Reckless Girls(72)

Jake.

That afternoon, after the beach, after what we’d done, it had been his idea to take that path through the jungle.

He’d led me right to Robbie.

Eliza steps forward. The gun is right in front of my face, as she offers me the handle.

I take it.

The metal is warm from her hand, as heavy as I remember it being. “It’s so simple now,” she says, smiling.

Eliza who, for whatever reason, I still want to please.

That’s her superpower. She presents you with a version of yourself that you could be, if you were just brave enough to try.

“You can shoot me,” she says. “Kill me. Take Jake and sail back for Maui, tell the authorities the whole sordid story. Or…”

She steps back, spreading her hands wide. “You shoot Jake. He’s the only person left, after all. We put all of them on the boat, we sink it. Drugs, too. All of it at the bottom of the fucking sea except for the money and the Susannah. We sail on. No one knows we were here, and if they ever find out, we have an easy enough story to tell.” She widens her eyes, her lower lip trembling. “This guy showed up, and he was really creepy, and we decided to leave. Why, did something happen?”

Her guileless expression fades, replaced with something much more cunning. “What lucky girls we were, getting out before it all went so wrong. Too bad about the others.” She clucks her tongue, shaking her head. “Good thing these two young ladies were so sensible.”

I stand up, and she reaches out, her fingers brushing my hair back from my face. “It was supposed to be the three of us—you, me, and Brittany—but it can be just us, Lux. We can have it all.”

She’s right.

Months from now, we could be so far away, with all that money stashed on the Azure Sky in our pockets, and the Susannah—already mine on paper—underneath our feet.

Taking us anywhere.

Freedom. The one thing I always wanted. The thing Eliza was willing to kill for.

All I had to do was kill, too, and it was mine.

I lift the gun, and her smile is so bright. “There’s a gi—”

She never finishes. I squeeze the trigger and the bullet hits her just under her jaw, her head snapping back as she falls to the sand.

Her heels drum once, twice, body twitching, and then it’s over.

Next to me, Jake lowers his head to the sand, taking deep, shaking breaths. “Fuck,” he breathes. “Fuck. Lux.”

His eyes are as blue as the sky above, even though his skin has gone chalky white. “Thank you,” he says, and gestures at Eliza’s body. “Get her shirt, I need a tourniquet. The wound isn’t bad, but I’ve lost a lot of blood.”

Jake and I can leave together. Ditch the Azure Sky, take only the money, leave the drugs behind, the perfect motive for all this violence.

Jake and I can do that.

Jake, who killed Robbie.

Jake, who looked at Nico, bloody and dead in the jungle, and decided it was better for me to think my boyfriend had just abandoned me than to know the truth.

Jake, who might have been Eliza’s prey, but who was, first and foremost, a predator in his own right.

Or, there’s a third option.

I can take what Eliza created with both hands.

Money, freedom, choices—the entire world, opening up for me.

Jake is staring up at me, and the sun is hot on my face, and my hands are ice-cold, but they’re also steady, steady like Jake taught me, and I see now that Robbie was right about one thing: this island doesn’t twist people up. It just turns them into the purest version of themselves, hones them like a knife’s blade.

I lift the gun even as Jake raises both hands, my name on his lips.

I aim. The trigger digs into my finger.

What am I when you strip everything else away?

I’m a motherfucking survivor.




INTERVIEW WITH JESSICA CARTWRIGHT, PASSENGER ABOARD VESSEL EASY RIDER RE: MEROE ISLAND. CONDUCTED BY DETECTIVE DANIEL KEKOA, MAUI COUNTY POLICE DEPARTMENT.

JESSICA CARTWRIGHT: I mean, I really don’t know what I can tell you that the others haven’t. I wasn’t even the one who found them. That was Tucker. Have you guys talked to Tucker? (ED. NOTE—REFERRING TO TUCKER BRETT, OWNER OF EASY RIDER AT TIME OF INCIDENT.)

DET. D. KEKOA: We have, but we understand you were the first one on the island, so I just want to get a sense from you if you felt like anything was amiss, anything that felt off to you.

JC: I mean, the whole fucking—sorry. The whole freaking place felt off. Like, it was really, really pretty when we were sailing in, but as soon as Tuck dropped the anchor, I wanted to leave.

DK: Can you elaborate on that?

JC: It was just creepy, I guess. It felt haunted. I think part of it was that it was really quiet. There was stuff out on the beach. This tarp had been spread over some tree branches, and there were books, a cooler. It seriously looked like someone had just walked away for a second and would be back. We knew there were six people on the island based on that call, from the Australian guy who needed the radios. And I guess I thought they’d all be out there waiting on us or something? So it was just really weird that there was no one there.

DK: There were four of you on the boat, correct?

JC: Yeah, me, Tucker, and my best friend, Ashley, and Ashley’s boyfriend, Bobby. Ashley’s the one who found … you know. The first one.