Furious by Jeffrey Higgins (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📕

I caught movement out of the corner of my eye, and a bat darted out of the cave right at us. I screamed and ducked. Brad toppled over backwards.

“What the hell was that?” I yelled. “Where did it go?”

“It’s gone.”

“Are you okay?”

“I’m fine,” Brad said, climbing off the ground. He seemed shaken.

“Are you sure?”

“It bounced off my head as it flew by,” he said.

“Did it bite you?”

“No.” He ran his fingers through his hair and inspected them.

“Did it?”

“I said no.”

“Let me check.”

“Damn it, Dagny. I said I’m fine. Stop treating me like a child.”

I glared back. The bat had startled us, but that was no reason for him to berate me. It had unnerved him, so I let it go.

“That scared the hell out of me,” I said. “I thought bats only flew at night.”

“Maybe we scared it.”

“How did we do that? We were the only ones frightened.”

“I don’t know. Maybe it’s sick.”

I peered into the cave, unsettled. “That freaked me out.”

“What’s wrong?” Brad asked.

“I’m not sure. Maybe it’s just my worry about the trip, but that felt like a bad omen.”

Brad frowned and put his hands on his hips. “You’re being silly. Do you want to back out?”

“I didn’t say that.”

Brad scratched his head and ruffled his hair. “Come on, let’s go back. I need to take a long shower.”

“And check the weather again?”

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Brad asked. He stomped away before I could answer.

I turned and gazed at the cave’s throbbing walls. It seemed as if the rock itself was alive, and I was looking at the snake king. I shivered and followed Brad.

CHAPTER EIGHT

I stood in the starboard helm with my fingers wrapped tight around the wheel and watched Brad untie the stern line. The harbor looked as flat as a pond, and for a moment, I felt like a child pretending to be a ship’s captain, but the red life vest, pulled tight around me, did not support my fantasy. I had no idea what I was doing, and I might as well have been holding the wheel of a 747 jumbo jet.

Brad coiled the line and took the helm, and I sat on a bench behind him, relieved to yield my responsibility. He turned the key in the ignition and the diesel engine purred to life, sending vibrations through the soles of my sneakers and into my feet. When the engine warmed, he activated the side thrusters and pushed the yacht away from the dock, then fired the bow thruster and pointed us toward the channel.

Here we go.

My heart threatened to pound out of my chest, and I broke out in a cool sweat, despite the Xanax coursing through my system. I had not known until this moment, until we shoved off, if I had the courage to accept Brad’s challenge. It would have been easy to climb back on the dock, hail a cab to the airport, and fly home. It would be simple to go back to my life, avoid my aquaphobia, ignore our marital problems—refuse to confront Emma’s death. But if I gave up now, I could not see a way forward.

I stood, leaned over the gunwale, and gazed at water separating our boat from the dock—a saltwater moat imprisoning me onboard. A chill ran down my spine and my muscles tightened. We floated ten feet away, and I could almost reach out and touch it, but we were no longer tethered to terra firma.

We were at sea.

Brad saw the apprehension in my face and smiled. It was not a pleasant smile, but a smug and arrogant one, and I wanted to push him overboard.

“I know you’re afraid of the water, but don’t worry,” Brad said.

“I’m not afraid of the water. I’m afraid of drowning.”

“You’re safe. We have the dinghy in the tender garage and an inflatable four-man life raft stored in the port berth. Besides, this boat is all but unsinkable.”

“They said that about the Titanic.”

Brad navigated past yachts bobbing on moorings and steered us into the channel toward open water. We fell in line with other craft departing the harbor, a few hundred yards behind a fifty-foot yacht. The temperature hovered around eighty degrees, and white cumulus clouds billowed overhead—a perfect day—except for my paralyzing fear.

I sat on the bench and held on with both hands, trembling, afraid to venture near the edge. The sea pulsed with meager one-foot swells, but I still felt the motion as the bow rose and dipped. The sensation started in my feet and moved through my body. Up and down. Relentless. I held my stomach and hoped I would not get seasick.

“How bumpy will it be?” I asked.

“Depends on the weather and the direction of the wind and current.”

“Could it get bad?”

“Of course. We’re sailing across the ocean.” He spit the words out, annoyed at having to explain.

“This is hard for me.”

Brad stayed silent for a full minute, before he spoke. “You’re right, I’m being cranky. I’ve had a splitting headache all day. I’ll be more patient.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“This yacht weighs over fifty-three thousand pounds, fully loaded. She won’t get tossed around like smaller craft.”

“I can feel the motion now.”

“You need to get your sea legs. By the time we disembark in the Maldives, solid ground will feel awkward. Don’t worry about it.”

“That’s not how phobias work.”

Brad stiffened.

I shut my eyes and tilted my face to the sun, letting the rays warm me. The air smelled salty and fresh. Water splashed against our hull, the motor rumbled, seagulls cawed. My trembling dissipated.

We motored southeast and Brad followed the buoys into the harbor. We passed between Tanjung Benoa and Seragan Island then cleared the harbor reef. The island grew fuzzy, its detail fading to a brown smudge until only Mount Agung remained visible in the distance. Bali was one of a thousand islands forming the Republic of Indonesia, which cut across the Java Sea like a giant slash and separated Australia from Southeast Asia.

“Now that