Rising Storm: The Last Sanctuary: Book One

by Kyla Stone

  “Father! Please!” she pleaded.

  His face contorted. Remorse flared in his eyes.

  “Help me!”

  Just as quickly, it winked out. His gaze dropped to his lap.

  “Dad!”

  He wouldn't look at her.

  In the dim lighting, she barely recognized him. Maybe there were tears glistening in his eyes. Or maybe there weren’t. She couldn't tell.

  Either way, he'd abandoned her. Either way, she was dead.

  He wasn't going to save her.

  He didn't want her. The single thought beat through the haze of terror and pain. He didn't want her. He was her father in everything but DNA. He had raised her. But he hadn't loved her. He couldn't have, after this. Dismissing her suffering—her impending death—without a mote of actual feeling. After all she had sacrificed for him, spending her life trying to please him, trying to earn his respect, his love.

  It didn't matter. None of it mattered. She didn't matter. Not to her father. Not to Gabriel. Not to anyone.

  “Give me the girl,” Kane said with a sneer, his gaze slithering over her.

  Fear plunged a dagger into her belly.

  “No,” Simeon said. “That's not how we do things.”

  “You owe me!” Kane snarled.

  Cheng spoke into his satphone. “Enough!” he said, his scar pulsing purple. He’d barely raised his voice, but all the attention in the room turned to him. “We’re out of time.”

  Simeon shot him a look, his brows knitted, his jaw clenched. “What are you talking about?”

  “The Voyager is wired with explosives. They’re set to go off in just under twenty minutes.”

  Simeon's face blanched. He stared at Cheng with his mouth half-open. “What?”

  “The ship sinks.”

  Simeon’s eyes clouded with fury—and wariness. “You can't do that. What about—?”

  Cheng's rifle came to rest pointed not quite at Simeon, but very close. “We have our own orders. I'm sure you understand.”

  “What orders?” Simeon cried. “From who?”

  Tension sizzled in the air. Every terrorist stiffened, fingers hovering over the triggers of their weapons. Cheng splayed his legs, his chest out, his nostrils flaring. The power had shifted, subtly but irrevocably. Simeon and the New Patriots were no longer in charge.

  Amelia didn’t know exactly what it meant, but she knew it was bad. Things were about to get worse. Much worse.

  “Who gave those orders?” Simeon demanded.

  The barrel of Cheng’s rifle swung up. “We share the same client, I believe.”

  “And our extraction?” Simeon's voice went hoarse.

  Cheng shrugged dismissively. “It will be taken care of. As promised.”

  “I want the girl,” Kane said again.

  Cheng nodded, not taking his eyes off Simeon. “Be my guest.”

  Her breathe stilled in her throat. Her bones turned to water.

  Gabriel charged forward and grabbed Simeon's arm, his face etched with anguish and outrage. “You swore to me! You can't do this!”

  Simeon pivoted, pointing his weapon at Gabriel's chest. “Do not interfere. We all must make sacrifices.”

  “She's a human being, not a sacrifice!”

  Simeon's expression was strained, his voice hoarse. “Sometimes we don’t have a choice, son.”

  Kane grabbed her by the hair and jerked her to her feet. The floor rolled beneath her. She stumbled as he half-shoved, half-dragged her to the bridge door. She managed to hold on to her clutch, grasping it like a lifeline, like it could somehow save her from what was coming.

  “No!” Her mother cried. “Please! Don't hurt her! Declan, do something!”

  Her mother’s voice was the last thing Amelia heard before the bridge door slammed behind her.

  43

  Micah

  Micah stood with Silas, Jericho, and several security personnel in the CSO’s office. The walls were a bland white, the desk and shelves industrial steel. When they’d entered the office a few minutes earlier, they’d found the group Patel had told them about—five men cowering in a small storage closet in the back—including Chief Security Officer Franz Schneider.

  “What do you need?” the CSO asked. Schneider was a tall German man with a proud, arrogant bearing, with graying reddish hair shorn close to his skull and watery eyes from decades of smoking cigars. Anger flared in Micah's chest every time he looked at him.

