by Matt Lincoln
The man with the gun blinked rapidly, and his eyes widened as he finally focused on my approaching form. His gun rose, the black hole at the end seeming to yawn at me. I swung my leg, knee straight, and my socked toes collided with his hand, snapping it upward. The gun went off, but the bullet buried itself in the ceiling instead of my head, dust sifting down into my hair.
As soon as my foot hit the ground, I shifted my weight and pivoted, my other leg coming up and snapping out at the man’s knee. It connected with a crunch, and the man snarled in pain and dropped to his other knee, face contorting. I followed up as quickly as I could. Fast and brutal. That was usually the best way to win a fight. I swung my fist at his temple, aiming to knock him out cold, but before my knuckles reached him, something long and hard crashed into my back, agony exploding across my ribs.
I buckled and fell forward, barely catching myself before my face smacked into the ground, pain lancing through both wrists. I still somehow managed to react, rolling forward, away from this new assailant, and right into the man with the gun who was still on his knees. My foot smacked into his face, or some part of him, I couldn’t tell since I was currently upside down, and he grunted, knocking my leg away, turning my somersault into an awkward tumble to the side. My heel struck the wall, and I came to a stop flat on my back, not a position anyone ever wanted to be in for a fight.
The man staggered up, favoring the knee I’d kicked, and the woman with the bat loomed over me. Behind them, I caught a glimpse of Lex struggling with the third man who’d regained his senses and his fighting skills.
The two people above me grinned, confident that they were back in control of the situation—which they probably were, but I was trying not to think that way—and I knew that if I was going to win, I would have to act unpredictably.
I braced both feet against the wall and shoved as hard as I could, lengthening my body as I slid across the narrow corridor, arms out above my head to catch myself against the opposite wall. As soon as my hands hit the wood, I ground to a halt, braced my hands on the floor, then bucked my legs up and back down in a rather off-kilter kip-up.
I staggered when my feet hit the ground, crouched beneath my two attackers, and I forced myself upright, driving the crown of my head into the man’s chin. His teeth snapped together with a sharp clack, and pain shot through my skull, but he staggered back, off-balance. I ducked as the woman swung her bat, and she was just close enough that she cracked the man in the face. A tooth flew from his mouth as he spun in a slow, almost lazy circle, tottering on his feet. For a moment, I thought he wouldn’t fall, but then he hit the wall with his shoulder, bounced off, and dropped to the floor.
But I was distracted by his spectacle a moment too long, giving the woman enough time to recover from her first swing and try again. She’d finally realized that the corridor was too narrow to wield the bat properly, so she swung upward instead. She lost a considerable amount of power that way. But I still didn’t want to get smacked by the bat, so I danced out of the way, narrowly avoiding twisting an ankle on the unconscious man. His gun lay by his hand, but as I reached for it, she brought the bat back down, and I scuttled back, fingers grazing the gun without catching on it. The bat whistled as it fell through the air and crashed to the floorboards with a resounding thud. I shuddered to think that that might have been a part of me.
I jumped back to my feet and checked the position of the gun. It was well within the bat’s range, and I doubted I could get at it without risking a broken bone. I abandoned that plan and tried to think of another one as the woman advanced toward me, forcing me further down the hall. I could see Lex just behind the woman, ducking her opponent’s fist and then popping back up with a devastating jab-cross that sent him reeling.
Focus on your own fight, I told myself. I couldn’t afford to get distracted with that bat coming for my bones. The one thing I had going for me was that the narrow corridor prevented her from winding up for a proper swing. I kept my eyes locked on hers, waiting for the tightening that would tell me she was preparing for another strike. I saw it just at the corner of her eyes, and this time, instead of leaping back, I leapt forward, catching her off guard. Her swing faltered just enough for me to grab it, the wood stinging my palm, and I held on for dear life as I continued forward, and she struggled to tear the bat free again. I stepped to the side as I got close, raising my arm, ramming my elbow right into her face so that her head snapped back and blood dribbled from her nose. I pulled on the bat as she staggered back, ripping it free from her grip, and with that sudden lack of resistance, she fell, crashing to the ground on her butt, skidding back a foot.
I didn’t hit her with the bat, despite all the times she’d whacked me with it. I didn’t want to risk killing her with too much force behind the blow, so instead, I wound up and punched her, knocking her out in an instant. She slumped, her head near the other man’s foot, and I leaned on the bat for support as I took my bearings. Lex’s opponent was down as well, and she’d been on her way to help me when I’d delivered the final blow.
“Good?” she asked, and I held up my hand in an “OK” sign, still trying to catch my breath.
“You?” I huffed.
Lex nodded. Her eyes were bright with adrenaline, sparking in the overhead lights, and there was a spot of blood on her forehead, though I couldn’t tell if it was hers. I nudged one of the downed goons to make sure they were truly out for the count, but he didn’t budge, didn’t even groan, his mouth slack while he was trapped in his forced sleep.
“There’s one more staircase,” Lex said, pointing behind me.
I bit back a groan, having hoped that this would be the last of it, and retrieved my gun from the shadowy corner where it had fallen. We checked the closed doors on the hallway quickly, but they only opened on dark and empty rooms in various states of being lived-in. No sign of Malia or Ward. Hopefully, Rachel and Graham were having better luck down below.
