by C. L. Stone
I gulped. “He did.”
He nodded grimly. “Our only hope is that we got lucky and whatever frequency he was on, they hadn’t picked up yet, or weren’t listening to that particular one because they were listening to Axel and Doyle or the others.”
“We should really tell Axel and the others.” Even though I understood why having them looking for me made it appear that I was really gone, I wasn’t comfortable lying to them.
“I haven’t been able to find a way to tell them. Not without security knowing.”
“We should try.”
“If I can, I will. If we can keep you out of sight for a few days, we might get off this boat alive. There’s too many of them, and they’ve got authority and witnesses, and we’re shit. We’re not the CEOs and we aren’t crew.”
“They work for Ethan,” I said. “He can fire them, tell them to stop.”
“They work for old Mr. Murdock, and now they’re listening to this investor. Security will lie to get people thrown into the brig. I’ve seen it done.”
“You don’t think they know I’m here now?”
“You were lucky you wore a disguise to the spa. Now they think there’s another woman. They are looking for her, someone Asian, and now they’ll watch Axel and the others scramble to find you and figure out why their stuff was burned.” He turned toward the door again. “We’ll find another spot, and then I’ve got to find Blake.”
“I should go with you,” I said.
“Too dangerous.”
“You can’t do it alone.”
He turned to me, pressed his lips together, glaring at me. “Don’t make me throw you over again.”
I glared back at him, fists clenched. “You think I’d let you?”
His turned and hit the wall with his fist, not as hard as before, but still with a thud. “I swear I would have gone with you if I could. I was the only one who knew. I was getting you and Blake off this boat alive.”
“I’m not staying still,” I said. “We can’t split up. You owe me for that stupid stunt you pulled. It was completely reckless.”
“You can’t go out there,” he said. “Two steps out of here and you’re a walking dead girl. We’re lucky we made it here without being seen.”
“You can’t stop me. I’ll wear another disguise, but you’re not walking out that door alone.”
He smirked, laid a palm to my cheek, and then pressed his thumb to my lips. “Give me an hour,” he said.
I opened my mouth, like I was going to kiss his thumb. He pushed it inside.
I bit. Hard.
He backed up, shaking his hand, but still wore that smirk. “That a no?”
I still had a concussion, and I worried about my memory, but I thought it was far safer to stay with someone than to separate. What happened if I forgot this conversation and ran out to find Axel without thinking? “I’ll give you five minutes to find a disguise for me.”
The Bear in a Rat Maze
It was jarring to my senses to be worrying about Raven and looking for him one minute and then doing the same for Blake the next, especially knowing now that he was a target.
Without the help of Axel’s team and the technology, finding him might be a slow process.
We also needed to find out who this investor was. We couldn’t walk away from the ship without knowing.
I sensed the anguish Axel, Brandon, and the others would feel when I disappeared on them again. They wouldn’t know if I’d been thrown over. They would worry, especially with my concussion, that I wouldn’t survive another swim. I probably wouldn’t.
Despite what Raven had said, I wanted to keep on the lookout for them. They needed to know. We’d already be scattered now, especially with security having taken control of Doyle’s place.
I couldn’t remember the last moment I had seen Blake, but I felt he had been quiet for a while. I’d sensed it at lunch, but with the concussion, I hadn’t asked about him. It had felt like someone was missing, and no one had mentioned him. I had assumed they were all just avoiding him when possible.
I needed to ask Raven more about Sam and who he’d talked to, but out in the open, I held my tongue in check.
Despite the danger, I couldn’t stop thinking about Corey and Raven, and how they felt about me, and each other. Why hadn’t he told me before? Why hadn’t Corey?
Maybe they had been trying to tell me in their own ways. Maybe I hadn’t been listening. Corey was always so close to me, and if I hadn’t been told he was gay, I would never have questioned it. I would have recognized the flirting for what it was.
In order to keep ahead of security and the Academy team, Raven said we needed to stay on the move. We needed to go to places that had already likely been searched until we could find somewhere appropriate for me. We had to avoid public areas, where security would be watching, so we stuck to crew-only areas and skirted around the fringes of the ship.
He kept us to maintenance corridors until we got to a room with repair equipment and paint inside. It smelled of oil and I sneezed a lot until I got used to it. It shook my brain a bit when I sneezed.
I stroked my forehead. “I need aspirin.”
Raven stood by the door, holding it closed. He looked ready to knock people over if someone tried to come in. “What’s wrong with you?”
“I’ve got a concussion. From the goon who knocked me out down by the spa.”
He smirked at me at first and then suddenly looked horrified. “Why didn’t you tell me when I carried you?”
“I didn’t exactly have a chance.”
He grunted. “Then we need to go slow.”
I didn’t want him babying me if it meant delaying finding Blake. “We don’t need to go slow. I just need an aspirin.”
“I’ll get you aspirin. We need to get you something else to wear. And something to hide your face.”
“Find a hoodie, or a wig. And aspirin.”