  “Weapons and men,” Jericho said.

  “We do keep a few weapons on board, but not enough.” Schneider pressed his hand against the front of a large safe. The sleek surface glowed around his fingers as it read his biometrics. The door clicked open. The interior of the safe contained a half-dozen pistols and rifles.

  “Could've used these a few hours ago,” Jericho said sourly, grabbing a gun and clipping it to his belt.

  Schneider rubbed his neck. “This is established cruise industry protocol and the official recommendation of Voyager Enterprises. Guns are forbidden in most parts of the world. Most of our international crew wouldn’t know how to use one. To avoid undue stress on passengers, ship's officers do not carry weapons.”

  “Undue stress?” Jericho’s eyes bulged. “They're worried about stress? How did Voyager Enterprises plan to protect their investment from hostiles, especially considered the caliber of your guests?”

  Schneider shifted uncomfortably. “We have emergency protocols. We have plenty of security. There has never been an attack on a ship such as the Grand Voyager.”

  “You made the erroneous assumption that a hostile attack would only come from the outside,” Jericho said.

  Schneider blinked. “That is correct. We had no idea we'd been infiltrated by terrorists. No safety protocol can protect against all possibilities—”

  “What about the drugs?” Micah interrupted, too furious to remain silent any longer. “You're smuggling Silk. You a terrorist, too?”

  “Is that true?” Jericho narrowed his eyes. His hand drifted to his holster.

  Schneider looked about to deny it, but he sighed instead. “Only the drugs. I had no idea about anything else. We weren't smuggling it into the U.S. We were smuggling it out. There is high demand in certain countries for a substance that calms and subdues its users, rather than inciting violence and gang warfare.”

  Rage jolted through Micah. He wanted to punch the man in the face. “It subdues the life out of them!”

  “We all know what it's like to try and take care of our families.” Schneider's voice rose. “No job pays enough. They offered forty grand a shipment. I have two daughters. I could not turn it down.”

  “And the guns?” Micah asked.

  Schneider raised his hands. “I had nothing to do with any guns. I swear.”

  Micah noticed Silas staring at him out of the corner of his eye, his brows furrowed in scrutiny, like he recognized Micah and was trying to place him. Did Silas know Gabriel was his brother, that he'd turned traitor? Heat crept up Micah's neck, shame filling him. He looked away.

  “We don't have time for this,” Jericho said. “We have two objectives. Free the hostages from the muster stations and move as many survivors into lifeboats as possible, and infiltrate the bridge. The hostiles are holding high value hostages as well as controlling the ship.”

  “The ship can be steered from the engine room,” Schneider said.

  “The hostiles already have the engine room. They gained control through subterfuge. We would not be so lucky. The door is reinforced steel and the windows are plexiglass. We could attempt to break in with sledgehammers or an acetylene torch, but we'd be sitting ducks in the process.”

  “What do you recommend?” Schneider asked uneasily. He handed a pistol to each of his men, his eyes darting from the weapons to the men's faces. “A shootout on a ship is a huge risk. This will only escalate the violence.”

  “While you've been in here cowering like little girls, the violence has been plenty escalated,” Silas
snapped.

  Schneider shook his head. “The golden rule of piracy: give them what they want. Don't resist. They drain financial accounts and steal jewels and SmartFlexes and they leave.”

  “These aren't just pirates.” Jericho's voice hardened. “They're terrorists. They're out for blood. You're done hiding, do you understand? It's time to fight.”

  Schneider’s nostrils flared. He lifted his hands placatingly. “We weren't hiding! We were enacting safety protocols. In the event of any hostile attack, all personnel should retreat to their cabins. We are not trained in combat. We are given explicit instructions never to engage—”

  “Enough.” Jericho checked the clip on his assault rifle. “None of that matters now. We need a plan. To evacuate the passengers, we need a diversion at the muster stations, as well as security to sweep the deck as passengers board the lifeboats. The storm makes things tricky, but it'll be harder for the hostiles as well. We took out two of the bastards guarding the boats earlier. You may have a clear passage, or you might have to fight through. I need a few of your men to help me take the bridge.”

