Page 57 of Nowhere to Hide

Where it had happened.

I knew it in my mind, but the memories of the actual event were more like a twisted dream with large blank patches. The eyes kept changing into Locke’s eyes. His voice in my head.

Then the jarring. “Don’t lay there like a fish” in the weird robotic distortion.

But I heard the anger.

Felt the sick excitement coming off him like cologne.

“Cilla?”

I blinked out of the memories. “Yeah?”

“I have to go check on the engine. Will you be okay for a minute? Or do you want to come up with me?”

I licked my lips, my eyes darting back to the dock, then assessing the way my leg throbbed.

“You can go. Will probably be faster without having to carry me again.”

He nodded then disappeared up another set of steps. The sloshing of water against the boat and the scent of sea threatened to drag me back to that night. What once was one of my favorite sounds, now sat inside me like a bad dream on repeat.

But then the rumble of an engine buzzed through me. I yelped and grabbed onto the railing above me as the boat eased forward. My thigh burned as I tightened up, but then the glide of the massive boat made my whole body shudder.

I was moving away from the dock.

Onto the horizon line.

I turned in my seat and watched the water churn around us as he navigated around the slips and out to the open water.

Boats dotted the horizon, but he moved away from everyone. The engine kicked up with speed.

The warm air lifted my hair and whipped it around my face.

The farther away from the dock, the more my shoulders eased. I leaned forward, eager to get away from the scene where my whole life changed.

My eyes burned with tears that slowly slipped down my cheeks.

I was okay.

No, not quite right. I’dbeokay.

Eventually.

Right now, I held my face up to the wind and closed my eyes. The speed of the boat surprised me. It seemed so big and unwieldy when he’d hopped inside with me.

As if I weighed nothing.

A little shiver shimmied down my back. There was a whole lot of muscle hiding under those baggy clothes. The rangy kindthat came from doing instead of a gym. Suddenly the snap of a sail had me trying to crane my neck. I wanted to see it.

Instead, I rocked back as the speed doubled.

I almost tumbled off the damn couch, and I swore as I jostled my leg.

But then it was just glorious wind and the sun glinting off the water. I rested my cheek against the padding of the deep couch. I must have drifted off because when I woke the sun was about to crest beneath the horizon. The sky was on fire in the best way possible. Deep oranges bled into fiery pinks and red. I watched the sky darken, the ocean swallowing the sun in a spectacular fashion.

I looked up to see Locke standing on the edge of the boat. He was little more than a silhouette with his long hair ruffling on the breeze. His ballcap was gone and he’d swapped out to a pair of shorts with frayed hems at his knees.

I wasn’t sure why I felt safe with him. Sure, he’d saved me, but he was still a stranger. A Good Samaritan didn’t have to remain good, that was for sure.