4.5 stars – 46 reviews!
“…a terrific escape from the outside world. Fabulous characters with a fun storyline…”
Overnight, everyone onboard a huge cruise ship vanishes into thin air. Everyone, that is, except five teenagers…
in this fascinating sci-fi page-turner by the always surprising Dan Rix.
Find out what happens while TRITON is 67% off the regular price!
Triton
by Dan Rix
4.5 stars – 46 Reviews
Kindle Price: 99 cents
Text-to-Speech and Lending: Enabled
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Here’s the set-up:
In the middle of the Atlantic, four hundred miles west of Bermuda, the eight thousand passengers and crew aboard the cruise ship MS Cypress vanish into thin air. Everyone—men, women, and children—all gone. Taken.
Everyone except five teenagers.
In an instant, their seven day cruise becomes a nightmare: eighteen decks of haunted hallways, pools and bars completely empty, desserts still half-eaten in the abandoned Royal Promenade. A ghost ship the size of a city, sailing blind. At least their annoying parents are gone.
But now strange things are happening. Satellites are dropping out of orbit, falling from the sky. Satellites…and bigger things. They’re not as alone as they think. A message appears in an ancient language, burned into the carpet in the deck ten elevator lobby. It’s a warning. A monster lurks onboard, hunting them. What they’ve long suspected appears certain: the vanishing…it was an attack.
Now the most unlikely of friends must confront the shadowy pasts that link them and regain control of a runaway cruise ship, crack a four-thousand-year-old mystery, and wage war on a formless evil…before they too vanish into oblivion.
5-star praise for Triton:
Well-written teen-survival supernatural thriller
“…a page turner…I promise you won’t get bored…Great read for YA and Adults…”
Kept me guessing!
“Humor, action, impending apocalypse, and mystery, all rolled into one!…”
an excerpt from
Triton
by Dan Rix
Copyright © 2014 by Dan Rix and published here with his permission
So the Lord said, “I will wipe mankind, whom I have created, from the face of the earth—men and animals, and creatures that move along the ground, and birds of the air—for I am grieved that I have made them.” (Genesis 6:7, NIV)
The Interference Zone
Mauna Loa Observatory, site of cosmic microwave background observatory AMiBA.
Mauna Loa, Hawaii
Cosmology postdoc Joan Martinez pushed her glasses up the bridge of her nose, tapped a few keys to amplify the signal, and watched the triangular blob progress across her LCD monitor again.
“Do you see it?” she said.
“I see it,” said Dr. Peter Granger, her postdoctoral advisor. He sighed and dragged his hand down his face, mirroring her own sleep-deprived bewilderment.
It was definitely moving.
She paused the playback and the shape vanished, camouflaged perfectly against the blue and teal thermal readout of the cosmic background radiation.
They had spent the last three months preparing this data for their joint presentation at the USP Cosmology Conference in São Paulo, which started Monday.
It was Saturday afternoon. Outside the windows of their portable, the shadows were already lengthening across the barren landscape of volcanic rock. They had twenty-four hours before their plane flight to determine how—if at all—this artifact would affect their results.
Joan buried her face in her hand and exhaled slowly through her fingers, dreading yet another all-nighter.
The cause of the artifact was obvious. Something way out in space had passed in front of their radio telescope at exactly the wrong time. Now it could render their entire data set useless.
As it was, the hot topic at the conference would be the recent spike in high-energy neutrino emissions from the galaxy’s core, not cosmic background radiation; their project was in serious danger of going unnoticed.
“How did we miss this?” said Dr. Granger.
“It only showed up after image processing,” she said. “Otherwise it’s invisible.”
“It’s alright, Joan. We can leave this set out if need be.”
“It’s our best set, Doctor Granger.”
“I know.” He peered intently at the screen. “What’s in the sky up there?”
She consulted the list they had printed out from the UCS Satellite Database. “Just EchoStar-9 and Galaxy-23, direct broadcasting satellites. They should have been downrange, though. Could it have been military? A spy satellite?”
“No, that area of disturbance is too big.” He leaned over her and tapped the screen. “At least five miles across. Plus the optical telescopes didn’t pick up anything. Whatever’s up there, it’s just interfering with the CMB. I’m guessing it’s just a cloud of dust, maybe debris from something older.”
“I can’t believe we had three months with this data and we never caught it,” she said.
“Like you said, it’s invisible.” He checked his watch. “It’s going to come around again in a few hours. Let’s aim every telescope we got at it. I’ll call around . . . see if I can get some more powerful eyes.” He patted her shoulder. “Don’t worry. We’ll figure out what the hell that thing is.”
Two years later
The Largest Cruise Ship in the World
Seventeen-year-old Cedar Edgerly followed his dad and younger sister out of the cruise terminal and up the gangway, now absent of their luggage, which the porters would bring to their stateroom separately. After hauling his bags into and out of taxis, security gates, and airports for the entire morning, his hands could find nothing to do, and he jammed them into his pockets.
Through the glass and metal struts encircling the gangway, he glimpsed a dozen thousand-foot cruise ships presiding over the piers of Port Canaveral like giant condominiums. Ahead of them, the gangway plunged straight into the white hulk of their own ship, the MS Cypress.
He craned his neck and counted ten levels of gleaming white balconies before his view cut off. He couldn’t even see the top.
At 1,187 feet, the Cypress was the largest cruise ship in the world. She carried over 5,000 passengers and weighed in at 110,000 tons, just shy of the gross tonnage of a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.
The eighteen decks packed twenty-four different restaurants, a zip-line, a rock climbing course, twenty-one swimming pools, a basketball court, two theaters, a miniature golf course, and even a carousel. He wondered why they were even bothering to sail—they’d have just as much fun if they never left harbor.
