In the reflection of her windows, I saw Maddox's struggling, soggy mass trying to make its way up to the pilot house.
Taking firm hold of the handles, I spun the wheel for all I was worth – a madwoman at the controls of a boat that was worth more than my parents' first house, their neighbor's house, and a studio apartment Rebecca and I rented together after college. The Insatiable banked severely to port, throwing me up against the console, and almost, almost sent Maddox flying over the side. Not quite, though, which was sorely unfortunate.
More alarms went off, then. More warnings and whistles.
I didn't have to look at flashing icons and dials and levers I didn't understand to know what the Insatiable was telling me. We were going to capsize.
This crate wasn't meant to treat like a hot rod in a parking lot, burning doughnuts, spinning like a ballerina in the big, mean ocean. This thing was designed to carry wealthy passengers across tranquil waters while they sipped martinis and decided between the lobster tails or sirloin steak.
I grappled for the wheel, and pulled myself up. Steady as she goes, I thought, and caught another glimpse of Maddox fighting for some semblance of balance on deck. But not too steady.
I spread my feet wide, giving my already low center of gravity even more of an advantage, and yanked the wheel to starboard.
The sudden pitch threw him off again. He tumbled toward the table and slammed up against it, his hands flailing for something to hold on to.
I turned around, and saw him reach out for the corner leg. He connected. Back to port side we went.
Despite the Insatiable screaming at me to knock it off, I kept going. Swerving one way, then the other, toppling the magnificent Maddox Petersen around like a big, stupid pinball. All of the beep, beep, beeps and whoop whoop whoops blurred together into one continuous sound – like an air raid siren, or a smoke alarm. Or a flat line on a heart monitor when the person it’s attached to stops breathing.
Sometimes that person is small. Sometimes that person is just a baby.
“I'm sorry, Miss Sanchez,” the doctor had said. “There's nothing more we can do.”
That's what they had said when they tried to save my sister, too. Just like they tried to save her daughter – my little niece – but Leslie's death was slow and painful. Rebecca's was quick, overall. Two downward slices to her wrists, and her blood turned the bathwater a thin, ruddy shade. That's how they found her. The paramedics didn't know she'd been dying long before that – ever since the moment Leslie was taken off life support. Dying for months, just like her daughter. Except one was a visible death and the other was silent.
Who knows how long Rebecca would have laid in the tub, in that pinkish blend of bathwater and her own fluids, had her kindly old neighbor not knocked on the door. Missues Vanderklien had brought her a peach cobbler. She was concerned that Rebecca was growing too thin. The more I thought about it, the more I knew I could not let Maddox win. He needed to feel pain. The pain my niece felt. The pain my sister felt. The pain I am still very much feeling.
When the Insatiable pitched back to port, then to starboard, back to port, I was thankful. Thankful that my initial gun idea hadn't worked out. A bullet in his brain would have been too quick, too easy. He was scared, now. Fear widened his eyes like saucers. If I were close enough, I was sure I would be able to hear and see his heart beating out of his chest.
Ahead of us, the sea was still, and pretty - black glass with a streak of moonlight shining across it. It reminded me of a silver river one may read about in a kid's book. And there were so many stars. I don’t think I have ever, in my life, seen so many stars.
My mom used to tell Becca and I that all the stars were angels, and the one you see first – the one that twinkles the most – is your guardian spirit waving at you from heaven.
All of those stars were twinkling now. I had my own celestial cheer squad, apparently. They approved. They liked what I was doing.
So did I.
The same could not be said for Maddox. He was a land lubber. A city mouse. A greedy, evil, white collar suit whose only physical hardship in his wretched life was a botched pedicure.
Now he was fighting for his life, trying to keep hold of a wet, slippery table leg as the crazy naked bitch at the wheel spun his yacht in lethal circles as she tried to dump him in the water. If I had a fucking plank at my disposal, I'd make him walk it right into his death.
That table leg was his pillar, though, and latched onto it like he was, I'd need some different maneuvers to shake his hold.
A brief, lovely fantasy of him spilling over the rail into the cold Atlantic waters crossed my mind. He'd be floating in the black glass, perhaps in the moon's silver river. I'd drift up next to him, just out of his reach, then blow him a kiss as the Insatiable and I sailed off into the sunrise. Leaving him to drown, to die, to be eaten alive.
Fuck, that was awesome. No one deserved such a fate more than Maddox did. He'd be fish shit. And that was an end to justify every means.
I eased off the throttle, and righted the wheel. The star beside Venus - I think it was,
