Page 17

Regret: feeling of remorse for an action committed.

B ut how do I make it right?

I smiled smugly when the giant ass man went into the bay. My sister shrieked and ran toward the railing, her hair falling over as she leaned forward, searching for him.

Trying to see past the blinding lights on the boat, I finally saw the professor. He was doggy paddling in the deep with his disgusting marijuana floating around him. He was spewing profanities at me.

He didn’t look all that comfortable in the water. He looked more akin to a cat being thrown in a pool. That thought made me smile more.

“Not so high and mighty now, are you?” I hollered down to him.

My sister yanked my arm. “Fallon Jane. What the fuck did you just do?”

I rolled my eyes.

“Sorry to ruin your purchase, Sis.” She looked away, her face completely soured.

“You don’t know what you just did, Fallon,” she said finally, reaching to collect her bag. “There are things that have gone on that no one has told you about, princess. Things people have had to do for you to remain the esteemed little betrothed.”

Okay, I was sincerely confused. What the fuck did she mean?

“Mom and Dad are a fucking joke. You know this. All they do is spend money and use all of us to make it. I needed to get out.”

I still didn’t understand what she was getting at. Why would getting out make her buy weed from a low-life professor? Why would she even want to waste money on pot? I didn’t know she got high. Ever. Even when she was a teenager.

Hell, Noah practically lived on a bag of weed as food, so much so his buddies had tossed some bud in his burial site the day of his memorial service.

My mother would have lost her shit had she actually been there. Of course, she hadn’t bothered to attend Noah’s funeral. It was me and my sister. We were all there ever was, and without Noah, our broken family had become even smaller.

“It was mine,” she said softly, her anger cutting into her proper tone. “That man wasn’t selling me anything. He was buying it from me.”

My mouth fell open. Professor Masters was covering for her? Why?

“Why would you be dealing drugs?”

The thought was obscene. Where she even obtained that nasty crap had to have been in the sewers of the city with the rats that vacated it. I was suddenly concerned for her freaking safety, my anger dissipating.

“We’re not all the princess of the family, Fallon Summers. Some of us have no recourse when the curtain falls, and I, for one, can’t afford to sink with the ship when our parents finally go down.”

I shook my head.

“Francis, you’re no better than dad if you’re resorting to dealing drugs. That’s what got him in so much shit. It’s why he hides away from the millions of enemies he’s made during his stupid career.”

Francis wasn’t speaking to me anymore. Instead, she was staring into the dark night at the too-still waters.

Pharaoh was still cursing at me, and the words were beginning to fade. He was babbling something about the water being fucking cold. Ignoring him, I pushed past my sister and walked back toward the crowd of partygoers.

There was a buffet that zero people had touched. I began stuffing my face with cheese and downing glasses of chartreuse until a big belly blocked my view.

It was Hannah. My heart squeezed at the sight of her beautiful sorrow. She was off to the side, faking smiles to people and scribbling notes in a notepad she balanced on her belly.

Tears sprang to my eyes without permission, and I swiped at them with my gloved hand. She caught sight of me and walked over to my spot by the vacant buffet trays.

“Hey there, Faye,” she said, picking up a single cheese cube on a stick and popping it into her mouth.

“Hannah. My god. Hi. It’s been—”

“Six months. Yeah. I know.” She looked away sadly, speaking toward the distant star-filled sky.

I bit my lip, thinking I was stupid to mention it. Hearing out loud the length of time my brother had been gone was eerie, leaving a sour taste in my mouth despite the delicious food.

I sat down my plate, my appetite evaporating like the fog on the pier.

“Have you…picked out a name for your baby?” I said, trying to lighten the mood.

She rubbed her big belly softly, humming and smiling just the slightest bit.

“Yes,” she said with that smile growing. “Xavier.”

I grinned. That was a beautiful name, and it was fitting for the little one. Noah always loved names that began with ‘X,’ and I did, too. There was something about the uniqueness of using an ‘X.’ It wasn’t common, and uncommon things were celebrated, rare, and treasured.

“Do you think I could see him when he’s born?” I said, hopeful, imagining my brother’s eyes reflecting back at me.

“I’d never keep you away from him, Fallon,” she said, that soft, sad air to her proper voice shifting back into place. “He is just as much your family as my own.”

“I just…” I said, choosing my words carefully. “I don’t want to lose every piece of Noah. I feel like we’ve already lost you a bit, too.”

She looked at me, her eyes welling over with tears, her big pregnant belly squished into my ribs, squeezing me in a reassuring hug.

“Lost but not soon forgotten sister of mine,” she recited, and it was my turn to cry.

Those were the words my brother used to say to me all the time. He’d said them when my dog died from some asshole driving too fast in the streets, or when my friend decided they didn’t like me, or when I was grieving the loss of my freedom, the loss of not being able to marry for love.

He always told me that anything lost would never be truly gone as long as it wasn’t forgotten. People, pets, ideas, and even things lived on in your memories and, therefore, could be retrieved someday.

However, death was a bit different.

There was no finding what was lost there, only visiting the remains of who you loved. It was why I often went to the cemetery and told him about my weeks.

I hadn’t been back since I ran into my professor there.

We didn’t exactly have a great meeting, but now I felt terrible knowing his daughter was buried in the same dirt as Noah.

I promised to message Hannah for a girl’s day out and made my way back over to the railing. I expected to hear more cursing and planned to revel in his angry-cat-grumpiness, but instead, I didn’t hear cursing.

In fact, I didn’t hear…anything.

I peered down into the darkness where Pharaoh had fallen, and I couldn’t see or hear shit.

Fuck.