The Cypress wasn’t a ship, it was a floating city . . . a dangerous floating city. Cedar’s gaze fell to his sister’s blonde head, bobbing in front of him on the gangway. He would need to keep an especially close eye on her.
They reached the end of the gangway and stepped onboard the cruise ship into a marble-floored atrium alive with excited chatter. The fragrance of roses and expensive leather hit him hard, like the perfume department at a mall. Cedar wrinkled his nose and jogged to catch up with his dad and sister at an elevator.
Before he could join them, though, he spotted a group of teenage guys playing Hacky Sack by a bar. One of them, an asshole in a tank top and aviator sunglasses, was ignoring the game and staring in their direction.
Cedar didn’t have to follow his gaze to know why—the kid was ogling Brynn, his fifteen-year-old kid sister. Blonde, blue-eyed, and an insufferable flirt, she drew way too much attention from guys for Cedar to ever relax when she was in public.
He veered to the other side of her, blocking the douchebag’s view and replacing it with his own ice-cold stare. After a second, the guy glanced away, and Cedar finally unclenched his fists.
He didn’t know whether he was more pissed at Brynn for wearing those stupid cutoff shorts or at their dad for letting her. But one thing he did know—he needed to warn her about guys on cruises. Before it was too late.
Once they got to their stateroom, he’d remind her that for the next seven days she was not to stray from his sight. Ever.
“Bro, come on!”
Eighteen-year-old Jake Carmelo looked down to see that the Hacky Sack had landed on the marble floor at his feet. He had been distracted.
He rolled the sack onto his toes, kicked it into the air, and whacked it back into the circle. Another guy caught the sack on his heel and dished out some wicked freestyle. As the footbag moved faster and faster between his feet, the other guys cheered him on.
Jake wasn’t interested. His eyes wandered back to the source of his distraction—the girl who’d just walked aboard with her family. Chin held high, confident. Just his type.
Before she boarded the elevator, he caught another flash of her long, flowing blonde hair, cute lips sparkling with lip gloss . . . flawlessly tanned legs. She looked awesome in those cutoffs.
Still, on a cruise ship that held over 5,000 people, he doubted he’d ever see her again. They might as well be in different cities.
“Bro, seriously . . . are you in or out?”
Jake glanced down and saw that once again the Hacky Sack had landed at his feet. He kicked it back into the group. “I’m out.”
He left the group and wandered back toward the guest services desk, where his parents were still trying to finagle their way into an ocean view stateroom.
He checked his cell phone.
In a half hour, the cruise ship would depart Port Canaveral. Their first stop—before the islands of Bermuda—would be just ten miles up the coast.
Tonight, the passengers onboard the Cypress would have front row seats to the midnight launch at Kennedy Space Center.
Brynn Edgerly led the way down the long, crowded hallway to their stateroom on deck fourteen, her dad and older brother in tow. The thick, royal blue carpet sank under her sandals, and every few steps she passed through the cold draft of a ceiling vent. They had cranked the air-conditioning up to the max to battle Florida’s August heat. Except for the fact that the end of the hallway was a long, long way off, they could have been in a luxury hotel.
“Deck fourteen. Room six-sixty,” she said, stopping at their room. She slid her key into the door, and the latch opened with a green flash and a click.
The room was spacious—a grand suite, after all—complete with a balcony, two twin beds, and a kitchenette. Their luggage had already been brought up.
She bounded into the room. “Dad, which bed do you want?”
He had already made a beeline for the bar to fix himself a scotch. “You take the one by the window.”
Which left the foldout couch for her older brother, Cedar. Served him right.
Brynn tugged open the sliding glass doors and burst out onto the balcony, and a warm breeze whipped through her hair. She ran to the glass railing and leaned out into the sun. A bird’s eye view of Port Canaveral stretched to infinity.
Below her, the dock bustled with activity. Forklifts carried food pallets into a loading dock inside ship. Crew the size of ants barked orders, gesturing wildly. Off to the side and clad in blindingly white, creased uniforms, a group of officers stood chatting, coffees in hand, proudly admiring their ship.
The cruise was starting off well. She had even seen a cute guy playing Hacky Sack—in fact, maybe her boyfriend Simon had even tried to reach her while they were boarding. Feeling giddy at the thought, she pulled out her cell phone.
Zero missed calls.
A pang of sadness jolted her heart. Stop checking, Brynn.
Behind her, the sliding doors slammed shut, startling her. She spun to see Cedar step onto the balcony, wearing a tight frown.
“What do you want?” she said, curling her lip. Another lecture was the last thing she needed right now.
“We need to talk,” he said. “About ground rules. Now.”
Seeing the mutinous look in his sister’s eyes, Cedar cut right to it. “If I so much as find you in the same room as someone’s dick, it’s getting cut off and you’re getting handcuffed to your bed for the rest of the cruise.”
“Jesus Christ, Cedar. I’m fifteen.”
Freaking fifteen. She had that number stuck in her head like it was some kind of badge of freedom. “Did you hear I just said?”
“You want to cut someone’s dick off, go ahead,” she said. “They have cops on ship’s too, you know.”
“You didn’t hear what I said.”
“No guys. I get it.”
She didn’t get it. She wasn’t listening. She never listened. Every single conversation with her was harder than the last.
But he had heard of rapes and murders aboard cruise ships. Somehow, he had to impress this into her thick skull and into that tiny brain of hers. “These are the rules: on this ship, you don’t go anywhere, you don’t do anything, you don’t talk to anyone . . . you don’t take a piss without my permission. Got it?”
She flipped him off and yanked open the door.
“Brynn, where do you think you’re going?” He chased her into the room.
“What do you think, asshole? I’m going to go find a dirty creep to have sex with.”
“Great, we’ll go together.” He threw his clothes back in his suitcase and laced up his shoes. “We’ll tour the ship.”
“I didn’t say you were invited.”
