some secret room of his house on the island, and like the remains of hunting dogs and more people all over the island. It's been closed off ever since, though rumor has it someone bought it recently and is gonna turn it into a private resort or something."
"That sounds like a poor business decision," Whitney said. "I'm pretty sure nobody wants to vacation on the island of a serial killer who hunted people like my dad hunts deer and shit." He lifted his eyes to the sky even as he finished the sentence. "Who am I kidding? People would pay a mint for that. I can see the Hunt or Be Hunted vacation packages now."
Rain grimaced. "People are weird."
Whitney cast him a look, a tiny, private little smile curving his mouth.
Brandon just laughed and clapped them both on the shoulders again. "Anyway, I thought that might give Mr. I'm So Bored here something to occupy himself for ten minutes. Come on, we're gonna do shots." He wandered off, calling out to Tommy and Jefferson, who hailed back with bottles of tequila and rum.
Rain and Whitney shared a look, then Rain went back to staring at the island. "Do you really think someone bought it?"
"People will sell anything for the right amount of money," Whitney said with a shrug. "Come on, where there's alcohol, there's hopefully food."
"Not with our lot," Rain said with a grin and fell into step beside him as they went to join the fray.
Three hours and several shenanigans later, the yacht finally pulled away from the island they'd stopped on to do some swimming and headed home. Rain frowned at the dark clouds coming rapidly toward them. "Pretty sure we're fucked."
"There's no pretty sure with you, bro, not where weather is concerned," Jefferson said. "If you say we're screwed, we're screwed."
"I'd get inside and hope whoever is driving this thing knows what they're doing," Rain replied. "That storm is coming fast and it's going to hit hard."
"Save the booze!" howled Regis and promptly started grabbing up the bottles with the others before leading the troops into the bowels of the boat.
The storm was on them moments later, booming and shaking and beautiful. Rain itched with the need to feel the cold rain on his skin. Abandoning the others, lightly touching Whitney's shoulder to let him know he was going out, he slipped out of the cabin and up the soaked steps, out onto the slick deck.
Water came down in pounding sheets. Rain slipped off his t-shirt and dropped it to the deck, braced his legs, and held his arms out, laughing in delight as the storm pelted him. Thunder vibrated in his chest, and every now and then lighting flashed, driving back the darkness with bursts of near-blinding light.
"Look out!" Someone bellowed, right before the ship slammed hard into something and sent Rain tumbling.
He slammed against the side of the boat, grabbed the edge to haul himself up—only to be jarred by a second hit and sent toppling over the edge into the dark, raging sea.
Cold struck him first, reminding him briefly of home, and that was enough to drive sense and logic back into his head. He looked around, was able to find the surface, and swam quickly for it. But the boat was nowhere to be seen.
Rain almost laughed, but the situation was just a little too irritating to be amusing. He looked around, tried to get his bearings and saw the faintest bit of light far off in the distance, winking in and out like it was periodically blocked by something.
He swam toward it, ignoring when his limbs began to ache with the effort of swimming through churning sea. Oh, if only he could do this the easy way, but easy was also dangerous, and he'd gotten himself in enough trouble, thanks.
Finally he struck sand, and half-waded, half-toppled up to a beach. The last thing he heard was a high-pitched whistling sort of noise, and then his body decided enough was enough and put him out.
He woke up to movement and dragged his eyes open to see that he was being carried by some dude the size of a mountain