true?” Bill was saying.
“Hey . . .”
“Is that true?” he cried.
Alex yanked on the rope and screamed as it bit into his wrists, whipping his body once, twice, and then finally he was head over heels, wrapping his ankles around the rope. He let the rope dig into his ankles, some of the weight coming off his hands. He nearly screamed with relief as blood began to flow through his wrists again.
Elle put her hand on Bill’s face. “Hey, this is all just the beginning.”
“I threw away everything for you,” he cried, pushing her furiously. Elle fell back off the beam and sailed through the air.
Still hanging upside down, Alex heard Elle land in the water as he began to untie the knotted rope around his hands with his teeth. After a moment his hands came free and he grabbed the rope, letting his legs whip down until he hung by his hands, which were aching but getting their feeling back.
Elle climbed onto the dock, pointing at him. “Don’t let him—”
And Steven smashed her in the back of the head with the bowl.
She leapt at Steven as Bill closed in and Alex swung once more. He let go and suddenly there was nothing but air. Alex took a hard gulp.
Then cold. He plunged deep, forcing the air from his lungs and sinking fast.
Alex’s body sang with cold as he swam, finding the piers and sticking to them, not daring to come up until he had gone at least fifty yards.
When he emerged under the dock, he heard screaming, and a vampire battle royale. He climbed up on the dock and ran, not looking back to see who would win.
Chapter 28
The Secheron marina was alive with Friday night activity, partiers and diners out walking up and down the giant pier. Alex followed the bright lights, his tux dripping wet, scanning for his next move. He was running out of time.
On the water, down the rippling black surface of the lake, Alex made out a large craft, a cruise ship that would have been small at sea but was massive for even a long lake like Geneva. He could see the lights up and down its body. That was the cruise ship Allimarc. His friends were there, and Alex was on a dock with nothing but seafood and martinis at hand.
He needed a boat, something with power, but the clanging of the lines against the poles along the marina taunted him with nothing but sailboats. That would be nice any other day, even if he could remember the knots, but it wouldn’t do now. Then he reached a watercraft rental shop, long lines of Jet Skis and Sea-Doos tied up. Closed?
No, maybe not—he heard keys jingling at a side door of a shack between two thin jetties where the craft were unlocked and rented. A man in white pants with a black T-shirt was locking up. Alex could rent one.
Alex started to move toward the man, reaching into his pockets for his wallet. But of course it was gone, because Nothing. Could ever be. Easy.
Beg for a Sea-Doo?
An attractive girl in a yachting cap came around the shack and put her arm on the rental manager, a girlfriend, probably. She was eager to get up the big pier to the restaurant.
“Hey!” Alex shouted, but the guy didn’t hear him over the wind coming off the lake.
Just then another sound came, the chugging of one last craft, a yellow WaveRunner, with a pair of university-age kids on it, drunk and whipping wildly as they brought the craft toward the jetty. They were late, obviously.
The rental manager was talking to his girl and Alex ran up the pier, out to the edge, sliding on his slick shoes to a stop at the end of the thin pier. He waved at the pair.
“Had enough?” Alex shouted in French, smiling like an idiot. Come on. Give your WaveRunner to the nice boy in the tuxedo.
They came to a stop by the pier. “Don’t we have to take it all the way?” the boy answered.
“No, no, it’s okay,” Alex said. He gestured for them to come alongside the ladder that went down from the end of the jetty. He dared to glance back at the manager, who had now stopped making time with the girl and was turning his attention up the jetty.
Alex offered his hand and the guy grabbed it, merrily climbing the ladder. He started shouting about what a great time he’d had, or something,