“I’m inviting myself. As your older brother and the only responsible one here,” he nodded to their dad, already comatose on the bed with a half-empty bottle of scotch at his side, “I am the law.”
“Cedar,” she whined, stamping her foot, “you always do this!”
“Because I love you and sometimes your decisions scare me to death.”
“Well, I hate you,” she said, and before he could react, she sprinted for the door, yanked it open, and was gone.
“Brynn, wait!” Cedar cursed and ran after her, but by the time he made it out the door, she was already a hundred feet up the hallway, running as fast as she could.
He sprinted after her, but just then an elevator opened between them and a surge of people blocked his way. By the time he had shoved through them, she was gone.
At the Sand Bar on deck fifteen of the Cypress, seventeen-year-old Naomi Delacruz slumped at a barstool, already bored out of her mind.
“Could I get another one?” she asked, sucking away the last of her virgin piña colada with a bubbly slurp.
Manny, the bartender, swung around, still polishing a glass, his barrel chest bulging under a Hawaiian shirt. “Just know I’m not carrying your drunk butt home when you pass out.”
She smiled, though it felt insincere. “Oh, so there is alcohol in these. In that case, give me two.”
With a chuckle, Manny prepared the drink and slid it up the bar toward her. She took a sip, and the burst of surgery sweetness in her mouth gave her a lightheaded rush.
Just then a guy about her age came up to the bar breathing hard and looking flustered. She glanced over—and did a double take.
He was cute.
Wavy, light brown hair hung down over his forehead, which he swept aside impatiently, and an adorable flush reddened the skin under his high cheek bones.
Inside, she cheered. The first cute guy she’d seen.
“Hey,” he said to the bartender, tapping the bar.
Manny, who was fixing a drink, didn’t hear him.
“Hey bartender,” the guy said louder. “I’m talking to you.”
And anger management issues. Lovely.
Manny swung around. “What can I do for you?”
“I’m looking for my little sister. She’s lost, I’m wondering if you’ve seen her. Blonde, real cutie, you’d know if you saw her.”
“Haven’t. Sorry.”
Alarmed, Naomi butted in. “Your sister wandered off?” On a cruise ship the size of Cypress, losing a little girl was not good news. There were a million places she could end up, and it could be hours…days until someone finally found her. “How old is she?”
“Fifteen,” he said.
Her prior alarm evaporating in an instant. “Oh, come on,” she sneered. “Fifteen? She’ll be fine.”
He narrowed his eyes at her. “She’s not supposed to wander off on her own,” he said, and then he was gone.
Naomi and Manny exchanged an eye roll, and she went back to her piña colada, disappointed. The tally of cute guys who weren’t jerks was still at zero.
Halfway through the shop-lined Royal Promenade on deck five, Brynn felt it.
The floor shifted underneath her. She glanced around at the other guests scattered around the promenade, doubtful anyone else had noticed. The diners at Sorrento’s Pizza feasted on, oblivious.
Then the boat swayed. Though subtle, she sensed the movement in her inner ear. The Cypress was casting off.
She ran outside and flung herself against the railing. The ocean breeze caught her long hair and whipped it across her face, but the lifeboats blocked her view.
She darted back to the elevators and took the first one that opened as high as it would go.
Deck seventeen.
She emerged outside the Viking Crown Lounge, out of which leaked a nauseating piano waltz. Ew . . . not here.
She fled down the stairs and burst onto deck sixteen, into full sun. The Florida heat hit her like a blast furnace, and she sprinted to the railing, suddenly giddy.
Brynn shoved past the other passengers and leaned out over the railing, drinking in the sight of the ocean and Port Canaveral. Hulks of cruise ships and tankers floated past, an unreal display of floating cities, each one baking in the heat. The sun kissed her hair, the golden strands glowing as they lifted in the wind.
Then the ship’s horn roared. The sound jolted her out of her euphoria. She clamped her ears, but the thunder filled her mind like a fog, obliterating any chance of thinking. Just as abruptly, the horn cut off, leaving the deck in dumbfounded silence. Timidly, she lowered her hands. Around her, the stunned passengers clapped and cheered, clearly just as shaken . . . and she found herself joining in.
The MS Cypress had officially begun its seven day cruise into the Bermuda Triangle.
Kennedy Space Center
In the Royal Promenade on deck five, Jake’s eyes wandered wistfully from their “outdoor” table at Sorrento’s Pizza to the sliver of ocean visible past the Prince & Green botique clothing store.
He had just seen her.
That blonde girl. She had run right past their table; her silhouette still lingered in his vision. Up close, that face . . . so freaking annoyingly adorable.
Jake turned back to his parents, seated across from him, wishing he were anywhere but here. Maybe after lunch he’d head down to the cruise ship’s fitness center and lift a bit.
“So . . .” Jake began, his third attempt at striking up a conversation. “They’re supposed to launch at midnight.”
“That’s kind of late, Jake-ey.” His mom tugged her sun hat lower, so it blocked most of the right side of her face—a move that had become a nervous tick since the fire.
Jake caught himself staring at the puffy scars visible under the hat’s brim and averted his eyes. “But this is the big one, remember? This one’s manned.”
“You go ahead,” his dad said. “We’re probably going to hit the sack early.”
“What do you they’re going to find up there, Dad?”
“I guess we’ll find out.” Like always, his father avoided his eyes.
“You think it’s got anything to do with all that neutrino radiation they’ve been detecting?”
“Just some kind of magnetic disturbance, that’s all,” he muttered. “Hope they don’t crash into it.”
“Come on, Dad, they’re not going to crash into it—”
His dad flinched at the sharpness of his voice, which Jake hadn’t intended, and his gaze dropped to his plate.
“Jake,” his mom scolded, patting his dad’s knee reassuringly.
“I’m trying to be nice.” Fed up with his parents, Jake tossed his napkin on the plate and stood up. “Whatever. I’m going to go get some fresh air. I’ll see you guys back in the room later.”