I sat on top of a wood crate and leaned back against the wall. This room wasn’t as hot as the last one, but it was uncomfortable. The floor was kind of gross, with oil drops and sand, and not enough room to lie down and really relax my tense body. The crate was hard on my butt.
Raven searched the room’s overcrowded shelves. He picked up a wooden doorstop and then shoved it under the door, wedging it in. “That’ll give me a few seconds.” He turned to me, kneeled on the floor in front of me, and looked up at my face. “I can go get things, but you have to promise me you’ll stay here.”
“You shouldn’t go out alone.”
“You can’t go where I’ll be going. You’re too noticeable.” He reached up, touching my nose once. “That face attracts too much attention.”
I smirked at him, shaking my head a little. “What about your face?”
“Crew thinks I’m crew. Security thinks I’m crew. I just need to avoid our team to keep things going.” He patted my knee. “It’s why I got away from the others. Kept myself apart. If I go back and talk to them, security will know about me.”
Made sense. “What about Avery and Ethan? Are they going to be okay?”
“They’re okay,” he said with a grin. “They can’t be touched. Don’t worry.”
I didn’t really understand, but I felt I could trust him. At least he hadn’t thrown them overboard. “Don’t forget about Liam and Henry. They’re probably looking for us, too.”
“I’ll watch for them.” He placed a hand on my knee. “Stay? For right now?”
I nodded. I wasn’t sure I could keep up with him while I had a headache anyway. I wanted a few minutes to save my strength and rest my brain.
He bent down, kissing my knees, and then backed away. “Hide somewhere. Don’t come out until you hear from me.”
I turned, looking at the shelves and the room as he left. The room had lots of boxes, small maintenance stuff, paint cans.
I tested the shelves, trying to figure out if I could just move some boxes around and
hide behind them. Might be too obvious. The shelves were jammed next to each other in the corners, and the space was too small to hide in. I tried moving one set of shelves, but they were secured to the floor.
Nowhere to really hide, not like the pipe room.
I wondered if I could squeeze into a crate, but then I noticed a vent in the far corner.
I tested my weight on the shelving, and when it seemed secure, I climbed up. I wedged myself over a couple of boxes to get to the corner. I yanked on the vent cover, but it didn’t budge. Looked too small anyway. There was no telling what was inside, either. Spiders. Dead bodies. Ick.
I was about to jump down when the door started to open. I ducked on the top shelf, flattening my body and freezing in place.
“I swear, I saw two people come in here and then one left,” a voice said, gravelly and unfamiliar.
“No one’s here.” The light went out. “Are you sure it wasn’t Carl?”
“They said to be on the lookout. I’m looking. Wish I knew what we were looking for. I don’t know all the faces on the crew yet.”
“Probably just Carl.”
The door closed. I stayed on the shelf, in the dark.
The space was cramped but I did my best to relax. After several minutes of silence, I drifted off, dozing, but then forced myself to stay awake. I didn’t want to be snoring if someone else came in.
I considered places where Blake might hide. Fancy’s suite, maybe. Seemed a safe enough spot for him to check in, although right now, it might be one of a few places Axel and the team would be able to hide themselves. We were running out of safe locations.
Too many people drifting in and out of Fancy’s suite might draw attention.
If Blake had been caught, though. Sam would know.
First thing we needed to do then was to ensure he wasn’t with Sam. If he wasn’t there, he was at least still hiding, hopefully somewhere safe.
I was lost in thought, wondering how to approach Sam, when the door opened again, letting in light from outside.
I stiffened, and waited.
The door stayed open.
Silence.
The door closed again. The room went dark.
I pressed my hand to my chest, willing my heart to slow down as I listened, hearing nothing. Raven was right—we needed to stay on the move. We were outnumbered by the crew. Wasn’t this ship supposed to be sailing for four or five days? There was no way we could keep this up for so long. If we were going to live through this, I needed to blend in.
I let out a slow breath and turned on the shelf, trying to get comfortable. My hip pushed one of the boxes, making scratching noises against the metal.
“Who’s in here?” a voice said as the light went on, blinding me since I was so close to the ceiling light. Pain surged through my brain.
Trying to cover my eyes, I knocked over a box. Never said I was graceful.
“I know you’re here.”
The voice.
I sat up quickly.
Corey. He was wearing a crew outfit, black on black. There were dark smudges on his hands and across one cheek. Oil or dirt.
I held a hand toward my chest, breathed out slowly. “Thank goodness, it’s you.”
His eyes widened. He moved from the door, closing it behind him, motioning to me. “We’ve been looking for you,” he said. “Come down. I’ll take you to—”
“No,” I said, and I waved him off. “You have to leave.”
“Leave?” he asked. “You need to come with me. Everyone’s going crazy.”
“I know,” I said. “Let them keep looking for me.”
“What?” He stopped just below the shelf I was sitting on. “Why?”
“I can’t explain, but look at me,” I said, even though he was already doing that. I pointed to my face, hoping I appeared serious. “I need you to walk out, pretend you never saw me, and keep looking for me.”
He frowned. “What’s wrong?”
No time to explain. The longer he stayed in here, the more suspicious people watching him would get. “Do you trust me?” I asked.
