My iPad's battery dies, leaving me with nothing but a vast expanse of the midnight sky and sea. After Adrien and I's little talk, it became much easier to focus on the words of the ebook I had been struggling to read. I smile to myself as I recall it.

A soft breeze ruffles my hair, I take off my glasses and glance up at the sky, trying to spot a star.

"Truth or dare?" Amanda's voice draws my attention to them. They're sitting in a circle, busy playing for the last hour or so. Arianna insisted a lot to me to join them, but I refused. I needed a break. These twenty-four hours have been extremely tiring.

"Dare," Adrien answers. A feline smile arches Sophia's lips as she leans into him as if she already knows what Amanda is about to say.

"Kiss the most beautiful girl on this yacht," Amanda demands a second later.

Adrien rolls his eyes, scowling, "That's childish."

"Dude, it's not that hard," Calvin points out.

Adrien zooms on me. I offer a small smile before looking elsewhere. I feel his gaze linger on me and Sophia's smile falls, giving place to a death glare directed at me. She shifts, moving away from Adrien, but before she says anything, Adrien angles towards her and kisses her. Last night flashes before my eyes, when he pressed his lips to mine. My chest oddly tightens. I shake my head and shove the image aside. A side effect of not being kissed for over two years.

As they pull apart, I catch Arianna glaring at Adrien and when he sees it; she rolls her eyes. What's wrong with her?

I peek at Sophia and thankfully she's no longer glowering.

Their game continues, and I glance at them from time to time. Tonight is oddly windy for late July. Or maybe it's natural for after midnight.

The ocean is scarier after sunset, so I gaze up at the stars. A pang of pain shoots through my chest as I remember my excitement when I first bought my telescope and Frank took me for a night of stargazing outside of New York. The enthusiasm I had back then warms my heart, but it breaks it too.

It's been so long since the last time I felt that happy.

I shake my head and push away that thought. It's in the past.

Eventually, they get bored with the game and divide into small groups. The boys climb up the stairs leading to the second floor of the yacht. Arianna makes her way towards me, plopping down next to me, a wide smile on her face.

She looks around and then leans to me. "Don't know what you did or said to Jeff, but I'm glad you got him off your back. He gives me the creeps," she confesses. "And did you notice how he was looking at Dylan during the game, or even when we were swimming? Or how Dylan was behaving around him last night? I thought about it a lot but picked up nothing. Didn't you find it suspicious?"

I nod, "Yeah, because it was. He tried to steer clear of his path today all along."

She presses her mouth into a thin line, "Something's up, knowing Dylan, it can't be good."

"We don't know anything for sure. Maybe it's nothing?" I suggest, even though I highly doubt it to be true.

"I hope so," she mumbles. After a long silence, she jumps up, "Want a drink?"

I shake my head and she playfully rolls her eyes. "I'll be back in a minute, I've got a lot of shit to talk to you about. And don't think I'm gonna let you off the hook for sulking all day. I want explanations," she states, but the corners of her mouth lift and I smile up at her.

She walks away and I push myself to my feet, for the sake of stretching them after sitting here for hours. I step aside from the seats and walk towards the railing. I rest my fingertips on the cool metal before grasping it and staring into the pitch black of the past midnight sky and ocean.

"Eleanor," Sophia's voice claws the insides of my skull. I spin, facing her.

A smile plasters across her face, but it doesn't have an ounce of kindness. I gulp as I study her.

She crosses her arms in front of herself, stepping closer to me. I try to retreat, but the back of my thigh hits the railing and in fear of falling over, I hold my ground.

Confronting Sophia is a better option than plunging into the sea.

"You didn't join us in anything today," she starts, tilting her head. "Don't you like us?" she purrs.

Oh god.

"It's not that, I-I just didn't feel like it," I stutter as my fingers fiddle.

Her perfectly painted mouth shapes an O as she nods. "Do you remember what I told you back in Amsterdam?" she sneers.

With hesitance, I nod.

"So you must remember when I said stay away from Adrien, right?" her light voice is poison to my ears. Dread crawls up and down my spine.

"I-I do," I stammer, cursing myself in my mind for not being able to stand firm.

She leans to me, rage tinting her pink cheeks bright red. The strong smell of alcohol burns my nostrils. I lean away, clutching the railing behind me. My heart hammers in my chest, its beats pound in my head, I struggle to draw in a breath.

"Then what the fuck was he doing in your room last night?" she growls.

My body trembles as I dare a glance at her face, her eyes shooting daggers and laser beams, ready to burn me to ashes.