His parents didn’t ask him where he was going, they just watched him leave with that sad, regretful stare . . . as if they hardly knew him.
Because of what happened six months ago. Because of what he had done.
Because of the fire.
Jake sauntered out onto the deck and decided he really needed to hit the gym and lift. Just a few sets to get the endorphin rush, the big muscle groups. Then he’d go for a swim.
The blank screen of Brynn’s cell phone tormented her. No calls. Not from Simon, not from anyone.
And once they hit open ocean, there would be no more reception.
Why did she keep checking?
She shoved her phone back into her pocket, feeling both angry and hurt. Simon had been the first and only boy she had ever been in love with. They had been perfect together.
Until Cedar had put an end to it.
Brynn hung onto the deck sixteen railing, reflecting on her shattered love life. As the Cypress cruised up the coast, the port shrank into the distance, replaced by a bare stretch of beach and flat marshes crisscrossed by Air Force service roads. In the noon sun, her hair singed the back of her neck.
All that ocean and all that heat made her want to swim. Yeah, a swim would take her mind off things. She slipped back through the crowd.
Brynn slipped into her bikini back in the stateroom. Her dad was napping on the bed, his hand still clutched around the empty bottle of scotch. Basically, he would miss the whole cruise. Cedar was probably still out looking for her.
She dragged her big fluffy pink beach towel out of her suitcase, wrapped herself in it, and headed back up to deck fifteen, the pool deck. Barefoot, the soft carpet tickled the undersides of her feet.
She chose the main pool and scanned the poolside for a cute boy to plop her towel down next to.
A real hottie by the deep end caught her attention. Her eyes roved over a chiseled bronze torso, a broad jaw and thick lips, deep-set eyes hidden behind aviator sunglass, a head of curly black hair. She pressed her lips together.
Perfect.
She trotted over to him and chose a poolside recliner two away from his. She recognized him. The guy she had seen playing Hacky Sack earlier.
“Excuse me?” she said. He didn’t move. “Hey, buff guy!”
He opened his eyes, squinted into the sun, and glanced over at her.
This is for you, Cedar. You asshole. She made doe eyes at the guy. “Do you think you can rub sunscreen on my back?”
He nodded and waved her over.
“Cool, thanks.” She giggled and dropped her towel, exposing her right side to him—and noted smugly the way his gaze descended slowly over her bikini-clad body. She carried the sunscreen over to his recliner. Success—
“There you are, Brynn.” Cedar appeared between them and dropped a load of his own stuff onto the recliner between them. “Awesome, you got sunscreen. Mind putting some on my back?”
Then her idiot brother whipped off his shirt and flashed the entire pool with the whitest skin they’d ever seen.
Sabotaged.
Beyond Cedar, the hot guy settled onto his back and closed his eyes again.
“Put it on yourself.” She uncapped the tube and sprayed her brother with a fat white glob.
Satisfied his sister had resigned to arm-crossed sulking on her own recliner, Cedar turned to the bro-hulk taking up space next to him. “Hey man, I’m Cedar,” he said, extending his hand.
The guy opened his eyes with a pained expression, but didn’t take his hand. “Jake.”
“Don’t keep me hanging.” Cedar held his palm right over the guy’s face, until he finally took it—about a minute later. Cedar gripped hard. “Attaboy . . . good firm handshake. You here with friends, Jake?”
“Family.”
“That’s cool. Where you from?”
“California.”
“Nice. Why you here in Florida? They don’t have cruises in Cali?”
“Not cruises around the Caribbean.”
“You ever been on a cruise before, Jake?”
Jake shook his head.
“I like your board shorts,” said Cedar. “Where’d you get them?”
“Look man, I’m just trying to enjoy the sun.”
Cedar held up his hands in surrender. “No problem, just trying to make conversation. Oh, by the way—” He pointed over his shoulder at Brynn. “That’s my sister.”
“I get it, bro.”
“No, you don’t get it, bro. That’s my sister. She’s fifteen.”
“Cedar, shut up!” said Brynn.
“Just trying to make conversation,” said Cedar, laying back on his own recliner. “Just trying to enjoy the cruise.”
Later that night, Naomi watched the countdown to the launch from her mom’s bunk below the waterline. Every flash on the small flatscreen flooded the entire closet-sized cabin with blue light.
Even on the tiny screen, though, it was hard to miss the behemoth size of the Triton IV rocket—so named because it was NASA’s fourth attempt to investigate the interference zone.
The other three unmanned missions had vanished off the radar once they reached their destination.
They were never heard from again.
In the two years since its discovery, the interference zone had remained a complete mystery. Like a hole in space.
Some people saw it as an omen that Armageddon was near.
“T minus two minutes and thirty seconds,” said the announcer’s voice.
Well, she may as well watch the launch from the decks. She dragged herself unhurriedly off the bunk and slipped into the corridor.
From the deck sixteen railing, Jake’s gaze wandered across the glassy water to the Kennedy Space Center nine miles away. Earlier, the Cypress had sailed within three miles of the launch site, giving the passengers an up close view of the thirty-two story Triton IV rocket that would carry two astronauts into high earth orbit for the flyby. Now, just a few minutes until T minus zero, a constant patrol of military helicopters enforced the exclusion zone back to nine miles.
In the distance, the reflection of the floodlit launch site rippled off the water.
Jake thought of that girl he had met earlier that day, Brynn—her brother had used her name.
Trouble. She was nothing but trouble.
Yet, as far as Jake could tell, she remained the only cute girl aboard the entire cruise ship. Not that he had searched every cabin, but he had an eye for that sort of thing.
And he had a thing for blondes. Such silky blonde hair . . . girls like her drove him crazy.
But she was only fifteen, too young for him. If he tried anything, her brother would murder him in his sleep.
