minutes earlier. It was too dark, and he was too far away to see clearly, but he sounded pissed.
“I leave to make one phone call, and everything goes to hell? Enzo, where’s the kid?”
Enzo’s grip loosened as he turned to answer the man at the top of the stairs—who was no longer at the top of the stairs, actually, but coming closer. Something about him seemed so familiar.
Not just his voice, but his bearing. A thick rope of dread coiled in my gut. I couldn’t explain it, but this guy freaked me out far more than Enzo or Vince, and he hadn’t laid a hand on me.
I struggled to free myself. No plan in mind, just a desperate, animal drive to get away. The deck was so wet and the waves sloshing over the side made it impossible to get purchase anywhere. Icy water splashed into my shoes and socks, chilling me to the bone.
The third man glanced over in Vince’s direction. “And what the hell are you doing out here? Who’s steering if you’re back—”
“Boss, it’s the Coast Guard again. I was coming to find you. If they call the police—”
“It’s fine,” the man snapped. “I told you I’d handle it and I will. I’m not going to let the fucking Coast Guard, of all people, or the local rent-a-cops, stop me from—”
I lost the rest of what he was saying when another wave, larger than the rest, knocked into the side of the boat with force. It soaked me from head to foot and sent me slipping downwards.
My elbow connected with Enzo’s ribs, purely by accident, but it earned me another punch, this one to my shoulder, which exploded in pain when his fist connected. But I only had a second to be aware of the pain before it receded from my mind completely.
The third man, Enzo and Vince’s boss, finally stepped close enough for me to see him.
It was my father.
I had to be dreaming. Maybe Enzo had punched me in the head, and I was hallucinating this. Maybe I’d hallucinated the whole thing, and I was about to wake up back in the hotel in Reykjavik. That would explain why my dad’s voice didn’t sound quite right. Hell, that would explain why he was kidnapping me at all.
Except it wasn’t a dream, because I wasn’t waking up.
I stared at my dad in shock, waiting for something to happen, for him to realize that he’d come close enough for me to recognize him, for someone to acknowledge the complete insanity of what was going on.
I stared and stared, which was why I didn’t notice the giant wave that rose and crashed against the far side of the boat, sending water sluicing across the deck and freeing me from Enzo’s grasp.
I should have run. Should have moved. Should have done something, anyway, instead of just falling to my stomach and staring up in horror as another wave knocked into the boat—and sent me overboard.
My head hit the lower bar of the railing as I slid underneath it, nearly blinding me with pain as I fell into the water. I looked up, the boat receding rapidly as I began to sink beneath the waves, and my last nonsensical, completely unhinged thought was that my own father hadn’t even had the decency to gag me with a sweaty jockstrap, and I was going to die with the taste of spoiled eggs in my mouth instead of man sweat.
Then everything went dark.
2
Holden
Honestly? Fuck Christmas.
I know it’s all reindeer on rooftops and sugar plum fairies for some people, but for the past seven years of my life, Christmas has been nothing but a reminder of the worst thing I ever did.
Well, four days after Christmas, technically. But if I had my way, we’d cancel the entire month of December. Except this is America, where we start celebrating Christmas the minute we come home from trick-or-treating, so we’d actually have to cancel everything from Halloween through New Year’s.
Which, come to think of it—that’s my new proposal. Just one very, very long October that runs straight through till January 1st. Or better yet, how about a second June? Everybody likes June, right?
Thirty days has September, April, and First June, but Second June’s got sixty-one, and November doesn’t exist anymore.
Sorry, Thanksgiving, but you’re historically inaccurate anyway, and turkey just tastes like dusty chicken. We can all start making green bean casserole on Valentine’s Day instead. Nothing says I love you like frizzled onions and cream