He nodded slowly.
I steadied my gaze on him. “Do you trust Raven?”
His eyes widened. “Yeah.”
“Don’t tell Axel or the others that you saw me unless you are absolutely sure they are alone. Let them keep looking.”
He frowned. “Anything else I should do?”
Thank goodness he was willing to listen. Axel and the others might not have been so willing to trust me unconditionally. “Be very, very careful. Security is watching.”
His frown deepened. “And we need to let them?”
“Yes. Spend your time looking for me. Get off the boat safe, that’s all we need to do. Oh, and find Blake if you can. Right now. We’re looking for him, too. If you find him, keep him stashed somewhere safe. We’ll find out if you have him.” I wasn’t sure how, but I bet Raven would know a way.
His frown instantly disappeared and his face brightened. “He did find you,” he said.
I put a finger to my lips, and then winked at him. “Don’t tell anyone.”
He nodded and then went to the door. “Light on or off?”
“Off is fine…Corey?”
He paused at the door, switching the light off. “Yup?”
I didn’t know how to say it. The throbbing in my head and the stress of everything…I had no time to figure out how to be delicate. “I didn’t know…how you felt about me before. Not fully. I’m sorry about that.”
It was a long moment before he spoke, so long I worried he wouldn’t say anything. “Don’t be sorry,” he finally said, his voice coming at me through the dark. “But I thought you knew.”
“I know now.” I wanted to say much more, but there wasn’t time. If he didn’t leave right now, someone watching might think he’d found something. “Be safe,” I said. “Don’t get hurt.”
“You, too,” he said. He walked out, closing the door behind him.
I relaxed as best as I could on top of the shelf, listening to my breaths, hearing them slow back to normal.
I wanted to tell him so much. I just hoped I’d get the chance.
A Night with a Bear
It was another ten minutes, I guessed, before Raven returned. His nose was clean, and he had some sort of thin bandage over the top of it. It was swollen and getting more discolored as time went on.
He carried two dingy blue jumpsuits, two hard hats, two pairs of protective earmuffs. He presented a set to me as I came down off the shelf.
“We’ll be maintenance,” he said.
The jumpsuit could fit over my clothes, but I discarded everything except the bra and underwear. It would be too hot otherwise. He kept his jeans on, but took off the bloody shirt. He dropped our discarded clothes into a bucket and pushed it as far back into the room as possible. “We might want to use these later.”
I zipped up the suit. It was bulky, but I rolled up the legs.
“You should pull your hair back,” Raven said. “No one wears their hair down in maintenance.”
“I don’t have a band,” I said, looking around the supply room but not seeing much to work with.
He made a circling gesture with his finger. “Turn around. I’ll braid it.”
I smirked at him. “You braid hair?”
“You’re not the first girl I’ve been around, little thief.”
I didn’t want to hear about that.
I turned, presenting him with my hair. “Corey was here. Caught me. He knows I’m hiding.”
Raven snorted, reaching up to my hair and gently collecting it in his hands. He parted it, combing with his fingers. “Proud of my boy.”
“I told him to pretend to keep looking for me and to try to look for Blake. If he does find him, I told him to hide him somewhere.”
“Good. They should be looking for him. Especially now. But we need to look, too. We can look in places t
hey can’t.”
I waited while he did a single braid, liking the feeling of his hands in my hair. In the end, he did a weird twist thing to it, which was basically a small knot to hold it in place. When he was finished, he flattened his palm against the braid, smoothing it before he kissed me on the back of my head. “I usually like it down, but up is good. Your face is good.”
Flattering. “I like your face, too.”
He smiled widely at my compliment and then asked, “Corey knows I’m here?”
“Yeah.”
“Good,” he said and gave me the hard hat. “I got your aspirin, too.”
“I need to stop by a bathroom,” I said. I wasn’t even sure what time it was anymore. Afternoon, for sure.
“We will. We’ll also have to find a place to bunk for a few hours. You should sleep anyway. Guests are supposed to be in their rooms. It’ll be too obvious if we’re just walking around.”
I put on the hard hat and kept the earmuffs around my neck. The big earpieces covered my cheeks, helping to mask my face. I tucked the braid into the hard hat. I’d look more like a boy, which was good. A girl maintenance crewmember would stand out to the maintenance men.
Raven guided me as we left the room. We went further down into the ship and stopped by a bathroom, where I got water for my aspirin and took care of things.
We walked for what felt like ages around the ship, taking our time to look for Blake and dodging security.
But Raven was right—if people were confined to their rooms because of the fire, we needed to lay low.
I was a zombie on my feet anyway.
He must have read my thoughts. “We’re no good,” he whispered to me in the hallway. “I was up all night. We can’t fight anyone like this.”
He guided me to the crew bunks. There were four tiny bunks to a room. Crewmembers’ names were written on labels on each bunk. Raven found a vacant room with an empty bed without a name.
He urged me up and into the bunk. I crawled into the narrow space, careful to not hit my head on the low ceiling. There was no window, making me thankful I wasn’t claustrophobic.