Behind him, the ship’s intercom system streamed the Kennedy Space Center announcer, “All systems are go. We’re about ninety seconds from the launch of Crew Rendezvous Vehicle Triton Four . . .”
He sighed. It wasn’t like he got a choice with Brynn, anyway; now that her brother had no doubt locked her in a stateroom and thrown the key in the water, he doubted he’d ever see her again.
The announcer fell into the familiar countdown. “All engines are go for ignition . . . in T minus ten—nine—eight—”
His heart picked up speed. Around the deck, the Cypress passengers joined in the countdown, which rose to a chorus. “Four—three—two—one!”
The rocket’s base ignited in a white-hot flare, forcing him to shade his eyes.
“We have liftoff,” said the announcer. “Triton Four has just cleared the tower . . .”
The passengers cheered. The rocket climbed slowly, as bright as the sun, burning an arc through the heavens and flooding the Atlantic with blinding white light. It could have been daytime.
The sound wave rippled the water’s surface with lightning speed and slapped his chest. The blast of air tore at his skin, throbbed his eardrums, echoed in his lungs. Behind him, glasses clinked on tables. He opened his mouth to breath, but all that entered was the roar of two million pounds of solid fuel burning underneath the Triton IV rocket.
And for a moment, he forgot everything—Brynn, the gulf between him and his parents, the fire. In that moment, watching, feeling, the rocket streak into the sky, he only felt pride.
On the open air portion of deck fourteen at the back of the ship—the stern—Cedar let out his breath slowly, mesmerized by the blinding flare of the Triton IV thrusting skyward. The rocket burned like a torch atop a growing column of smoke, its reflection splintering on the water.
Next to him, Brynn stood just as mesmerized, her hands firmly clamped over her ears.
At midnight tomorrow, the Crew Exploration Vehicle would reach the interference zone, and Cedar knew what they would find. Some kind of radar jammer the Soviets had put up back in the sixties.
Nothing mysterious at all.
Though fainter now, the rhythmic thumping of burning propellant still made his ears ache. A projection screen in the Aquatheater below them still showed the rocket hurtling through the hazy upper reaches of the atmosphere.
The sight of the launch brought tears to his eyes, and for a second, washed away his demons. Everything. His anger toward his dad, his guilt over his mom’s death . . . and now his terrible remorse for pushing away Brynn, the only person in the world who still mattered to him. For a second, that was all gone.
The Vanishing Girl
After the launch, the first sea day passed without incident, just the unbroken Atlantic stretching horizon to horizon. The following evening, Brynn, Cedar, and their dad emerged from the elevators on deck four and entered the theater for the ten o’clock Headliner Show, which would feature singers, musicians, and a Broadway magician famous for his vanishing girl act—the renowned Zé Carlos.
The Opal Theater sat 1,380 guests and rose a full three decks. Purple and blue lights lit up row upon row of suede seats, already packed.
They descended the aisle and slid into their seats in the second row, which Brynn had had the foresight to book with their dad’s credit card months earlier.
Now she leaned forward eagerly, as the show began. She was most excited about the magician.
Cedar suffered through the singing and dancing acts without comment, but when the fraud magician came onstage and began his chicken-like posturing, he could barely take it anymore.
“The magic is a gift,” Zé Carlos boomed in a stilted Brazilian accent. “They kidnap me and take me into jungle for a year. They take everything—my family, my possessions, my memories. For a whole year, evil lives in my body, it feeds off me. When I begin to remember again, when I begin to wake up, I have this gift . . . this magic.”
“Look at that loon,” Cedar sneered aside to Brynn. “What an idiot.”
“Shut up,” she hissed.
“I require a volunteer.” Zé Carlos swept his cloak over his shoulder, and the spotlight cast ominous shadows under his sharp cheek bones. “A young lady, if you please.”
Next to Cedar, Brynn’s hand flew up. Of course.
“Brynn, put your hand down,” he said.
Instead, she raised it higher.
Zé Carlos paced the stage, peering intently out into the audience. His eyes settled on Brynn. “Perfeita,” he said. “The lovely blonde in the second row, if you please.”
Brynn giggled and climbed to her feet.
Cedar went rigid. “Don’t,” he warned, grabbing her arm.
“Cedar, stop it,” she whispered.
“Sit down. Now.”
She glared daggers at him, tugged her arm free, and pranced onto the stage, where she smiled shyly at the crowd. The little narcissist.
Cedar planted his palms on the armrests, ready to jump to his feet and drag her back to her seat if need be, but his dad’s hand landed on his arm, halting him.
“Let her enjoy it.” His alcohol-soaked breath washed over Cedar, potent enough to fumigate the theater. “It’s a show.”
“Her whole life is a show,” Cedar spat, but he sank back, defeated. He glared at her instead, teeth gritted.
She always got picked. Always. Her blonde mane stood out in a dark crowded theater like a homing beacon. Oh, and how she loved the spotlight.
Zé Carlos admired Brynn with a raised eyebrow and a satisfied smirk. At the hungry look in his eyes, Cedar’s fists tightened.
The magician raised a gloved hand and waved her over to a plain table, which he had spread with a red tablecloth.
He circled her. “This is terrible,” he said, taking a strand of her glossy hair between his fingers. “They will be too focused on you; they will miss the trick entirely.” He turned his head back to the crowd and gave a wink, which earned him a chorus of laughter.
Touch her like that again, and you die in your sleep. Cedar’s forearms strained against the armrest.
Brynn flashed a camera smile and tucked her hair behind her ear, as if her ego wasn’t large enough already.
“But enough preening—” Zé Carlos clapped his hands. He gave her a boost onto the table and instructed her to stand perfectly still.
For the first time in her life, she did as she was told. Chin held high and hands rigid at her side, she didn’t budge an inch . . . from the looks of it, she had even stopped breathing.