  “You have them, including myself. We aren't afraid to fight. We were simply following—”

  “Do you have access to the bridge?” Jericho interrupted, as sickened by Schneider as Micah felt.

  “As Chief Security Officer, my retinal scan will automatically go through, even if they've tried to change the security code. The problem is the security camera. They'll see us coming and shoot us as soon as the door opens.”

  “That's why we need a distraction.” Jericho frowned, cracking his knuckles. “Can you pull up the HVAC system?”

  “Yes, I have access. But—”

  “How much space in those ducts?”

  “There's two feet of space between decks for ductwork, wiring, and such. The amount of airflow required for the size of the ship ensures most ducts are wide enough for a small, nimble adult—if that's what you're thinking.”

  “It will do. Micah, Silas, you'll come with me. Micah, you're the only one here small enough. Are you willing to volunteer?”

  Micah didn't hesitate. He would do anything to put a stop to this, to end the killing. “Absolutely.”

  “That's what I want to hear.”

  Schneider swiped his tablet several times and activated the holo port. The blueprints hovered in the air in front of them. “There are fans here and here.” He pointed a thick finger. “But if you enter here, through the vent in the Second Officer's quarters, located portside, you will have unobstructed access. However, several turns will be difficult to manage. The sheet metal has sharp edges, and you will likely make considerable noise.”

  Micah swallowed. “Sounds a tad more difficult than they make it look in the movies.”

  Jericho smiled grimly. “Real life usually is.”

  “Hope you're not claustrophobic,” Silas said, sounding an awful lot like he hoped Micah was.

  “You won't be able to open the grille over the bridge as the screws will be on the outside,” Schneider warned.

  Jericho shook his head. “I have a workaround. He doesn't actually need to get in the bridge, just close.”

  Micah bit the inside of his cheek, forcing down his anxiety. He focused on the blueprints, trying to memorize the twists and turns in the narrow, convoluted ductwork.

  “What if they hear him?” Silas asked. “Won't they just shoot at the ceiling and blow him to smithereens?”

  Micah tried not to imagine being trapped in a tight, confined space, bullets ripping through the sheet metal all around him. “What he said.”

  Jericho frowned. “How close can he get without entering the actual bridge space?”

  Schneider drew a line with his finger. “Approximately seven feet of ductwork extends beyond the interior wall before the vent located here.”

  “Seven feet. That'll still work.” Jericho smacked Micah on the back so hard he almost pitched forward into the desk. “I guess you'll live through this after all.”

  “Great,” Micah wheezed.

  “Not much will filter into the vent and it’ll dissipate in less than five minutes, but it will probably still hurt like hell.”

  Micah swallowed. “What?”

  “You’ll need a mask. Unfortunately, I only have a flimsy paper one.”

  “What are you talking about?” Micah wasn’t sure he even wanted to know.

  Jericho pulled something flat, shiny, and disc-shaped out of his backpack. A drone. This one was smaller than the neighborhood guardian drones, about the size of a large dinner plate. He pressed a button, and an LED light in the center flashed blue. He pried open the back panel. Micah glimpsed its guts—wires and electrodes and other stuff Gabriel would know, but Micah never had an interest in.

  Pain speared him at the thought of his brother. He shoved it aside. He took a closer look at the drone. “Wait. Is that thing weaponized?”

  Jericho smiled. “Protectionary measures only, I assure you. This has a modified tear gas canister. And it's going to save our asses.”

  44

  Gabriel

  “You let him take her!” Helpless rage boiled through Gabriel. “You know what he's going to do to her!”

  Simeon shook his head. His face was strained, dark smudges beneath his eyes. “I didn’t have a choice, Gabriel. I need you to keep it together. Remember the cause.”

  “How could you do this?” He stared at Simeon, the man who'd basically raised him, who'd been like a father. Now he was a stranger. The man who'd paid for his school lunches, who taught him how to handle a classic car, one without auto-drive. His friend, mentor, and protector. Simeon, who had promised they'd all be heroes, who'd sworn only the guilty would die, and even then, as few as possible.