I leaned forward on the railing, going as far as I could without tripping over the stupid ledge. My heartbeat quickened when a familiar black-haired head was bobbing above the water, but his face was down in the cool bay.

“Damnit!” I pulled from the reserves of my swim classes my mother forced me to go to, said a quick prayer not to die from a shark ripping me apart, and dove into the deep.

I landed with a loud thud, and the impact felt like concrete, smacking me in the face and lungs. Breaking back through the top of the water, I inhaled, trying to catch my breath, the weight of my dress pulling me down like an anchor.

Thrashing around, I panic-searched for that dark head of hair.

After a moment, I smelled the weed in the water, the skunk smell clinging to me already—a combination of wet dog and skunk ass.

I swam over to the largest collection of green buds floating in the water, and sure enough, there was the giant man.

He wasn’t swimming, and his head was bouncing around from the small waves.

“Damnit! Pharaoh, wake up,” I said, pulling myself over to him and lifting his big head out of the bay.

He wasn’t conscious, and the weight of him and my clothes was pulling me under.

I looked like a fishing lure bobbing up and down, trying to get a breath.

I shouted to the yacht, trying to get anyone’s attention, but I wasn’t heard between the lapping of the waves and the chortles of laughter and music.

We were far from the pier, but I could see the rope tied to the yacht.

I struggled to keep the giant man afloat, kicking my feet and swallowing so much water that I felt like I was going to vomit.

I finally managed to grasp the rope floating on the top of the water. Using the last bit of my strength, I pulled my professor onto the tether and flipped him so his head wasn’t dunking in the cold water.

I was shivering. The shock of the temperature mixed with the exhaustion to keep this annoying asshead from drowning was taxing.

I kicked his legs. As tall as he was, you’d think he could reach the bottom of the lake and simply walk us back up to the dock.

He groaned, and I took that as a good sign that he wasn’t fucking dead.

The distance between the ropes at the end of the dock was discouraging, but I grunted and pulled that meat bag, flipping him over the rope like a fish rolling down a hill.

He coughed up water a few times, and his body started to shake. I was happy to see him responding, and I kept the momentum of flipping, pushing, and pulling. Finally, we made our way up to the dock.

“You’re bad at murdering someone,” he said weakly, that cocky smile still on his lips despite his state.

My teeth chattered. I was shaking so badly that the water started to feel hot rather than cold. I knew it was seriously time to get us the fuck out of here.

“I’ll try for murder again later,” I huffed, shoving his body again up the rope and pulling myself closer to safety.

He coughed out a laugh, and his eyes looked glassy in the darkness.

I couldn’t hear many people laughing anymore. The lights on the boat had gone dark, and my voice was too hoarse to scream at the shadows moving away.

I started to realize I had a new problem. Charity may leave the dock, and if he untethered the rope…we’d drown.

That understanding gave me a new surge of adrenaline. It powered through me. I ripped off my beautiful dress, the material floating in the water around me, but I felt instantly lighter. I yanked at the buttons of Pharaoh’s shirt and used my feet to push his pants off.

“And here I thought I was the one who had dark tastes when initiating sex.”

I ignored him, finally pulling off his clothes and watching them float off with mine. I was overly tired, but I was so close now. His body was still heavy, and the rope was rubbing my skin raw now, but without the weight of the clothes, I was finally able to pull us to the end of the rope.

Reaching up, I grabbed for the end of the dock, but my fingers slipped right off. I tried again, but one more time, my grip was useless. The wood was too slippery. Besides, I didn’t have the strength to get up on the dock, even if I could hold onto the wood.

I cursed. The anger at being so damn close yet still not close enough was agonizing.

I stopped trying, knowing that I wouldn’t be able to hold him on the rope with me if I didn’t rest. And this wasn’t a movie where I was selfish and let the man drown because I didn’t make room for him on the lifeboat.

I curled up into his body, wrapping my arms around his inky-colored patterns, trying to keep us alive using our body heat.

Why had I pushed him off the boat? Why had I gotten into a stupid argument that wasn’t my business? Why had I jumped in after a man I didn’t really even like most days?

The questions bounced around my brain as I felt the exhaustion pull at me, and the water began to get warmer, numbing my skin.

Pharaoh was rubbing my arm and leg, his only means of energy used to keep me awake.

From the dock in the rising sun, I could make out our shadows.

A girl and a guy were walking toward us.

Their voices were muffled, their faces a blur.

I couldn’t hear anything but the continuous whoosh of the water I had for hours.

Pharaoh was still barely awake. His hand clenched onto me as the only lifeline we both had.

“Goliath! I see them.” I saw another big man walk out of the shadows. This one was huge, even taller than I think Pharaoh was.

“Oh my god! Roe, you dumbass, you swim worse than a damn cat, yet you’re chasing pussy in water?”

Pharaoh made a weak sound. It was impossible to laugh while holding me as tight as he was. The giant man on the dock began stripping off his shirt. Quickly after that, he jumped into the dark water.

We were still probably about six or seven feet away from the dock. The tide pushed us farther back every hour we were left clinging to the damn rope.

A disturbance in the water jolted my senses.

I felt myself being grabbed by the guy, lifted above the water, and handed to another pair of hands at the docks.

I tried to keep my eyes open to see him grab Pharaoh, but the cold chill in the air made my body even more numb.

How was that possible?

“They have hypothermia, Lith. I need to get them to the fucking hospital. Now.”

The woman making the demands had me in her grip, strong for a woman with multi-colored hair in big, dreaded braids. She had a strong voice, and it was oddly soothing. Her warmth was barely touching mine, but I could feel the hint of it as she held onto me.

I listened as I let my eyes close. The last words I heard besides the giant talking about how cold the water was: “He’s okay.”