“Youkilledone of them. And you forced the rest to go along with it.”
Viv growls, frustrated. “It was for their own good. I was saving their lives and jobs. But I made mistakes, I can admit that. You’re one of them. I think you’ll be swept overboard during the storm. No one would question that.”
Her words sink in as the green bar jumps forward, closer to the opposite side of the screen. The video is sending! It’s going through!
But… “Wait, what do you mean?”
Viv crosses her arms. “Oh, Char. You know how this ends. Especially after seeing that video.”
My legs are starting to cramp, but I suddenly can’t move. “You’re gonna kill me, Viv? Like you killed Elena?”
“That wasn’t supposed to happen! It was Piper’s fault!” Viv exhales, as if trying to get herself back under control. When Viv speaks again, she sounds calmer. “That wasn’t supposed to happen, I swear. I was doing her a kindness, at the end. You saw her. She wasn’t going to survive that wound. She was suffering.”
“You’re not a doctor,” I retort. “You don’t know that. You were pissed she was sleeping with your man.”
“No, I was pissed she was leavingme!”
“Have you seen her? Since she died?” The words blurt from my mouth.
Viv pales. “Wh-What?”
“Elena. Have you seen her on the boat since she died?”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” Viv snarls.
She’s thrown, but I don’t think she’s lying. The quick images of Elena I thought I saw before must have truly been in my mind. Or perhaps orchestrated by Piper, somehow, to get me involved.
I glance down. The green bar on the phone disappears. The video sent. Somehow, miraculously, it made it through. I want to pump my fist but clamp down on that impulse. Instead, I delete thewhole text thread from Piper’s phone. Like it never happened. Like I never sent the video at all.
I put the phone back down on the floor, giving Viv my full attention.
“Are you going to kill me?” I ask her again.
She stares at me, puzzling over my words as if she’s trying to translate them into a different language. “You think I’m a psychopath,” she finally states. “No, it’s okay, don’t answer that. I’m not, Char, for what it’s worth.”
“Don’t call me that,” I snap. “My name is Charlie.”
“Charlie,” she taunts, drawing my name out, holding on to the E at the end like she owns it.
I glare at her. “You killed your friend.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Then explain it to me.”
I want Viv to give me the villain monologue I’ve had to read in so many thrillers. If she outlines her whole evil plan, maybe it’ll give me the time I need to figure a way out of this mess alive. Besides, I genuinely want to know how Viv is rationalizing this. She’s somehow convinced herself that she was blameless in Elena’s death.
But Viv isn’t game. “Fuck off, Charlie.”
I press her. “Come on, Viv, you owe me your story. You owe me this, at least, if nothing else.”
“I owe you nothing.”
What’s her weakness? The one thing she’s said over and over again, even when killing a member of her group? I hurriedly ask, “Why are you so obsessed with this group being a family?”
Viv stiffens, letting out a punctured exhale. She licks her lips, glancing down. Finally, she breaks. “All I’ve ever wanted was a real family. Okay? My mother was a teen mom who gave me up for adoption, but I had all these health issues, and I wasn’t adopted until I was three. And then wouldn’t you know it, my adopted parents died in a car crash a year later, and I went to live with my adopted mother’s brother in Rhode Island. And he mostly ignored me until I turned fourteen and got tits and then he started looking at me funny, so I ran away. Did you know that, Charlotte?” My full name spills from her mouth like crushing wet tar. “No, you didn’t, because you never thought about how you’re not the only one with trauma.”
“I—”
