“You’re gonna what? Go all Crocodile Dundee on me?”

He feints a quick series of punches in Jake’s direction, startling all of us. Robbie just laughs, but Nico’s voice is low and menacing as he says, “Come on, man.”

Jake doesn’t flinch. He raises the gun calmly, its barrel just a few inches from Robbie’s forehead.

“Jake!” Eliza barks, and Brittany grabs my arm, pulling both of us even farther away from the scene.

Robbie is still smiling, but his eyes are very hard now. “Easy, man,” he says. “This ain’t Lord of the Flies, and I sure as fuck ain’t Piggy.”

“Think you’ve overstayed your welcome, mate,” Jake says, his tone light, but his arm steady as he holds the gun on Robbie. Was it just a couple of days ago that I was holding that gun? That I was shooting empty wine bottles and laughing?

I don’t feel like laughing now.

Amma is pale, and Nico still has one hand raised, like he plans to leap in and stop this at any moment, but Robbie and Jake stay focused on each other, Robbie’s hands opening and closing at his sides, fingers flexing.

“That so?” he asks, then shakes his head, scrubbing one hand over his shorn hair. “Welp, in that case, guess I’ll move on.”

“Good idea.”

Jake lowers the gun, and I think we all breathe a sigh of relief.

Robbie turns as if to go, and I can already picture him swimming back, pulling his ropy body up the ladder onto his boat and sailing away, leaving us the way we were.

But then he suddenly turns again, so quick he’s moving before we can react, shouldering past Jake, hard enough to send him staggering back a couple of steps, and then Robbie is crashing through the jungle.

There’s a sharp crack, loud enough and close enough that I actually shriek, my hands going up to my ears even as I hear Eliza say, “Jesus fucking Christ!”

Jake shot him, he shot Robbie, he killed him, and we all just stood here and watched it, my brain whimpers on a loop, but there’s no scream and I can still hear Robbie moving through the trees even though the sounds are getting fainter.

And then it’s quiet, leaving all of us staring at the spot where Robbie disappeared, into the jungle that’s swallowed him up.





EIGHTEEN





“Where the fuck is he?”

I whisper the words in the darkness of the cabin, Nico curled up beside me. All afternoon, all evening, the six of us had waited on the beach, assuming Robbie would come back. His boat was still floating there, after all, near ours, and I’ve been lying here awake for hours, listening.

So far, nothing.

Jake is still on the beach, I know. Keeping watch. The thought should be comforting, but it’s not, and even here on the Susannah, I feel jumpy and on edge. I still remember that hard look in Robbie’s eyes, the snap of his teeth as he’d stepped closer to me.

“He could just be hiding out in the jungle, I guess?” I say even though Nico hasn’t replied. “He talked about that, remember? Living here and shit?”

“Then let him, Lux. Who cares?” Nico says the words on a sigh, rolling over onto his back, and I shift so that I can look at him more clearly.

“I care!” I hiss. “He could just pop out of the trees at any time, totally catch us off guard. Who knows what the hell he would do?”

“Look, he’s a fucking weirdo, no argument there,” Nico says. “But he’s harmless, Lux. He ran into the jungle with nothing on him but those ratty fucking shorts. Jake’s the one with a fucking gun. Dude’s probably just waiting for us to clear out so he can go back to his boat without getting shot.”