Page 13 of Waters that Drown Us
When she finally gives in and hangs up, Alice walks back around the corner and into the store. The owner was watching me like a fucking hawk when I picked up groceries yesterday after I got off the boat, so I couldn’t place any cameras inside. Which means now I’m antsy.
I shouldn’t be watching Alice’s every move anyway. My cousins are all pitching in with surveillance, reviewing recordings and following up on anything potentially concerning. I should be doing what they can’t—putting myself face to face with Alice.
Instead, I’ll be doing anything but that.
It’s my first non-research day, and I’m itching to be in her presence again. I’ve tried to convince myself the feeling is dueto my creeping deadline, or my wholehearted dedication to The Syndicate's mission.
I suppose I’ll have to create a list of lies I’m telling myself.
There’s no gym in this town, but I need to burn off energy and I’m tired of fucking running. I’ve always preferred lifting, personally believing any cardio you do alone is a waste of time. There’s a defunct playground a few miles inland, and I decide it's worth the risk to see if the rusting monkey bars can hold my weight.
I change into my standard workout gear—spandex shorts, a sports bra, and a MIT sweatshirt—and slip my headphones in. I never play music while I’m exercising, especially not when I’m running, but I like the way the noise cancellation mutes the outside world. I focus on my breathing and heart rate as I jog through the mist, my clothes immediately clinging uncomfortably as the humidity makes my skin slick. I hop the fence surrounding the abandoned RV park and jog to the advertisedcommunity play area.
The swings are broken, and the slide is filled with stagnant, mildewy water, but the monkey bars stand strong. Or so I hope.
The metal bites into my palms as I grasp the bar, shifting my weight and curling my legs up so they don’t touch the ground on every rep. The calluses that my hands have grown accustomed to have softened a little in the last three weeks since I’ve been away from any real gym. But the pain is good. It centers me, focuses me, gives me something to think about other than reluctant smiles and pink-streaked hair.
My muscles stretch and burn as I pull myself up and let myself drop over and over, my body and mind controlled, organized, and obedient. Everything is conquerable. Fear, pain, lust, curiosity. Every emotion is a tool or a test that I will use or overcome. I am a Costa. I am cunning, strong, brilliant, and cutthroat. Iwillconquer this.
Whateverthisis.
I drop to the ground and find a soft patch of dirt and grass. I usually hate getting dirty while working out, but there’s something about holding a plank in the muck and getting pine needles in my hair as I do crunches that feels necessary right now. I need the distraction.
It’s a sick twist of fate that I have actually enjoyed getting to know Alice. It struck me as we were sitting on that boat sharing the oranges I brought as a snack that if circumstances were different, we could have been friends. Maybe more. If Konstantin had been open to a partnership with The Syndicate, if we had become allies, if he had been a different man, perhaps we would have spent more time together. Aunt Lucia, and by extension Clara, maintains relationships with the families and enterprises we work with across the globe. Alice—well,Alisa—could have been one of them.
Instead, I’m learning about her with the sole intention of using her. And even if, by some miracle, I find a reason not to sacrifice her in the name of accessing her father, there’s no way she’ll ever forgive me when she finds out who I am.
All of these feelings—the guilt, the anticipation, the twisted sense of duty—would be tolerable, if it wasn’t for the attraction.
It might be the only thing I got right in the fantasy I created about Alisa. Es una hermosura. Delicate and shimmering in the sunlight, her allure is only magnified by the little truths about herself that she lets slip every now and again. Not facts that I can write down in coded language in my research notebook. But inherent truths that we can’t hide when we feel comfortable, and that we naturally conceal when we feel endangered.
Her humor, her bite, her inquisitiveness, her bravery. All of it makes the blue of her eyes brighter, the soft curve of her popped hip more enticing. The person I’m getting to know is so much better than the fantasy I created.
And I hate her for it.
It would have been so much easier to do what must be done if she wasn’t…Alice. But she is, and the relief I had only a few days ago at being able to use her without guilt has been extinguished. Now I have to wonder if this brave and beautiful woman has built herself up from the crushing grip of her father’s control, only for me to destroy her again.
Chapter 7
Alice
“Thanks Luanne,” I say as the store owner shoves my meager haul into a thin plastic bag.
“No problem, sweetheart,” she replies in her raspy smoker's voice. I’ve told her a thousand times I can bag my own groceries, but she refuses to let me.
“Where’s Parker?” I ask as I pull slightly damp bills out of my pocket. The extra money from Emily’s charter has been really helpful, even if I know Jimmy isn’t cutting me anywhere near what is fair. I saw the dollar amount her program agreed to pay. Still, usually I’m doing math in my head in the aisles to make sure I don’t go over budget, and it was nice not to have to today.
“Back with his dad for the school year,” she says, melancholy seeping into her voice. I met Parker, Luanne’s now-twelve year old son, last summer when I first got to Nesika Beach. He was surly and aloof, as most pre-teen boys are, but it was painful to see how much his mother wanted to spend time with him.
“July is a little early for back to school, isn’t it?” She tries to smile as she takes my money, but it comes off as more of a grimace.
“He asked to go home early. Soccer camp.”
I wish I could shake Parker. Tell him all the things I would give to have one last conversation with my mother. It’s not fair to feel like that—I don’t know Luanne’s situation, there might be a good reason Parker doesn’t want to spend time with her—but I can’t help it. My grief over losing my mother has never faded. It’s been almost two decades since I lost her, and time has not even begun to heal this wound. It’s a gaping hole in my chest, raw and ragged and unendingly, excruciatingly painful.
I can still hear my mother’s voice, like she’s standing right next to me, every time I’m afraid. So when I see Luanne in pain over her distant son, I can’t be objective.
The feeling only grows as I leave the store, hanging my bag on the handlebar of my bike and pushing off toward my apartment. This summer could have been the last time Luanne will ever see her son, and that is inarguably my fault.