10. Kira

10KIRA

“What do you mean it’s not there?” McKayleigh demands. “Where is it?”

“I don’t know.” Corinne looks behind the TV, on the floor, and then stares helplessly at the empty outlet. “It’s not there. Neither is the charger.”

Elody laughs. “Oh my god. Love this for us.”

“Sorry, is this funny to you?” McKayleigh snaps. “We’re stuck here with a dead body and no way to get help!”

I count a slow breath, four seconds in through the nose, hold, four seconds out through the mouth. We can’t afford to panic. Right now, we need a solution.

“The watches,” I realize, relief flooding through me as I open my text app and type out an SOS message to our “Sponsor.” I press SEND, but right away, there’s that little exclamation point of doom: message failed to send. I hit RETRY, but it still won’t go through. And then I remember what Corinne said yesterday, how it didn’t work when she tried to message her family.

No, no, no …

“It’s not sending.” I try to contain the panic in my voice. “Can someone else try?”

Corinne taps at her watch, shaking her head. “I’m not getting service. I don’t think we have a call function, either. Just the message app.”

“We’re screwed.” Graham pulls out a vape and takes a long hit. He blows out smoke, coughing. “We’re so screwed.”

I take another slow breath, trying to stave off the fear that’s quickly tightening its grip. “It has to be somewhere. A phone doesn’t just disappear.”

“Unless someone took it.” McKayleigh stares at Logan.

“Seriously?” Logan says. “We’re seriously still doing this?”

“Wait.” I look up at the camera above us, still blinking its little red eye. “They’re still recording. They’ll realize what happened, and they’ll have to come for us.”

Just barely, the knot of tension in my chest starts to unspool. For once, I’m grateful for the cameras tracking our every move.

Max nods, looking as relieved as I am. “They’re probably on the way. Maybe Tilly’s tried to message us, but it didn’t go through.”

“That’s all well and good, Spielberg,” Aaron says, “but it doesn’t change the fact that someone took the phone.”

The knot starts to tighten again. He’s right. But there has to be some explanation, some logic …

“Cole,” I realize. “He could have taken it last night and forgotten to put it back.”

“And was that before or after he went splat off the balcony?” Aaron asks.

I breathe out, trying not to let my frustration show. Is this seriously the time to be a sarcastic jerk?

“Before, obviously,” I tell him. “He was probably just trying to get on YouTube, or something.”

“But what do we do?” Graham asks. “Just sit around and wait for Tilly? When he’s still … lying out there?”

“Maybe we should move him,” Zane says, looking out the window. “It doesn’t feel right just leaving him there.”

Graham sucks on his vape and breathes out again. “Where?”

My mind flashes back to my run from this morning. It was still dark, and the air was warm and heavy, almost electric. I was so close to his body, and I didn’t even know.

“The pool house?” I suggest, remembering its solid shape in the distance as I ran down the beach.

McKayleigh looks terrified. “And have him, like, five feet away from the house?”

“The boathouse, then,” I try. “We could take him there. It’s not too far.”

No one argues.

“We should split up,” Corinne says. “Half of us stay and look for the phone, half of us…” She swallows. “Half of us take him down there.”

Silence stretches out between us as we wait for someone to volunteer.

Zane gives in first. “I can help move him. Graham?”

Graham nods weakly, even though he looks like he might be sick. Max volunteers, too, and Zane looks to Aaron for a fourth person, but I step forward.

“I’ll help.”

I don’t love the idea, but Aaron looks like he might pass out, and anyway, now is not the time for casual misogyny.

“Okay.” Zane nods, letting out a tense breath. “Let’s go.”

The four of us file out to the terrace. Outside, we stand around him in silence, the sun warm on our skin. It briefly occurs to me that I’m wearing new running shoes, sent to me by one of my brand partners, and they’d be mad if I get blood on them before I make my sponsored post. Why is that where my mind goes? I shake off the thought and tighten my ponytail.

It’s a slow process. Heavy. Zane calls out directions, and I try to think of good things, things besides the lifeless leg in my grip. Things I used to think of before competitions to calm down: dancing around the kitchen with my mom, both of us sliding in our socks. Dad guiding my hair into a tight bun, his palm soft on my forehead to protect my eyes before he hair-sprayed it. Me and Alex playing soccer in the backyard, dirt ground into our hands and knees.

I try to stay with those things as we move past the terrace, the beach, and down to the dock, slow and steady so we don’t slip, until finally we walk him through the wide, open entrance and into the shade of the boathouse.

“Over here.” Zane nods at an open stretch of the floor.

We set Cole down carefully, but his head thuds against the wooden planks below our feet. My stomach lurches.

Zane motions to a tarp bunched up against the wall, and Graham helps him lift it, the air puffing it out like a sail, and for an out-of-body second, I think of parachute day in elementary school. As they bring it down over Cole’s body, I turn away and focus on the details of the boathouse. Wooden walls painted white and hung with life vests, rope, and some fishing tools. In the middle, the floor gives way to an open rectangle of water, where a motorboat bobs. It’s small but expensive-looking, with cushioned seating that could probably fit a few people plus a driver.

Max walks over to the boat and looks inside.

“What are you doing?” Graham asks.

“If we can’t get in touch with Tilly soon, we could try to get out to the mainland ourselves.”

“Are you kidding?” Graham frowns. “That’s, like, fifteen miles.”

“I’m just saying, if nothing else works.” Max starts to feel around inside. “There should be a key in … here.”

He holds up a silver key, hanging off a ring. Through the haze of exhaustion and worry, I have a vague thought that Max doesn’t seem like a guy who knows a lot about boats. But then I put two and two together: Jonathan Overby from The Overview. Max’s dad. So his mom must be Eileen Hale, the movie producer. In other words, Max grew up super rich, probably with access to several boats. It makes a little more sense, all of a sudden: Max recording me without permission, feeling entitled to my words. Even though I accepted his apology, it doesn’t change the way he grew up.

I clench my teeth, trying to stay focused on the problem in front of us, and not my increasingly complicated feelings about Max Overby.

“So we just need to…” Max twists the key in the ignition. He twists it again.

I try to count more breaths, but panic distorts my rhythm. The briny smell of the boathouse is too thick, making my head swim.

It’s possible that Cole took the phone. It’s possible that he accidentally fell off the balcony. It’s possible that the producers are just running late, that the spotty watch connection is the result of being in the middle of the sea and not some other malicious force. But each new coincidence feels like one too many.

“Why won’t it start?” Zane asks impatiently.

“Everything seems fine. I don’t…” Max bends down and opens something up near the front of the boat. “Shit.”

“What?” I ask.

His eyes dart back and forth, like he’s willing them to be wrong. “The cables are cut.”