Dark Vengeance by Kristi Belcamino (libby ebook reader .txt) 📗

out there today because of me. My throat grew dry. I’d told her about Matteo, and she was lashing out this way.

We all stood watching her wait for a wave that was rolling in from the horizon. It was the biggest wave I’d ever seen.

 “I just hope she doesn’t get axed,” someone said.

“She’s too close to the rocks,” Arrow said and let out a low whistle. “It reminds me of the day that Bry …”

He trailed off.

I glanced at him and he finished the sentence.

“Died.”

“Out there?” I said, jutting my chin.

He nodded. “He was her man.”

“I’m sorry,” I said.

Oh fuck me. They didn’t know Matteo was dead yet. I was heartbroken for them. And furious. He hadn’t deserved to die. I would make X pay.

A girl nearby cleared her throat. “And my brother,” she said in a soft voice. It was the girl who had made the sign of the cross. She wore a thick hoodie with the hood pulled up. Her huge brown eyes welled with tears, and she turned and walked toward the water. We watched as she sat down on the sand a few yards from the breaking surf and wrapped her arms around her bent legs, resting her chin on her knees.

One of the Australian guys said, “There’s a coral reef out there and for the most part we can avoid it, but when the waves get crazy like this—if you fall, the riptide will pull you out there and batter your body, shred it.

“By the time we got out there to help him, it was too late. Even if he hadn’t drowned, he was so badly beat up by the coral, I don’t think he would’ve made it anyway.”

“That’s awful.”

“We lose about one a year that way.”

“That’s too many,” I said, turning to him. “That’s crazy. Why risk it?”

He smiled and shrugged. “This is what we live for,” he said. “We all have given up what you would call a normal life. We live for the waves.”

“And the danger,” Arrow said.  “We’re all going out today. We’re just waiting for the right moment.”

“How will you know?” I said. We all still had our eyes trained on Makeda.

He shrugged. “I’d go out now, but I’m not as good as Makeda. She’s the best one here. If anybody can ride these waves, it’s her. I live for the danger, but I’m not an idiot. I have to wait for the waves I know I can surf. One day I’ll be able to surf waves like this.”

We sat there for a long time, watching her. Her graceful gliding across the waves was mesmerizing. And the dark roiling storm clouds on the horizon behind her were ominous.

“Did Rose surf?” I said into the silence.

Arrow looked at me and nodded. “She wasn’t half bad. For a newbie.”

“Yeah, she wasn’t a grom.”

I had no idea what that meant, but it sounded like a compliment.

We both turned back to the sea.

The sky was turning black behind Makeda, and yet a few rays of sun were streaming down from a break in the clouds, lighting up the breaking waves.

Pretty soon people from other surf camps down the beach had wandered over to watch Makeda catch massive wave after massive wave until there were a few dozen of us holding our breaths, watching as the waves grew even larger. She somehow managed to catch them and ride them all the way in. She would immediately turn around and head back out to sea, her dark form paddling fiercely, bobbing up and down as the smaller incoming waves tried to stop her.

Then she’d be out again at the breaks, ducking under the smaller waves, waiting for the big seventh wave to come in.

This one she was waiting for looked like the biggest one yet. Someone in the crowd swore loudly.

“I don’t like this,” the guy beside me said. He was one of the blonde Australians. He took out a small dugout pipe and lit it. He inhaled, coughed, and gave a slow smile. I smiled back. He was cute in a Golden Retriever puppy way. We both turned back toward the sea.

Then the wave was on her. It felt like we were all holding our breaths as she managed to catch it and swoop up on it, riding so high it looked like she was three stories up. Any fall from that height could be fatal. And as we watched, the sunlight disappeared, sucked up into the clouds. There was a crackle of lightning and thunder behind her and still we all stood staring.

Her body dipped and spun as one with her surfboard, and then the wave fizzled out, breaking softly on the shore, bringing her in, and everybody burst into cheers.

I was giddy with the excitement of it all. But that feeling immediately faded when I remembered Matteo.

The guy beside me was stoned out of his gourd. He handed me the dugout pipe and a cheap, plastic lighter. “The rest is all yours.”

I gratefully reached for it. I wanted to numb the grief I was feeling. Matteo’s death was not only unfair and horrible, but it brought up feelings I’d been trying to tamp down.

Grief was a familiar shadow that always hovered right in my peripheral vision. It was just that usually I could ignore it, push it back, stamp it down.

Not today.

20

I dipped my head to shield the pipe from the wind as I lit it and inhaled deeply. Holy fuck. What was that? It reminded me of the first time I got stoned in Amsterdam. Everybody at that bar watched me, laughing. I didn’t understand why until the THC hit. I was hallucinating within seconds. I hoped it wasn’t like that this time. But when I lifted my head to watch Makeda again, I just felt a sultry mellowness.

Makeda was at the shore now. I wondered if she’d risk going out again, but she glanced at the lightning lighting up the skies behind her and, with seeming reluctance, plucked her board