The final staircase took us up into the open air, where a huge control console and steering wheel was covered from any potential weather by a canvas awning. I thought it would be odd to steer from so high up, but I supposed it was the only place on this monstrosity where you’d have a 360-degree view of what was around you. Lights winked all along the console, though I couldn’t say what most of them did, and the steering wheel was locked in place by a long bar.
We were alone up there, thankfully, and I took a deep breath of the crisp ocean air. It tasted clean and bracing after the yacht’s narrow corridors and the heavy panting of the fight. Lex and I took a beat up there, needing a quick break before we rendezvoused with Rachel and Graham. She sat on the tall chair bolted to the ground before the wheel, and I leaned on the railing at the back, searching the dark ocean to see if I could spot Linda or Meg’s boat. But there was only the black spread of the water, stretching out into infinity, broken only by the faint lights of the shore off to one side, glowing softly like dim fairy lights strung around a room.
The radio crackled at my hip, startling me from my search with its sharp crackle, slicing through the bubble of silence that surrounded us up there. I stepped back from the railing and tugged it free, pressing the button on the side to answer.
“Jace!” Rachel spat through the speaker. “We need--!”
She was cut off with a burst of harsh static and a loud clatter.
“Rachel?” I said, my heartbeat leaping to new and higher levels. “Rachel, are you okay?”
There was no answer. There wasn’t even static. Her radio was dead.
I looked at Lex, eyes wide. She’d heard the exchange and jumped off her chair the moment Rachel started talking, ready for action. We didn’t even have to speak before we reacted. We simply bolted for the door back into the yacht.
27
Rachel surfaced carefully by the yacht’s pointed bow, water dripping over her wide goggles and warping the world around her just slightly. Graham’s head appeared a second later, the two of them attached by a long length of
rope. Treading water, Rachel tilted her head back and searched for a ladder or rope or something they could use to get aboard.
Graham tapped her shoulder and pointed up at something jutting a foot out from the railing up above. Rachel could barely make out the first rung of a stowed ladder waiting to be pulled out and lowered toward the water. But how to get it down from where they floated? The top of the hull was a good six or seven feet above their heads, and they had no leverage from within the water.
Graham touched her shoulder again and then began to untie the rope that bound their two belts.
“Give me the dry bag,” she whispered, her mouthpiece dangling by her shoulder as water lapped against her chin.
Rachel quickly unbuckled the dry bag from her belt and passed it over. It contained their guns and the radio, and the heft of it had pulled at her constantly as they swam, bobbing in the current. She hadn’t enjoyed that swim, she thought as she passed the bag over. She hadn’t liked the all-encompassing dark and the constant press of the water from all sides. She used to do ocean swims and triathlons all the time in some of the other cities she’d lived in, but that was completely different. They were always during the day, for one, and she could lift her head at any point and see the bright sky above her. But even just a few feet below the surface, the ocean had become a different entity. One she didn’t know as well as she’d thought.
Graham finished tying the dry bag to one end of the rope. Rachel knew what the marshal was trying to do, but she didn’t see how it would work. Graham motioned her to swim back a few feet, and Rachel did so, her flippers propelling her easily through the water. Graham took a deep breath and rolled her shoulders, and then she kicked powerfully with her flippers, forcing the upper half of her body out of the water to almost her waist. She began to wobble and sink almost immediately and didn’t have much time to wind up to cast the rope and its improvised weight at the ladder up above.
Graham missed by a foot, and the dry bag fell back down with an almighty crash that made them both flinch and swim closer to the boat to hide in its shadow in case anyone came to investigate. After ten heartbeats of silence, Graham went back out and tried again. This time, the dry bag hit the ladder with a terrible clang that almost made Rachel tell her to knock it off entirely. She would have if she’d been able to think of any other way to get aboard the ship.
Graham missed on her third try as well, slowly reeling the dry bag back in as it attempted to sink down to the ocean floor. She panted with the exertion, holding the rope out to Rachel. “Here, you try.”
Rachel took it from her, feeling the heft of the dry bag, coiling the other end of the rope around one hand so she wouldn’t lose it. She looked up at the ladder, barely visible in the dark, and wondered again how this was ever going to work. She flutter-kicked with her feet pointed straight down, forcing herself up and out of the water as high as she could, quickly losing buoyancy and balance. There was no time or space to swing the rope in a circle and gain momentum, so she simply threw it upward as hard as she could, trying to aim for the ladder. She splashed back down into the water, knocked off balance by her throw, and as her head broke the water again, she saw the dry bag hit the underside of the ladder and fall back down, the clang echoing very dully around the water.
Rachel and Graham hid within the shadow of the ship again to make sure no one came to investigate. Rachel thought it very odd that no sentries had yet to appear. Surely, they were making a lot of very suspicious noise with their splashing and clanking. And yet, they were still alone.
Rachel tried twice more, and on her final try, the dry bag landed on top of the ladder and stuck there. It took her a moment to realize what had happened because she’d submerged again and didn’t see it land. Graham grabbed her shoulder as she surfaced and shook it, grinning and pointing at her success.
