“Uh, guys?” Christian calls from the kitchen, his voice shooting up an octave like he’s just discovered a live grenade. “I think we have a problem.”
Lily and I both bolt into the kitchen.
…And findhell.
Dark, sludge-colored water bubbling up from the sink like a cursed potion. It spills over the rim in slow, sludgy waves, pooling across the floor in a foul-smelling tide that makes my nose wrinkle.
“What. Did. You. Do?” I bark, leaping toward the faucet and wrenching it off, though it makes absolutely no difference. The water keeps coming.
“Nothing!” Christian says too quickly, hands up in surrender. Then, with the hesitation of a man reevaluating every life choice:“Well, maybe I poured some oil down there. And possibly… some flour. And… maybe a couple of eggshells.”
“Fuck sakes, Christian!”
Chapter 14
Mia
Cold. That's the first sensation that penetrates my sleep-fogged brain. Cold and...wet?
My eyes fly open and I bolt upright on the couch, my foot instinctively kicking at whatever just soaked through my sock. My foot splashes into what definitely should not be there in the living room—water. Murky, foul-smelling water covering my living room floor.
“What the—?” I mutter, lifting my foot off the floor and back onto the safety of couch where I fell asleep, working last night. My laptop thankfully still beside me on the couch, open but miraculously dry.
It takes my sleep-fogged brain a moment to piece together the horror scene I’ve just woken up to.
It's barely 7 AM according to the wall clock, and I've woken to a nightmare. The delightful and cozy rental cottage—which Brè managed to secure for me in the middle of nowhere, and I'd gratefully moved into yesterday—is flooded.
I rub a hand over my face, trying towillthis into a bad dream. But no. The water squelching between my toes in my sock says otherwise. So does the groan of a pipe in the wall, as if the house itself is apologizing. Or laughing. Probably laughing.
A rancid smell permeates the air, making me gag as I navigate, laptop under my arm, to higher ground, climbing onto a chair to survey the damage. The water is seeping from the bathroom,spreading across the hardwood floors like a slow-motion horror film.
I grab my phone and dial the emergency maintenance number the property manager scribbled on a post-it. Three rings later, a gruff voice answers.
“Portree Plumbing.” A monotone voice answers.
“My cottage is flooding!” I squeak “There's water everywhere, and it smells like” I struggle to find a polite description “—like sewage.”
“Address?” He sounds entirely unimpressed, like flooded homes are just another Tuesday morning routine.
I rattle off the location, perching precariously on my chair island while the water continues its steady rise.
“Be there in twenty,” the man says before hanging up.
Twenty minutes? I look down at the brackish water, now about an inch deep and showing no signs of stopping.
But then it hits me.
My stuff.
Mystuff!
My few possessions—the bag of replacement clothes I'd purchased, my laptop bag, camera and equipment and the notebook containing my article notes, are all at risk sitting pretty on the bedroom floor.
Letting out a deep groan, I mentally apologize to my feet as I dismount Chair Island and tiptoe through the flood to thebedroom, the water splashing up my clothes every time I lift my foot.
The water is cold and slimy, making me winch and retch as far as I go.
Grabbing what I can carry, I start shuffling back through the water and hoisting everything onto the kitchen island, which has become my only refuge in this fetid swamp. I shove my feet into my pink bunny slippers to find too late that they are, in fact, completely soaked through and ruined, wincing at the squelching sound and awful sensation that runs through my body, with every step.