I scan the place. The other girls are busy gushing and gossiping. Arianna is inside the living area of the yacht, in a hunt for booze.

I'm knee-deep in shit.

"H-he was drunk, he mistook my suite with his and then passed out," I splutter.

"Fucking liar, you bitch. I warned you to stay away from him. You can't steal him from me, you fucking prude," she snarls.

Why the hell would I steal Adrien from her? We've barely just begun being friends. What is wrong with this psycho!

I want to tell her I'm not planning on doing that. That she shouldn't feel threatened by me, but the words stick to my throat and my mouth refuses to open.

"And I told you I will fucking kill you. So I'm telling you one last time, retard, I will kill you if you get close to him." she spats.

She pulls away, and a breath of relief escapes me. My body relaxes. I let go of the metal railing.

She turns to walk off but halts and shifts back to me. Her lips curl into a cruel smile. "And just to make sure you won't forget it, I'll give you a demo of what I'll do."

Before I can process her words, she stretches her both hands towards me, with a surprising amount of force her palms contact with my chest.

I lose my balance and the next thing I know is the awful sense of falling.

Panic clouds my skull as I fall forever. But too soon I'm pulled into the cold water.

Too cold. That's the first thing I realize. Closely followed by the burning sensation in my eyes.

Fear locks my muscles. I can't move, nor can I even close my eyes as I go deeper and deeper into the water and darkness, further away from the yacht and the surface.

And the first thought that sinks in my brain is, I'm drowning.

I'm literally going to be suffocated.

If the situation wasn't so damn dire, I would have laughed. For a second my muscles fight the panic to move, hoping to reach Oxygen.

But this time, I command my limbs to still.

Isn't this what I've always wanted?

The death will be accidental. Everything will be over.

The pain. Not being good enough. Constantly being a disappointment. It'll all be over. Deep within me, I don't want to die, not tonight at least, but I guess I don't have a say in it. I should be happy, it'll finally be over.

It seems like ages, but I know it has to be lesser than twenty seconds since I've hit the ocean. My brain isn't screaming for air, yet.

Against all my instincts, to fasten up the process and be over with it, I draw in the water. Its salty, fishy scent almost makes me gag. My throat contracts, my chest aches as I push the water into my lungs, not stopping. While chanting one phrase in my head.

Cause of death, drowning.

+++

*Evil laughter* I am back with a dramatic chapter, you're welcome ;)

Anyway, sorry for not updating for so long, but I've got a couple of news, so you've read this far, please read till the end :** Okay, here we go:

1) I'll be updating Acumen twice a week from today onwards. Tuesdays and Thursdays =)

2) If I keep up with my schedule, I should be able to wrap this book up by the first or second week of May, yes, we're coming close to its end =)

3) There's a sequel on the way, titled Acumen: Riddling Sentiments [I know not very creative, but you'll get it once I start uploading it and you guys read it] but I must say, I won't be writing the sequel immediately, because I need some time to plan it out and I need a break from my Acumen project. Which leads us to my fourth announcement.

4) I'm actively working on 3-4 other stories excluding Acumen XD  BUT there's this story (I've only posted 1 chapter of it) and I'm planning on working on that, once this Acumen is done, the sequel of this book will start getting published once that book is done.

5) That book is called Fearful Hearts, a slow-burn romance, where I hope I can finally convince my main characters to sleep with each other XD anyway, just kidding (not really), that story is the polar opposite of Acumen, it's somewhat a fluff romance, more on the fun side of the scale, with a dash of humour and hopefully, a considerable amount of steamy scenes (I'm trying a new writing style, okay!) and I'll be updating it quite fast once this Acumen is done. Then you can read that (of course, if it's something that you like) and after that, we'll dive into Acumen: Riddling Sentiments.

6) Not really relevant, but I'm writing 2 ONCs and even though I'm not really confident about either of them, it would mean the world if you could check one of them out, especially the one called The Solution. Because it's absolutely out of my comfort zone but I might be lowkey obsessed with it XD It's a slow burn romance between a college student and her professor. Hey! No, I'm not promoting illegal stuff, it's not what you think (well at least not exactly), so yeah =)))))))) but there is romance in it [and maybe some steamy scenes ;) teehee]. And if you're curious, my other ONC is a paranormal story with a enemies to lovers romance as its subplot =)

That's it folks, I know, it was a really long AN, but hey, you're going to get frequent updates, so it makes up for it XD

Thank you for reading this chapter, don't forget to vote and comment what you think. Lots of love, stay safe <333