Cedar edged forward. What the hell was this voodoo?
With one hand tucked behind his back and flamboyant theatric flair, Zé Carlos circled the table, lifting the tablecloth at each corner so the audience could see there was nothing underneath.
The rest of the stage was well lit . . . drenched in light, in fact. Cedar tilted his head, trying to catch a shimmer of wire or a pane of glass, but he couldn’t spot the mechanism.
“The illusion,” Zé Carlos shouted suddenly, stepping in front of Brynn and interrupting Cedar’s thoughts, “is not the vanishing girl . . . the illusion is reality itself. The girl was never here.” He snapped his fingers and stepped to the side.
The audience gasped.
Cedar saw it happen, and his eyebrows tightened. Atop the table, Brynn’s body become translucent. Through her torso, he saw the ruffled curtains at the back of the stage. She was fading right before their eyes.
She raised her arm and peered at it, as if aware that she was vanishing. At the sight of her own ghostly arm, her mouth fell open. Fear crossed her face. Wide-eyed, she gaped at her audience, threw one last terrified glance at Cedar, and faded completely.
Then the tabletop was empty. Brynn was gone. Vanished. Just like that.
The crowd erupted into applause, a few even stood. Zé Carlos bowed.
But Cedar felt none of their delight. He scanned the stage, the back of his neck bristling. He had never seen a magician do a vanishing act on such a well-lit stage, with no props, no places to hide. Right in plain sight.
And where was Brynn? With a final bow, Zé Carlos swept his cloak over one shoulder and strode off the stage through the side curtain.
Oh hell no . . . this was not happening.
The lights dimmed, and a pair of figures dressed in black ran onto the stage.
Cedar squinted into the darkness . . . No, just stage hands, carrying away the table. He swiveled in his seat and scanned the aisles, heart thumping. Where was she?
Something was wrong.
The lights dimmed further, leaving him blind. Onstage, a spotlight illuminated a woman in a glittery dress—the next act. She started singing.
No. No, no, no. When you made someone’s little sister disappear, you brought them back. That was part of the contract.
You didn’t just leave them like that, hanging in limbo.
“Where’d she go?” Cedar said.
“Jesus Christ,” his dad barked. “Just sit tight. It’s all part of the show.”
“She’s supposed to unvanish.”
“She’s backstage.”
“I never should have let her go.” Before his dad could stop him, Cedar elbowed into the aisle
“Cedar, sit down!”
He ignored the command. At the corner of the stage he swung a leg up—drawing a wary glance from the singer—and clambered onto the three foot high platform. The singer’s voice wavered. No one else seemed to notice, though; the spotlight was on her. Cedar barged through the curtain, shoved past a few technicians in the wings, and burst through a double door into a maze of corridors. He found Zé Carlos smoking in a backstage lounge.
“Where’s my sister?” he spat.
“Perdão, senhor, you are not allowed backstage.” Zé Carlos rose to his feet and waved him out, his English more stilted than it had been on the stage
Cedar didn’t budge. “Where’s my sister?” he repeated. “The blonde girl you made disappear, where is she?”
“Senhor, you must go.” He took another drag from his cigarette.
Cedar plucked the cigarette from his mouth, and flung it aside. “Not until you bring her back, asshole—”
Eyebrows arched, the magician reached sideways, flicked his wrist with a dash of panache, and closed his fist around empty air. When he opened his hand again, he held the burning cigarette between his fingers . . . as if by magic. Eyes locked on Cedar’s, he brought it back to his lips for another hit.
“See, you made that reappear,” said Cedar, pointing at the glowing butt. “You did it right that time. Now make her reappear.”
“I not do illusion,” he said. “I tell you already, your sister never there.”
“You expect me to swallow that crap?”
He shrugged. “I sorry. Cannot help you.”
Cedar gritted his teeth and jabbed his finger at the magician’s chest. “You’re an asshole.”
“I’m not so sure you point at right person.”
“His vanishing girl act,” said Cedar. “He made her disappear and never made her reappear.”
In his office across from the dressing rooms, the Assistant Stage Manager regarded him calmly across a wide oak desk, fingertips pressed together. “I assure you Zé Carlos didn’t actually make your sister vanish.”
“No shit, Sherlock. He kidnapped her and stowed her away somewhere on this boat.”
“Ship,” the manager corrected.
Cedar steadied his breathing…she’ll be okay. She’ll be okay. It will not end up like it did for Mom. “Stop the show,” he ordered. “We need to find her.”
The manager raised his palms. “No need to be hasty. I’m just trying to understand what’s going on here.”
“Ask any one of those people back there,” said Cedar, his voice rising. “Not one of them saw her reappear.”
“Zé Carlos claims he sent her back to the audience after his act.”
Cedar made fists then splayed his fingers in exasperation. “He’s a magician, for God’s sake. His whole career is based on lying and deception, and you believe him?”
“Perhaps she returned to her seat after you left to look for her.”
Cedar chuckled. “Now that would make me just plain stupid, wouldn’t it—?”
“Cedar!” said a girl’s voice from the doorway. He spun as Brynn stuck her head into the office. “Dad said you were making a fuss. I got back to my seat right after you left to look for me, dumbass.”
“The two astronauts aboard the Triton Four Crew Module are reporting minor radio-frequency interference as they near the rendezvous. So far, though, all onboard systems appear to be functioning,” said the NBC newscaster. The image blurred, melting into static, then came into focus again.
Naomi rolled onto her side and turned up the volume. Everyone aboard Cypress got satellite TV streamed directly to their cabins, but the dish was at the top of the ship, sixteen decks and more than two hundred feet above her. Considering the maze of wires the broadcast had to navigate to get to her mom’s cabin below the water line, Naomi was impressed there wasn’t even more static.