  Simeon promised Amelia wouldn’t be hurt. Then he’d tortured her himself, with his own hands. Amelia had warned Gabriel, and he hadn’t believed her. Gabriel had trusted Simeon. Simeon, who had lied about everything.

  Simeon refused to answer him. He stalked to the bridge starboard windows and looked out at the storm. He pulled out his satphone and spoke in a voice too quiet for Gabriel to overhear. Cheng and his men huddled together, their heads bent, muttering into their own satphones.

  “I'll get you what you want.” Declan Black leaned forward in the captain's chair.

  Bitterness coiled in his belly and slithered up his throat. He'd believed in this cause since he was fourteen. But first, he'd believed in a man. A man who wasn't who he said he was. A man who couldn't possibly stand for the ideals he'd preached for the last decade. Gabriel was crumbling. “You don't know the first thing about what I want.”

  “You want her.”

  The ship rolled. Lightning lit up the bridge windows.

  “I can get you what you want.”

  Revulsion clogged Gabriel’s throat. “Lies of a broken and desperate man. Even if she made it off the boat alive, she wouldn't want anything to do with you. Not after this.”

  “Yes, she will. She'll have to.”

  He remembered Amelia's words as she slumped in the patio chair, trembling and exhausted, the sky darkening, electrons sizzling, the wind whipping all around them. She'd shared her deepest secret, her weakness.

  And Gabriel had betrayed her.

  Black read his face and smirked. “Amelia actually developed feelings for you, didn't she? She told you about her little condition.”

  Gabriel despised the sound of her name on that man's lips. It didn't matter if he was her father; he was a monster. “Shut up, you bastard.”

  “You know I'm right. She needs the medication or she's dead or a vegetable. Every seizure destroys more of that pretty brain of hers. If she makes it off the ship, she'll find me. And you can be there, right by my side.”

  “If I let you go, you'll just kill me.” He masked the desire springing up inside him, the hope that Amelia might live through this, that his betrayal hadn’t killed her.

  “I have a need for those with certain . . . skills. There is
a place for you.”

  There was no place left for Gabriel. Not here. Not anymore. Not with a monster like Black. Not with a deceiver like Simeon. Not with Amelia, who Gabriel had betrayed and destroyed. Not even with Micah, who was too good to ever forgive him now. Gabriel was trapped in a shadowy no man’s land of rage, self-loathing, and hatred.

  He made the decision in an instant. Once it was made, there was no turning back. In one swift motion, he lifted his gun, swiveled, and aimed it at Simeon's head.

  Simeon looked up. Surprised disbelief and outrage sparked in his eyes.

  “Hey!” Hollis shouted. “Stop!”

  Gabriel pulled the trigger, the gunshot echoing in his ears. Simeon fell almost soundlessly. His body lay twitching on the floor, then went still.

  “What the—?” Hollis swung around.

  Across the room, Cheng raised his pulse gun and shot Hollis. The laser pulsed wide, striking her left shoulder. The smell of singed flesh filled the bridge.

  Hollis stumbled, then righted herself, shrieking as she gripped her limp, lifeless arm. Before she could raise her own gun, Cheng shot her three more times. Hollis triggered the assault rifle as she fell, slugs hammering the floor, the wall, and the ceiling only a few feet from where Gabriel stood.

  “Thank you for that.” Cheng grinned, his scar wrinkling his left cheek. “I was about to kill that self-righteous prick myself.”

  Gabriel stiffened. “I didn't do it for you, asshole.”

  “You can still redeem yourself,” Black said fervently. “You can make the right choice.”

  “There is no redemption.” The words were bitter as poison in his mouth. He widened his stance and pressed his gun against Declan Black's head.

  “I'm afraid I can't let you do that.” Cheng aimed his pulse gun at Gabriel. So did the three men behind him.

  Black's face paled, but his voice remained steady. “Choose your actions carefully. Kill me and Amelia's treatment goes with it. Is that what you want?”

  “Amelia's dead anyway. You and Simeon made sure of that.”