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The day was brilliant and hot.

Maxine Kite lounged in a beach chair, in unabashed oiled nakedness, her face hidden beneath the brim of a straw hat, so emaciated a breeze could’ve lifted her into the sky like a dandelion seed. She was engrossed in a book called At Home in Mitford and seemingly oblivious to our presence.

Our chairs were arranged three abreast and portside on the deck of the twenty-four foot Scout Abaco 242.

The clouds—puffy white monsters—went back innumerably into the horizon, land nowhere in sight.

Luther watched from the cockpit, stretched out in the bucket seat behind the steering wheel and sheltered from the breeze by the wraparound windshield, a bag of Lemonheads in his lap.

Sweat trickled into my eyes.

The pasty chicken legs of Rufus Kite propelled him toward us. He grinned, toothless, his pale, hairless chest exposed by a chaotic Hawaiian shirt. We could see ourselves in the huge mirrored lenses of his sunglasses.

"Been a pleasure knowing you three," he said. "I swear it has."

I thought I sensed our fate in his tone of voice.

"Y’all are sitting there looking at me, cognizant for the first time in months, and don’t think I can’t feel your hatred. You think I’m a monster. That I’m cruel and indifferent. Think I don’t have your best interests at heart."

The sun beat down from its meridian, the air still, salty, so wet it could choke you.

"Hurts me that you think that. Really does. Can’t you see, I’m letting you operate on free will? I could’ve turned you into little robots. You spent nine months with me. I could’ve kept you in that basement five, seven years. Your minds would’ve gone to mush after two. Think what you want about me, but you can’t say I don’t respect free will. You can’t say it."

"Sweet-Sweet," Maxine whined, looking up from her book. "I’m so hot. Put up the Bimini top, will you?"

"Kind of busy, Beautiful."

It hit me—Rufus was anxious about something.

"You three," he continued, "you see the world through good and evil glasses. Least you did when I found you. I’ve only tried to help you take them off, and now it’s time to see was I successful. I’ll be honest—I’m nervous. Big day for us all."

Maxine closed her book and took notice.

Rufus approached Vi, her baby grasped tightly to her chest. He reached to rip the tape from her mouth.

"What about the baby, Pop?" Luther asked.

"What about it?"

"If she doesn’t—"

"The baby stays with her, whether that’s back to the house, or down to the ocean floor."

"But—"

"Luther, please. Deal with it."

Rufus removed the tape from Vi’s mouth. There was a hardness in her eyes she had not possessed when I’d first met her back in November. She’d grown rough edges.

"Violet, you have a very important choice to make. Will you—"

"I’ll do anything you want," she said. "Just don’t hurt my baby."

"Good girl. But know that I’m gonna call your bluff tomorrow, Violet. And let me say this. Should I find that you’ve lied to me today, it’ll be bad for you, worse for little Max there."

She pulled a blanket over her son’s head to shield him from the sun.

"I’m telling you this for your own good. If you don’t think you’re capable of doing whatever I ask you to do, it would be better for you both to be thrown overboard right now. Because, if you fail, you’ll see things no mother should ever have to see."

"Said I’d do it."

He re-taped her mouth, then pulled the tape from mine.

I drew in a lungful of thick air.

Saying "no" never even occurred to me. We would get back ashore with our lives and go from there.

Luther got up and came over. He looked down at me, pushed his long black hair behind his shoulders, and spit the white pit of the Lemonhead over my head into the water.

"Well, Andrew?" he said.

"I’ll do it. Whatever you want."

"That’s right. You know the drill from the desert. I saw the video of you and that cowboy in Orson’s shed. Maybe this time you’ll do it with a smidgen of composure."

While Luther silenced me with a new piece of tape, Rufus stepped forward and ripped the duct tape off