Free Deeper (Elemental Series) by Christine DePetrillo

Chapter One
     
    Crystal Bawle yawned
for the billionth time. Her fist barely supported her chin while she leaned
against the front desk of Breezes Resort in Horseshoe Bay, Bermuda. If she had
another sleepless night, another night packed with nightmares, she would rent a
boat, sail directly to the center of the Bermuda Triangle, and let the
mysterious zone swallow her. She swore she’d do it this time.
    “You look like shit,
Crys,” Rionne D’Agestine, Breezes Resort’s Perkiest Employee announced. Funny
thing was Crystal had been out with Rionne a few times. Perky was so not
the word to describe her. Pessimistic, perturbed, pissed. Yep, all those fit.
Perky? No. The
only thing  perky about Rionne were her boobs, their overinflated glory
bound and boosted to add some allure to her otherwise bitchy demeanor.  Day
after day, male customers changed lines to be serviced by Rionne at the front
desk instead of Crystal, whose own boobs were less than perky. Less than plump,
less than protruding, less than perfect.
    “Did you hear me?”
Rionne tapped her pen on Crystal’s forearm. “You look like death.”
    “What happened to
looking like shit?” Crystal took a step away from the front desk, but could
hardly manage to move her gaze to Rionne’s face. Her eyes felt as if someone
had removed them, used them as beach balls for the afternoon, then put them
back full of sand. A lovely side effect of not sleeping a damn wink.
    Ever.
    “I had to downgrade for
the sickly gray bags under your eyes. I mean, you always look somewhat
zombie-esque, but it’s really bad today. Totally not attractive.” Rionne
flipped her straight blond hair off her sun-tanned shoulder, her full, pink
lips turned down in disapproval.
    Crystal opened her
mouth to reply, but another yawn overtook her.
    “You’ve got to ease off
on the partying, mon amie.” Rionne perched herself on one of the stools behind
the front desk and crossed her impossibly long legs. Allowing her sandal, one
with complicated straps and a cork heel, to dangle from her toes, she said, “Tell
me it’s wild sex keeping you up at night. Your appearance would be worth it if
the sex was mind blowing.”
    Sex? Ha! I barely have
enough energy to bathe myself, never mind have sex. Besides, who the hell would
be my partner? Rionne reels in all the cute ones.
    Crystal shook her head
and immediately regretted it. With no sleep came whopping headaches. She was
used to no sleep. Hadn’t been dozing productively since she was a teenager, but
her teenage body hadn’t cared. It could still keep up. She’d fudged her way
through her twenties with lots of energy drinks. Now that she’d turned thirty,
however, and all she had to show for her life was a stupid Breezes Resort name
tag, her body just couldn’t manage on so little sleep anymore. She didn’t even
dream of a full eight hours either. She’d give her right arm for just twenty
minutes of peaceful slumber. Twenty minutes. Was that too much to ask?
    “Do I really look that
bad?” Crystal squinted at her reflection in the black granite covering the
front desk. While she couldn’t see the color of the bags Rionne had so
graciously pointed out, she could definitely see their size. And a trio of
nasty pimples on her chin. And a few wild strands of long, wavy brown hair that
had escaped from her ponytail. Actually escaped wasn’t the right word.
That would mean she’d attempted to get those strands into the ponytail in the
first place, which she hadn’t. Why bother?
    Rionne’s face came into
view in the granite. She looked so…alive. So I-slept-like-a-baby-and-always-do.
    Oh how Crystal longed
to punch that well-rested face.
    Instead, she let out a
groan and rested her forehead on the cool granite. “You want to dig a hole
tonight, drop me into it, and bury me?” She pressed her cheek into the desk and
closed her dry, scratchy eyes. Maybe she would find some sleep six feet under
the ground. It’d be worth suffocating just