Hell Bent--A Novel by Leigh Bardugo

Author:Leigh Bardugo
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Flatiron Books

* * *

“Try to keep up, Tripp.”

The storm shouldn’t have been a big deal. They’d checked the weather. They always did. Temperature. Pressure. Predicted wind speed.

But every time he was out on the boat, Tripp felt a twitching sense of panic. He was okay when it was just him and his dad or his other cousins, but when Spenser joined them, he got weird. It was like his brain just stopped doing what it was told.

His feet and hands felt bigger. He got slower. Suddenly he had to think, really think, about his left and his right, port and starboard, which was fucking ridiculous. He’d been sailing since he was a kid.

Spenser was just so good at everything. He rode horses and ATVs. He raced bikes and cars. He knew how to shoot, and he worked for a living, made his own money, and he always had some beautiful girl on his arm. Some beautiful woman. They were all accomplished and silky and Tripp felt like a kid around them, even though he was the one at Yale, and Spenser was only a few years older.

Tripp didn’t even understand why Spenser got to take the helm. They’d both sailed competitively, so had his father, but Spenser just slid into the role with a big white smile. Part of it was the way he looked. Sharp, lean. He didn’t have that Helmuth baby face. He had a real jaw, the look of someone you didn’t want to fuck with.

Spenser always addressed Tripp’s father as sir. “A pleasure to be aboard, sir, she handles like a dream.” Then he’d sling an arm around Tripp’s neck and crow, “Tripp, my man!” before he leaned in and whispered, “How’s it going, shitstain?”

When Tripp stiffened up, Spenser would just laugh and say, “Try to keep up.”

And that was how the day went. Grab that line! Get it on the winch! Is that kite ready? Come on, Tripp, try to keep up!

The storm that came in wasn’t a big one. It wasn’t scary. At least no one else seemed to think it was. Tripp had pulled on a life vest, slinging the thin snake of fabric around his neck, strapping it at his waist as he stood in the companionway. You barely knew it was on—it wouldn’t inflate unless it hit the water—so what was the big deal?

But as soon as Spenser saw him, he burst out laughing. “The fuck is wrong with you? It’s rain, dumbass.”

Tripp’s father just turned his face to the sky and laughed, the wind lifting his hair. “Now this is some weather!”

Tripp hated it. The gray swells like the humped shoulders of some big animal, nudging the ship, playing with it. You could really feel the sea beneath you, just how big it was, just how little it cared, the way it could smash a mast, crack a hull, drown them all with a single shrug. All he could do was hold on tight—one hand for yourself, one for the ship,

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