“What now?” Rachel asked.
Graham took the rope from her and carefully shook it, maneuvering the dry bag until it fell in between the ladder’s rungs and lodged there. Graham gave the rope a yank, and Rachel cringed, waiting for the bag to pop free, but it seemed to be stuck there pretty solidly. The ladder didn’t descend, probably locked into place by a clasp. Would it actually bear their weight? Rachel had no idea, but at least it wouldn’t hurt if they fell.
“I’ll go first,” Graham murmured.
She reached down and pulled off her flippers, and Rachel helped her wedge them in the space between her back and the oxygen tank. Graham gave the rope one last tug to make sure it was secure, and then she began to walk up the side of the boat, climbing up the rope hand over hand. Her feet slipped as they left the water, and she clutched at the tether while Rachel’s breath caught in her throat. But Graham didn’t fall, and the dry bag didn’t move from its post.
Graham climbed slowly, carefully testing her footing each time before she put any weight on it, and when she was close enough to the top, she pulled herself in and grabbed the railing, head moving from side to side to check for company before she climbed up and over the slim metal bars.
She poked her head back over the railing and looked down at Rachel.
“All clear,” she called softly.
Rachel slotted her flippers into the space between her back and the tank, the plastic ridges digging into her awkwardly, and then gripped the rope in both hands. It was wet and cold and scratchy against her skin. She took a deep breath and then mimicked what Graham had done, walking her feet up the slick side of the boat as she moved her hands up the rope. The swim socks had a bit of rubber grip on the bottoms, which helped her gain a bit of traction and move without slipping down a few inches with every step. Once she left the arms of the water, the oxygen tank began to weigh on her, seeking to drag her back down the rope, the straps digging into her chest. She gritted her teeth against it.
It was slow going, but eventually, she reached the top of the rope, and Graham helped her climb over the railing one leg at a time. The front of the yacht was quiet and still, with plenty of open deck space for people to fish off of or sit and chat while the breeze blew in their face, though there was none of that now.
Rachel wondered where Jace and Lex were, if they were doing okay, if they’d found anything yet. She listened for any sign of them, but the engine’s quiet hum made it hard to focus. She could feel it through her feet, and it set her bones to buzzing.
Graham and Rachel shed their oxygen tanks. There wasn’t really anywhere to tuck them away out of sight, but Rachel hunted around until she found a bit of tarp that she could toss over them while Graham dislodged the dry bag from the ladder and opened it up. Rachel shivered in her wetsuit as a breeze passed over her—the cold of the ocean had stolen any warmth left in the day away.
“Let’s move,” Rachel said, and Graham gave her a nod in agreement, passing over her gun and the radio.
Rachel led the way toward the doors leading into the interior of the yacht. Her skin crawled with goosebumps. She couldn’t tell if they were from the cold or the anticipation making every vein within her jump. She was standing on Ward’s ship. She was coming for him. Malia was within reach. Finally, after so many horrible days and terrible fights and absolutely awful thoughts, her daughter was within her reach. Ward would not walk away from her unless it was in handcuffs.
Rachel’s blood was ice as she slid open the door and stepped into the yacht. It made everything so clear. Each interior light was crisp and bright, and the lines of the wall stood out in stark relief. She could hear everything around her. The drone of the engine. The lap of the waves against the hull. The shifting breeze. Even footsteps somewhere out beyond her, hidden by the door that led further into the yacht.
“Stairs,” Graham said, drawing Rachel’s attention to a set of steps that branched away from each other to lead to both the upper and lower levels of the ship.
“Down we go,” Rachel muttered.
She gripped her gun in her cold hand, pushing the wet chill pervading her body to the back of her mind where it wouldn�
��t get in the way, and then she started down the steps, her feet silent in their water socks.
The wood creaked slightly beneath her weight, and the darkness of the stairwell quickly wrapped itself around her, the only illumination coming from the floor above. She could feel Graham’s presence right behind her, the woman’s breathing silent, and Rachel was glad to have a partner at her side, even if she wished it was someone she knew a little better. Graham was a marshal, Rachel reminded herself. She knew how to handle herself in a fight.
The door at the foot of the stairs was closed, a small sliver of light reaching out of the crack at the bottom. The hum of the engine was much louder down here, so it was impossible to hear anything inside the room as Rachel pressed her ear to the door. The wood buzzed against her cheek, rattling her teeth, and she pulled away before they could clack together too painfully.
Rachel looked back at Graham and shrugged, silently asking the other woman if she was ready to just go in and see what happened. Graham nodded, the lines of her face tense but determined as she adjusted her grip on her gun.
Rachel reached out and placed her hand on the metal knob. The only sound in her world was the pounding of her heart. Malia was on the other side of this door. She had to be. Rachel was sure of it.
She turned the knob very slowly so that it wouldn’t squeak and give them away, and then she nudged the door open an inch, just far enough that she could peek inside. She couldn’t see much, but now, she could hear the murmur of a couple of voices, and there were a couple of shadows moving about within her line of sight. She counted at least three and was willing to bet that there were several more beyond that.
