With whatever was in his system and that gun in his hand, I needed to tread lightly.
“Joel,” I said softly, and this time I took a tentative step toward him instead of away, hoping it would settle his defenses. “This isn’t you.”
“Oh, this is very much me,” he sneered back, glaring at me with a menacing gaze.
I shook my head, but Joel slammed his hand on the wall before I could argue further.
“You don’t think I have a right to be pissed off?!” he screamed. “I have worked my ass off for years, Aspen. Years! And that prick took away everything.” He narrowed his eyes at me then. “Including you, it seems.”
I didn’t want to argue that it was Joel who had thrown his future away when he committed his grand theft, especially not since he apparently hadn’t learned his lesson. So I just nodded, holding my hands out like he was a wild animal and I was trying to coax him into a cage.
“I understand,” I said.
“No, you don’t. You don’t understand, Aspen. And you know what? I don’t either.”
I frowned.
“I don’t understand why you,” he said, pointing the gun straight at my chest as he took a few more steps toward me. Fear prickled at the back of my neck, but I held my chin high, not backing down. “Are still on this fucking boat.”
The fish started to burn, the smell of charred meat only adding to the nausea rolling through me now. Joel’s gaze shifted to the stove, and then he smirked, shaking his head.
“Are you cooking for him, Aspen?” he asked, tilting his head when he looked at me again. “Did he hire you as a new chef?”
I swallowed as Joel started circling me like a shark, and when he was behind me, I looked around desperately for something to defend myself. The knife I’d been using on the fish was on the far side of the island, but if I moved slowly and kept him talking, I thought maybe I could grab it.
“No,” Joel answered himself, shaking his head with a click of his tongue as he rounded me again. He was tapping his chin with the barrel of the gun like it wasn’t a deadly weapon that could blow his face off with one wrong move. “That wouldn’t make sense. You’ve always been a terrible cook.”
I slowly stepped away from him, backing around the edge of the island.
“You’re not wearing a uniform, so I can assume you’re not a new stewardess, either. So, why else would you be here, in his galley, on his boat, a full month after I, your boyfriend and the whole reason you were here in the first place, was kicked off of it?”
Slow steps. Inches at a time.
“Unless of course…” Joel smiled, shaking his head before he lunged at me so quickly I screamed and slammed into the back galley counter where the sink was, crying out at the flash of pain through my hip. “You’re fucking him.”
“Joel, please,” I said, holding my hands up to ward him off. “You’re scaring me.”
“Am I?” he asked, his eyes manic, the smile that slid over his lips like that of a man on the edge of reality. He let out a long, unhinged laugh, his head tilting back with the gesture. Then, he steadied, his gaze falling back on me. “Oh, baby, I’m sorry. Come here.”
He held open his arms, the gun still wrapped in his right hand, and his eyebrows pinched together as he watched me.
“Come, let me hold you,” he said again, gesturing for me to come to him.
I stood rooted in place, heart thundering in my chest. My eyes flicked to the knife on the island, and that hesitancy made Joel snap.
He growled, his arms swinging wildly until he found grip on the crystal wine glasses I’d picked out for the evening. He smashed one and then the other, little specks of crystal flying all around us before he threw the bottle of wine at the door, too. It splintered into a mess of glass and red liquid as he heaved in a beastly breath, his nose flaring, jaw muscles ticking incessantly.
“I SAID COME HERE!”
I jumped at the command, tears pricking my eyes as I walked toward him, all the while looking at the knife on the counter longingly.
Suddenly, the trout caught fire on the stove, sending up a large flame, and it caught Joel’s attention long enough for me to dive for the knife.
But I didn’t reach it.
I was scrambling for the handle of it over the countertop when Joel cursed, and just as my fingertips touched the wooden grip of the weapon, I was struck in the back of the head.
I didn’t register it at first. It felt like it was happening to someone else, like it was a movie and I was just a member in the audience. I felt the blow hard and quick, heard the clunk of what I assumed was the butt of his gun hitting my skull, but it didn’t hurt. The force of it sent me hurling against the island, though, and I tried to catch my fall, but my head was already swimming.
My arms didn’t lock to catch myself, and so my head flew forward from where the blow struck me from behind, bouncing off a corner of the counter. I felt that sickening crack, and it seemed to signal to my body that it was okay to feel the first one, too.
I tumbled to the ground as my hand stretched out and missed the knife, knocking it to the floor with me, but too far out of reach.
When I landed, it was with a thud that rendered me immobile.
The pain hit me all at once, the throbbing at the back of my head, the sharp, shooting pain from the cut on my crown, and the panic that no matter how I tried, I couldn’t move.
Blood leaked into the corner of my eye, and when I looked up, Joel
