Legacy (Sociopath Series Book 2)(51)

“Please tell me we’re not transferring in one of those things,” Leo says with dread.

“We’re transferring in one of those things.” I give her knee another squeeze. “Tough.”

“And then there’s the speedboat,” Harvey says with a glint in his eye.

Leo shoves her face into my shoulder and groans. It’s so warm out here her breath is cool in comparison as it seeps through my t-shirt.

“Speedboat?” Ash shrieks. “I’ve never been on one of those! How fast will it go? Do we need lifejackets? Will there be one for my size?” Kid’s like a goddamn wind-up toy. If he doesn’t combust with enthusiasm, I need to start pimping him out for cringe-worthy commercials.

Ethan turns his sweaty face to us. “Speedboat? Seriously?”

“Uh-huh,” I reply.

He kicks up misty chunks of water. “Frickin’ A, man. My body is ready!”

The transfer takes another couple hours. We fly over clusters of islands, earthy green lumps bleeding gold sand into electric blue ocean. We sink through clouds to land on a large platform in the middle of the water—literally in the middle of f*cking nowhere, no island in sight—where our guides wait with the boat. Hassan and his son Mo, who apparently live on our destination island, are tanned, friendly and full of heavily-accented jokes; Leo grips my arm the entire way like the shameless cliché she is. And like the vile specimen I am, I laugh at her—not because her fear of flying is sweet or endearing, but because it’s really a fear of falling. Quite a different beast, but a beast anyway. And because I like to make her fall. It’s why I push.

By the time we reach Ravahli Island, we’re all sweating and drenched in the soft salt of sea spray. Even Gwen cracks a smile as garlands of pink blossom are placed around our necks by the hostess. I like the way Leo’s hangs from her breasts, the higher blooms throwing shade over the pale purple veins of her throat.

The hostess, who wears a long sundress in faded geometric print and has flowers tucked into her black hair, gestures toward a long stretch of beach on the left side of the island. “I show you to your rooms, yes? We leave refreshments there.”

Gwen puts a hand on her arm. “Do you have WiFi here?”

The woman frowns. “Mr. Underwood need WiFi?”

“Not now, he doesn’t,” I answer. Like I was going to check in here under my real name.

“It’s for me,” Gwen says.

“Oh no. You connect in office, on computer.”

“Oh. Right.” She sighs. “Can someone take me there then, please?”

She’s afraid to stop working. It’s not an admirable trait. Work addicts get tired, and tired people f*ck up. I need her to be on the ball. Probably shouldn’t have fed her all that vodka on the plane, eh? She seemed to sleep it off, but maybe not. This is why I normally control my impulses. They make me f*ck up.

Imagine a life where you’re only allowed to have fun in tiny, prescribed doses. And you wonder why I’m such a cynical bastard sometimes.

Gwen heads to the office, led by Hassan and Mo, and the rest of us are led down the wooded paths, through thick palms that scratch at our baking skin, to a long deck stretching out into the calmer waters. Straw-roofed cabin complexes on stilts line the walkway, three on each side; strings of fairy lights shiver overhead, awaiting darkness.

“You can swim here,” the hostess tells us as our footsteps rumble down the deck, “but be careful of rays. We got two big ones.”

“The what, now?” Ethan calls, rapidly glancing from one side to the other.

“Rays. Big fish. They very friendly if you have food,” she says brightly.

“Like…killer rays?”

“Come here.” The hostess lingers back and gestures for us to follow her to the edge of the deck. “Lemme see…hey, Bingo! We call him Bingo, like the dog.”

Ash scrunches his brow. “You have dogs in the water?”

“No dogs. B-I-N-G-O. Come here, boy!”

The sea is clear as Evian, and the sand beneath visible amid the neon ripples marbling the surface. Suddenly, a patch of sand shakes, displaces itself…and a flat, white creature rises up, its black eyes trained toward us as it swims along. It’s the size of a dining table. Jesus Christ.

Harvey leans in to me. “That is one motherf*cker of a fish.”

“Awesome!” Ash hoots. “It’s like Squidward, but with no legs!”

“You say you can feed these?” I ask the hostess.

“Oh yeah. When you come eat at restaurant, you see him swim underneath, just waiting for tidbits.”

Ethan can’t tear his eyes away from it. He gulps. Leo steps away from me to clap him on the back, giggling. If he wasn’t already burning like a hipster white boy, he’d be blushing right about now.

“Mr. Underwood? My name’s Amelie. I leave keys in doors of water villas, yes? You all make yourselves comfortable and we serve late lunch at three.”

I shake her gnarled olive hand. “Thank you for the tour.”

“Of course. You need anything, you just come back to reception. We there twenty-four-seven, seven days a week, just two minutes down path. Okay?”

“Duly noted.”

With that, she saunters back down the deck and is swallowed by savage greenery.