The newscaster continued. “. . . the Triton crew module is expected to pass into the interference zone sometime within the next thirty minutes, at which point Earth will lose all radio contact with the spacecraft. NASA will continue to update us on the astronauts’ status, but as to what they find up there . . . that will remain a mystery until their return on Thursday.”
The newscaster changed to a more jovial tone. “The hot spot of electromagnetic interference has been nicknamed the Bermuda Triangle of outer space—”
Naomi clicked off the news. Just a big tease, that’s all it was. The astronauts were less than thirty minutes away from making contact with whatever was up there, and no one else even got to see it.
She could hear the crew bustling outside along the I-95, the main passageway through the upper crew deck, still busy even now.
Her mom had been up before six for the early breakfast service, long before Naomi awoke. They hadn’t seen each other since. Now it was nearing midnight. With a yawn, Naomi rose from the bottom bunk and stretched out in the tiny cabin.
Well, if she didn’t get to see her mom, then she may as well make the most of the evening. She recalled a cool teen hangout on deck fifteen that was worth a shot.
She combed her golden brown hair, put on some makeup, and headed to the upper decks.
Cedar’s relief that his kid sister had not, in fact, been abducted by a Brazilian magician named Zé Carlos was short-lived. The rest of the show had sucked, and now he sat at the bar in The Living Room—a teen hangout on deck fifteen—one eye fixed on his sister’s game of foosball and one eye intent on the diagrams he had nabbed from the jerkoff illusionist.
Brynn’s expression of fear during the vanishing act, she told him later, had been part of the act. Apparently Zé Carlos had whispered the instructions as he boosted her onto the table.
As for the trick itself . . . Cedar studied the complicated diagrams the performer had sketched with wrinkled eyebrows. Why, it was nothing more than an adaptation of Pepper’s ghost, an illusion involving mirrors, a bright source of light, and a transparent screen.
He scoffed. Nothing special at all—
“So, did you find your sister?”
Cedar glanced up at a girl who had slid into the barstool next to him. About his age, thick caramel colored hair, rosy cheeks and full lips . . . plenty alluring. He recognized her from the Sand Bar: the girl downing piña coladas. Right, he had been looking for Brynn yesterday, too.
He nodded to the foosball table across the room, to Brynn. “That’s her.”
The girl raised her eyebrows. “Still babysitting?”
“She’s younger than she looks, okay?” He made no effort to hide the edge to his voice. “She’s only fifteen, and she’s not that smart. It’s like I blink, and she’s gone.”
“Probably just needs her space. You seem like a . . . protective older brother.”
Cedar nodded, conceding the point. “True.”
“I’m Naomi, by the way.”
“Cedar.” He didn’t hold out his hand.
Naomi ordered a virgin piña colada from the bartender. “So,” she started again, “how are you enjoying the cruise?”
“I’m not.”
“Neither am I.”
He peered sideways at her. “No?”
“It’s the third cruise my mom’s taken me on this summer. I’ve seen her maybe ten minutes total—she’s an assistant maître d’ on the ship.”
“Sounds impressive.”
“It’s not. She’s just a head waiter.”
“Hey, where do you guys sleep? I’ve always wondered.”
“Underwater.”
“Oh. Damn.”
“Like not actually underwater,” she said, “but below decks, you know, below the surface.”
“Yeah, I get it.”
She smiled, an impish little glint in her eyes. “Actually, I have access to crew-only areas. I could show you if you want?”
Her studied her for a moment, tempted by her offer. He was practically suffocating in this stupid teen zone, after all—his gaze jerked back to Brynn.
“Oh, come on. She’ll be fine.”
“She’s never fine.”
“You should trust her.”
“Her? How about the twenty-five hundred douchebags on this boat who would give their left nut to get into her pants.”
Naomi’s gaze wandered dubiously over Brynn’s tomboyish ponytail, her baggy T-shirt, and the ill-fitting board shorts that fell to her calves. “She’s not that great a catch.”
Cedar blew air through his lips. “That’s what I keep telling her.”
“Come on—”Naomi tugged on his T-shirt. “Are you seriously going to babysit her twenty-four hours a day for seven days straight? She’ll be fine.”
Naomi did have a point.
Cedar watched his sister, still completely absorbed in a foosball game with a much younger girl. Without makeup, without her blonde hair flying all over the place, dressed in his board shorts—which he’d insisted she wear after the magician fiasco—Brynn might just go unnoticed. Come to think of it, she’d been on especially good behavior the last few minutes.
In fact, earlier when he’d scrounged up her outfit, she hadn’t even argued. She hadn’t even tried to put on anything skimpy. She hadn’t combed her hair, doused herself in fake perfume, or done anything to make herself into a sexual object. Maybe she’d finally learned her lesson.
The Brynn playing foosball reminded him of her much younger self, her nine-year-old tomboy self, back when she was innocent and adorable.
He breathed a contented sigh. Brynn wasn’t planning to sneak off the moment he left, she was just trying to enjoy the cruise like a normal kid.
Tonight, he could trust her.
“Hang on.” Cedar crossed the room to the foosball table. “Brynn, as soon as you’re done with this game, go straight back to the cabin, got it?”
She yawned. “Good idea, I’m getting pretty tired. I’ll call it a night after this game.”
“Straight down to the room, Brynn.”
“Okay.”
“No detours, no games, no sneaking off. Straight down to the room.”
“Okay.”
“We’re in room six sixty, deck fourteen. That’s one level down. One flight of stairs—”
“I know, Cedar,” she snapped.
Satisfied that she had at last gotten the point, Cedar followed Naomi out onto the deck. He threw one last glance at Brynn and saw her yawn again and lean back over her game. Outside, a cool night breeze sliced through his shirt. Ah, it felt good to be outside.
Yet something about Brynn’s response nagged him. She had agreed too easily.
The moment he was through the door with that girl, Brynn stood up straight, alert and ready, and glanced around the Living Room. Free. She was actually free.
