We decided to head to the beach and get a better look at the place from there. We edged silently along the malecón wall, the walkway between the sea and the beach, until we came across a concrete pier with a few fishing boats tied up. We jumped into one and crouched down low, hiding behind smelly crab traps.
Gus had out the night vision goggles and was playing with them when a light went on in the upstairs of the fish market.
“Look,” I breathed out. A sliding glass door opened and Ellie stepped out onto the balcony, still in her dress. She closed the door halfway behind her and walked to the railing, leaning against it, staring out at the sea.
I snatched the goggles out of Gus’s hands to get a better look. She looked stunning even in greeny haze of the night vision. She still took my breath away, so much so I didn’t have space in my brain to ponder the big picture—where she was and who else she was with.
“She must be blackmailed somehow,” I whispered to Gus. “Otherwise she could jump down onto the sand and leave. She could run away. She’s good at that.”
“Give me those,” Gus said, taking the goggles out of my hands. He peered through them, twisting the knobs and we both crouched there among the crab traps, watching our dear Ellie staring off into the distance. I looked behind me to make sure I wasn’t missing something. The moon was obscured by heavy clouds in the distance, settling over the water like giant spaceships. She was staring at nothing or perhaps at everything. I wondered if she thought about me.
“She looks okay, though,” he said, in a bright tone that came across fake. “I mean, she doesn’t look traumatized. Or beaten. Just pensive.”
“How do people with Stockholm Syndrome look?”
He sucked his lip before saying, “They look a lot like her. Not usually as well dressed though.”
“Well I still think there has to be a reason why she’s there, why she’s doing this. It can’t be black and white.”
“For as long as I’ve known Ellie, she’s always been grey. No black, no white.”
We watched her for a few moments more. She hadn’t moved. I started thinking whether we should come back in the morning or just act now, waving underneath the balcony like a tattooed Romeo, when Javier’s silhouette appeared at the door.
I sucked in my breath, blackness poking at my insides.
The door slid open and Javier stepped out. He closed the door behind him and the two of them were lit only by the pale light from inside.
I tried to take the goggles from Gus but he held onto him. “Camden, don’t.”
“Don’t what?” I asked, even though I could see their black forms melding together, becoming one. Either he was standing in front of her talking to her or …
I ripped the goggles out of his grasp. He turned around, slumping to the floor, not wanting to look at whatever it was that lay ahead for me.
I put the goggles to my eyes and looked through the viewfinder.
At first she looked like she was talking to Javier. Then his head disappeared. He went low, as if he was picking something up off the ground. That’s what I thought he was doing, that he dropped something, until I realized he wasn’t coming back up. And then Ellie’s back arched over the railing, her throat exposed, her hair hanging and her mouth open in passion.
I could hear it, traveling across the water to us. Her moans. I’d brought out those same moans myself, perhaps using similar methods. But I still couldn’t quite grasp what was going on until I saw Javier appear in the night vision, like a green snake. His hands were all over her, his mouth at her neck, kissing down to her collarbones and chest. And Ellie, Ellie, my Ellie, my woman, she was succumbing to it. Even worse, she was enjoying it. After a while her hands went to his hair and she tugged on it shoving him back downward.
That was about as much as I could take before it sunk in. Before I realized what I was seeing before my very own fucking eyes. Javier and Ellie. Together.
I hoped vomiting wouldn’t make that much of a sound because that’s the only thing I could think of doing to deal with all of this. I wanted to throw up, the bile filling my mouth, as if emptying my stomach would empty all the hurt and pain and hate that was filling up inside of me. I didn’t know what else to do except wish for death and darkness and anything that would take this torture away. I felt like my heart was being ripped out of my mouth and twisted around my throat, choking me.
I must have fallen to my side, because the next thing I knew my head was resting against damp crab trap netting and Gus was shoving two painkiller tablets into my mouth and moving my jaw up and down, trying to get me to chew them.
That was the last thing I remembered before things got fuzzy and I stopped feeling.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
ELLIE