Inside The Maelstrom

"Someone once told me that the word maelstrom meant to be in a state of confused or violent turmoil, or sometimes a powerful whirlpool in the sea from which few ever emerged. That resonated with me so much that the word became engrained in my life, a label for my very existence. It defined me.

My name is Aviva Robinson, and I am drowning in my own turmoil."

When a dangerous driving charge gets me put in a fancy rehab for rich kids and socialites, I intended to do my time and then leave. I was going to leave behind the sports star who was addicted to uppers, the coke-head lawyers, and the space cadets. I was going to leave behind him.

Hendrick Kenley. Bored, listless, and filthy dirty rich. If there was a waste of oxygen, it was him. My only goal was to avoid him and his beautifully cruel smirk until my time at the Wellness Center was over. I'd get lost in books and the view of the ocean, and then I'd go back to my life.

But Fate, that glorious bitch, had other plans. Days before my release, I picked up a book. Jules Verne's Twenty-Thousand Leagues Under the Sea. In the margins of that tatty paperback was my future, words in smeared ink that spoke to my soul, and I had to find their author. His words felt like they were just for me. He'd left me clues, and I was going to track him down.

Problem was, unlike the rest of the people in the Center, I wasn't there by virtue of a large trust fund. My parents had taken out a second mortgage so I could spend my ninety days here, instead of in juvie.

If I was going to find my Captain Nemo, I had to make a deal with the Devil, and by the Devil I mean Hendrick Kenley and his cohort of disenchanted fools. He offered me a deal I couldn't refuse; he'd pay for everything on the trip, traveling on a private planes and staying in fancy hotels, but I had to let him and his friends tag along. Whatever. They were a means to an end, and that's all.

Down, down, down into the maelstrom I go.