“Thank you,” she whispered, watching the girl Cedar had left with. Not that she had any chance with him, but God knew he needed a distraction.
“Got ya!” said the little girl she was playing foosball with, whacking the ball into Brynn’s goal. “Hey, are you still playing?”
“Here’s my advice,” said Brynn, kneeling down next to the little blonde—a miniature version of herself. “Tonight, find yourself a cute guy and have some fun. You only live once, right?”
“Are you leaving?”
“Don’t play innocent with me, young lady. I’ve seen you, you’ve been eyeing those boys over there all night, you little tiger . . .” she trailed off. “How old are you?
“Seven.”
“Well . . . never too young to start.”
The little girl frowned. “Boys are icky.”
Brynn gave a sly smile. “You have no idea.” She winked, trailed her fingers across the girl’s cheek, and started toward the exit opposite the one Cedar had taken.
She went straight down to their stateroom to change, a thrill fluttering up her spine at disobeying her brother’s orders. Instead of going to bed, she dolled herself up for a night out on the ship.
Her dad, she noticed, wasn’t in the room. Could he actually be enjoying himself like Cedar? Was it too much to ask that the two overprotective men in her life—her dad and brother—had both forgotten about her for the night?
Practically giddy, she dragged on a short jean skirt they had no clue she owned—and wouldn’t let her own in a gazillion years—a loose fitting tank top, and platform sandals. Next she applied pink lip gloss and dark eyeliner, doused herself in Dolce & Gabbana perfume, and dashed out the door again, her confidence soaring.
Thank you, thank you girl-who-has-a-crush-on-Cedar. Whoever she was, Brynn owed her one for sure.
Her first stop was Fuel, the teen disco on deck fifteen astern. Cedar, of course, had forbidden her from setting foot in the place, but tonight she made her own rules.
Beams of neon light darted around the dark club, flashing over teens on the dance floor leaping up and down. She made out a few groups of friends dancing in circles.
She stepped onto the dance floor and started jumping up and down too in time with the beat. One of the circles opened up to include her, which she joined. Aside from the slitted eyes from the girl across from her, the rest of the group—mostly boys—welcomed her with smiles and head nods.
The guy dancing next to her was really cute, baby-faced and curly haired . . . like adorably cute. He grinned at her and angled his body slightly toward hers—in other words, a noncommittal signal that he might think she was cool that could be easily denied later if she didn’t return it. Excited, she grinned back, and angled her own body a few degrees toward him.
He swiveled a smidgeon more so he was facing her instead of the rest of the group, and they broke off from the circle to dance facing only each other.
But aside from furtive glances at each other and shy smiles, the boy stayed two feet away—no more, no less—as if held there by a force field. Cedar would be proud.
What was this . . . middle school?
That was the problem with boys her age. They were all too afraid to touch girls. She scanned the rest of the dance floor, not a soul touching. Zero skin contact. Pathetic.
But she also felt a strange sting in her heart, like she didn’t belong here anymore. Dancing in this room with strangers, she was more alone than ever.
Simon had been her whole world. She remembered when they had experimented with third base, it was the most natural and exciting thing in the world. Only afterwards had she realized most girls her age hadn’t even been asked out on a date yet, let alone been through a serious long term relationship. After Simon, her never-been-kissed best friends were jealous and treated her like an outcast. They wanted what she had, not realizing how much it hurt. How much it isolated her.
Brynn faced her guy again. “Want to dance?” she yelled over the music.
“What?” he yelled back.
“Want to dance? Like actually dance?”
He stared at her, for a moment confused before his eyes flashed with understanding. He nodded to the corners of the teen disco, where a handful of adults stood with crossed arms, watching the dance floor like hawks. Chaperones. Yuck!
And then she spotted something else . . . he was leaning at the bar: the hot guy she had seen by the pool whom Cedar had cockblocked. Jake, if she remembered correctly. Even in the dark club, he still wore his aviator sunglasses.
He was chatting with a couple of older girls and looked bored.
Brynn’s ideas of finding a perfect stranger flew out the window. She kind of just wanted him right now.
“Got to go,” she muttered to the boy she was dancing with and pushed through a gap in the crowd.
“Wait, I don’t even know your name?” the boy shouted behind her.
Brynn ignored him, hastily tugged down her skirt—which had been riding up ever since she started dancing—and trotted over to the bar. She slid onto a stool at the opposite end as Jake, feeling a bit alarmed when her butt came into direct contact with the cool, molded plastic. A quick glance over her shoulder reassured her she was still covered.
She glanced over at Jake. Though his head faced her direction, his shades blocked his eyes and she couldn’t tell if he was looking at her. She turned away, hot in the face.
Was he looking at her?
She peeked again, without moving her head, and out of the corners of her eyes saw the two girls leave. One of them pressed a folded note into Jake’s hand—a phone number, probably. He displayed no reaction, not even a thank you, just took the note stone-faced and pocketed it. His head didn’t move.
The girls gone, Brynn was even more self-conscious that he might be looking at her, and her cheeks flushed. Screw it. She sighed loudly and blatantly turned her head to stare at him.
He raised his eyebrows. “Where’s your brother?” he said.
Oh, so he had noticed her. “You shouldn’t be scared of him,” she said. “You could beat him up.”
“I don’t want to have to beat him up,” he said.
“He left with another girl,” said Brynn.
Jake’s eyebrow nudged higher. “You’re okay with that?”
“Why wouldn’t I be?”
“He gets to go off with some girl, but you don’t even get to sit next to me at the pool. Hypocritical, wouldn’t you say?
“That’s him.”
“Brynn, right?”
She nodded. “Jake?”
He rose from his chair, downed the dregs of an orange-colored drink, and turned to leave.
“Where are you going?” she said, not meaning to sound so accusing.
“Going to take a soak. You&rsquo