I go back and get Haley. “I think... I think they’re gone,” I say with uncertainty.
Haley nods. “I think you might be right. Only one way to tell,” she says.
Together, we sneak out onto the beach. Our tender is there under the pile of palm fronds, but the one we saw coming ashore is definitely gone. The pirate ship, however, is still out in the harbor. The sun’s almost set.
“Do you think they have them?” Haley asks.
“I don’t know, but we should go check out where Zane was hiding,” I say.
Haley agrees.
“Whoa,” I say. “Don’t come over here.” I put my hand up. “You don’t need to see this.” Two more dead pirates.
“I think they’re gone, but maybe they’re coming back to get their dead,” she says.
“I don’t think so . . .”
“Well, we can’t let them take the guys.”
“I agree, but we can’t do anything about it right now. When it gets dark, we’ll take the WaveRunner out, climb up one of their own ladders. We run the risk of them hearing us, but...”
Haley’s holding on to me tightly. We’ve got about an hour before the moon rises. I wonder aloud about swimming all the way out, but Haley makes a good point—it would be hard to keep the gun dry.
We use the binoculars, and while they have guards on their ship, they’re not very observant. They’re mostly dangling their feet over the edge of the deck, smoking.
“If we’re lucky—and I sure as hell hope we are—we’ll be able to get close enough that we can grab a rope, turn theWaveRunner off, and hope that we can get back to it before it floats away.”
Either way, we have the gun wrapped in plastic, shoved in a bag. It’s not like we’re going to be able to use it, firing from a WaveRunner anyway. I’m not 007. And three lessons from another Olympian with a gun don’t make you an expert.
Chapter 42
Boarding
Haley
We’re crouched on the edge of the jungle, waiting. From what we’ve seen, they’ve been changing the guard every two hours. There’s only two of them. And one is definitely not getting a Christmas bonus. He’s sitting on the edge of the deck, smoking. The other one has almost been doing his job.
I want to get going. Do this. I’m scared the boat is going to take off. But we’re waiting for the other one to come back on shift.
“We could just swim? Are you worried they’re going to leave?”
“I was. I’m not sure why they haven’t left yet. But I’m not worried anymore.” Easton hands me the binoculars.
We’re nestled behind a clump of short palms and dense scrub away from camp and the treehouse. I’ve got on the darkest clothing available to me: a pair of dark pants, my dark trainers, and another one of Emily’s shirts, this one a dark green, long-sleeve shirt with the name of her high school in yellow on it,so I’m wearing it inside out. The name still shows, but not as prominently. It’s well-worn and loved and I almost didn’t put it on, but Easton handed it to me.
He’s wearing a black crew T-shirt, a dark warmup jacket, and dark swim shorts. They were the most similar outfits we could find to the three dead guys. I’m wearing two sports bras to make me look as much like a man as possible. And I don’t care about what we had to do to my hair. It’s hair; it will grow back.
I adjust the binoculars to see. There’s something going on in the aft. “They’re launching the tender.”
“I think so. We can take off running now or?—”
“I’m done hiding.”
“Same,” Easton growls.
“We take their tender,” I blurt out. “They won’t know it’s us coming in. They’ll be looking for their crew.
“Fuck, Haley. That’s?—”
