Until the Day I Die(26)
“All set?” he says.
I nod.
“You feel safe?”
I gaze into his eyes. They are the most beautiful shade of caramel, fringed by lashes the same color as the hairs on his arms. He is cinnamon, caramel, and a dozen other dessert-themed colors that I can’t think of right now because my brain has switched over to some unknown frequency. I am in danger, I think, just not in the way he’s talking about.
“Yes.”
He drives a beat-up orange VW van with the grungiest seats I’ve ever seen. He brushes McDonald’s wrappers, water bottles, and about a pound of crumbs off onto the floorboard, and I climb in, trying not to think about the community of germs my butt is nestling into. He connects his phone to the radio and Run the Jewels plays. Okay, that works. I sit back (gingerly) against the seat and try to relax.
We head out of Auburn—past Toomer’s Corner, and over the train tracks. Eventually all the signs of modern civilization have disappeared, and we’re out in the country. Stands of towering pines then cow fields flank both sides of the blacktop, and now there are so few streetlights I can see actual stars forming a canopy over the rolling hills.
We drive and drive, talking about where we’re from and where we went to high school. I’ve just about made up my mind that if I have to be kidnapped, at least I’m being kidnapped by probably the single best-looking offender in FBI Most Wanted history, when Rhys pulls the wheel and guns it up a gravel drive.
We park in the grass alongside a bunch of other cars, in front of a ramshackle farmhouse on the crest of a hill. The house is lit up with more string lights than any house I’ve ever seen, even at Christmas. There are white ones and multicolored ones, so many, in fact, that I can see the house is painted light blue with white trim. There’s music blaring, too, the Death Grips, and there are people everywhere. And a guy nestled into a hammock on the screened-in front porch.
We climb the rickety steps. Even though five-eighths of the windowpanes on the front of the house are patched with cardboard, I can still see inside. The place is teeming. Rhys yanks the door, which seems to be stuck, and holds it open. I smell beer, weed, and something else. Something electric. The way it used to smell at Jax, back in the beginning.
I turn to him in wonder. “What is this place?”
He sighs, his face grim. “My office.”
17
ERIN
With all the trois this and trois that, I expect to be staying in cottage three. But I’m actually in number twelve. This, it occurs to me, encapsulates the way Hidden Sands makes me feel. Like I’m out of the loop. I guess that shouldn’t come as a big surprise. I’m used to being in charge, and when I’m not, it throws me off-balance.
My cottage is painted in what I’m quickly coming to think of as Hidden Sands White, a shade I’m pretty sure is going to end up giving me a splitting headache in this blinding Caribbean sunshine. The cottage is perched on a high ledge above the crescent beach and overrun, quaintly so, with a lush purple blooming vine. Inside, the small bedroom/sitting room combo smells of lavender-scented cleaner. My duffel and purse sit on a luggage rack, and I do a quick check. Wallet, passport—everything’s there, not that I’m going to need any of it. But it does make me feel better. Like my extra jeans and T-shirt from home would make me feel, if they weren’t banned.
To be fair, the clothes they gave me aren’t bad. Three pair of unbelievably soft, beige drawstring pants made out of some stretchy-silky cotton blend. Three luxe white tank tops with the most spectacular barely there built-in bra. And this drapey, lightweight cardigan that I’m already planning to smuggle home in my tiny duffel.
No shoes. Everyone goes barefoot, because, as Grigore explained, those are the rules. To me, it’s just another psyops-style tactic. Also, I wonder what will happen if there’s some sort of natural disaster—a landslide, earthquake, or jeez, I don’t know, volcano eruption? How will we all escape? Town cars and golf carts, I guess.
I assess the single room: white plaster walls, wood floor, no blinds or curtains on the windows. The only furniture a downy-looking king-size bed, low dresser, and one nightstand with a lamp. Everything is so clean it practically sparkles. There’s a tiny attached bathroom, the entirety of which I can see from where I’m standing. When I venture inside the cramped space, I notice something amiss.
“What happened to the shower curtain?” I ask.
“I’ll have housekeeping take care of that right away,” Grigore says from the room.
Upon closer inspection, I see that there’s also no rod. The shower curtain is the kind that attaches with Velcro to the ceiling. I’ve seen pictures of these before. They’re used in psychiatric and correctional facilities. To prevent ligatures.
I scoot out of the bathroom in time to see Grigore slide open the balcony doors. By now, the humidity has made my hair grow ten times its normal size. I’m starting to feel like I’m Medusa, strands slithering into my eyes and mouth and down my neck. But the breeze feels nice.
I join Grigore at the iron rail. “The balcony’s accessible anytime,” he says, gazing out over the leafy hill that drops gently down to the curved white beach lapped by turquoise water. The sun’s already gone down, but there are still streaks of pink and orange and lavender spilling out over the horizon.
“Should I feel the need to jump,” I say.