Five. “Remain calm.”
At the next landing he checked the wall schematic nestled between two sets of elevator doors. Four. The lowest deck with passenger cabins. He turned, strode to a door labeled ‘No Access. Crew only,’ and pushed through. Down another set of stairs, he entered the crew passage that traversed from bow to stern. It stretched black and ominous before him. To his relief, in the distance he spied a lit-up emergency exit sign. “Thank God,” he mumbled. It was a good sign.
“Hey, there’s someone.”
Gunner spun to the voice and from the gloom, two people strode toward him. “Hello.”
A middle-aged couple reached his side. “What’s going on?” the man asked. “What’s happened?”
“Sir, madam, I’m Captain Gunner McCrae. Do either of you require medical attention?”
“No, sir.” Confusion drilled onto the man’s face. “What happened to Captain Nelson?”
He bypassed their question by asking one of his own. “May I have your name’s and ranks please?”
“I’m Quinn, bar staff, and this is my wife Cloe from catering.”
It wasn’t unusual for couples to work on cruise ships. It was how he’d met his wife. Oh, God. His heart clenched. When will I see her and Bella again? His heart nearly stopped. What if it was never?
“An explosion woke us. Comms are down and the engines have stopped. Want to tell us what’s going on? Sir?”
Quinn’s question jolted Gunner from his horrifying thoughts. His clipped tone gave Gunner the impression he had a take-no-crap personality. If he did, then he was exactly the type of man Gunner needed. Gunner had intended to direct every person he encountered toward the top deck, but he made a snap decision to utilize Cloe and Quinn instead. “Do either of you have medical training?”
“Just basic first aid.” They looked at each other.
“Sir? Where is Captain Stewart?” Cloe frowned.
“He had a heart attack.”
“Oh my God.” Cloe’s eyes darted to her husband. “And the explosion? What was it?”
“A plane crashed into the ship.”
He’d let that shocking detail sink in, but there wasn’t time. He needed to keep moving. “Cloe, Quinn, I need to get to the lower decks to assess the damage from that plane crash. Can you help me?”
“Yes, sir.” Quinn was quick to answer.
“Of course, sir.” Cloe squeezed her husband’s arm.
“Please, call me Gunner, and thank you.” Gunner huffed out a sigh. “Let’s move.” He spun on his heel and made a beeline for the exit sign in the distance.
“How bad is it?” Quinn was right on Gunner’s heel.
“It’s bad. The explosion blasted a hole across five or six decks.”
“Shiiit,” Quinn said.
At the exit sign, Gunner pushed through a door labeled as an emergency exit and entered another stairwell. Next second, the lower door burst open and a huge crowd of people wearing blue uniforms flooded into the stairway. Laundry staff. Despite holding something over their mouths, every one of them seemed to be talking. Their garbled frantic speech was heightened by their language—Spanish.
“Ladies, are you okay? Is anyone injured?”
They carried on as if he wasn’t there.
“Does anyone speak English?”
“Si. Si.” A woman in the middle of the crowd caught his attention by nodding at him, yet she continued walking. “What is happening? Smoke everywhere. Nobody say anything.”
“Go to the top deck. And keep calm. Do you understand?”
Without a response, she merged into the crowd and continued trudging up the stairs. He had no idea if she’d understood.
His cruise ship company prided itself on its multicultural human resources. At a guess, seventy percent of the crew would’ve declared English as their second language. He himself knew three languages, but Spanish wasn’t one of them. He’d never have thought the diversity of multicultural personnel as his impediment before. Now though, with comms and emergency sirens out of action, it was going to make communication even harder.
Once the women had stormed past, he continued to the next landing and with Quinn and Cloe at his side, he checked the wall schematic with the phone torch. Second deck.
“There’s something else going on, Captain, isn’t there? Was this a suicide bomber?” Cloe’s voice portrayed as much authority as Quinn’s had.
Gunner turned to her. “No, I don’t believe so.”
“Captain McCrae.” In the green emergency lighting, her eyes took on a dark almost unearthly appearance. “My brother died in the nine-eleven attacks in tower one. So don’t bullshit me. Was it a terrorist attack?”
He heaved out a sigh and mentally slapped himself for treating them poorly. “I’m sorry. I should’ve given you the complete picture. I . . . we . . . believe our complete system failure, and the subsequent plane crash, was from an EMP attack.”
Cloe’s hand shot to her mouth. Her eyes darted to Quinn and back to Gunner. When she lowered her hand, her lips were drawn to a thin line. “What do you need us to do?”
Gunner let out a rushed breath. “Thank you.” He turned, and as he raced down the last set of stairs, he voiced his plan. “When I looked down into the blast zone, I saw flames. Not sure of the extent of it. But first thing we need to do is put the damn fire out and assess the damage.”
“What’s an EMP?” Quinn asked.
“It’s an Electro Magnetic Pulse,” Cloe said, and as she explained the impact of such an attack to her husband, they raced down the corridor.
At the exit door, Gunner braced for a second, then pulled it open. Thick smoke smothered the corridor, making it impossible to see.
He slammed the door shut. “Shit!” Gunner’s thundering heart hit a whole new level.
“What?” Quinn barked.
“Smoke. It’s bad. We’ll need something to cover our faces.”
Buttons went flying as Quinn yanked open a plaid shirt he’d been wearing over a white T-shirt. “Will this do?”
“That’ll do it,” Gunner agreed.
“Show pony.” Cloe rolled her eyes Gunner’s way as Quinn used his teeth to tear the shirt into three portions.
With the fabric tied over their noses, Gunner pushed the door open again. The green emergency lighting filtered through the smoke creating a toxic-looking cloud. He glanced left and right, but unable to see three feet in front of him, let alone any flames, he stepped into the corridor. As they headed toward the engine room, the dense smoke was black and laced with a caustic odor that had his eyes stinging.
A man in gray overalls stumbled toward them.
Gunner raced forward and clutched the man’s shoulders. “Are you okay?”
He shook his head. Tears streamed down his soot-smudged cheeks and blood oozed from a gash on his shoulder.
“What’s your name?”
“Garcia. Garcia Lopez.”
“Can you walk?”
“Si. Si.”
Gunner turned to Quinn. “Can you take him to the stairwell?”
“Yes, sir.”
“Thank you. But come straight back.”
Quinn stepped in behind Garcia and placed his hands around the man’s waist. “Okay, let’s go. You’re going to be fine.”
“Don’t be too long,” Cloe called to Quinn.
Gunner turned his gaze back to the corridor ahead. It was much wider than the passenger decks above as it catered to the trolleys that carted luggage for up to sixteen hundred passengers as they embarked and disembarked every fourteen days.
For the first time since he left Los Angeles, he was grateful the ship hadn’t been at maximum capacity. February was the least-popular month to cruise to Hawaii. If it had been any other month of the year, then the death toll on Rose of the Sea would already be much higher.
Several more staff stumbled through the smoke and after assessing they were not severely injured, Gunner instructed each of them to get topside.
&nb
sp; With each step, the smoke became thicker. More dense. More toxic. It reeked of burned rubber and charred meat. And there was only one explanation for that . . . burned bodies. The putrid air was like razor blades to his throat. Bile burned the back of his tongue.
His brain clanged with opposing commands.
I have to get out of here.
I have to do this.
Pain nipped behind his eyes, attacking his eyeballs.
Quinn returned with a rush of labored breathing, launching Gunner from his hijacked thoughts. While Cloe fussed over her husband, making sure he was okay, Gunner wiped stinging tears from his eyes and searched the smoky corridor for signs of life . . . or the source of the smoke.
A flash of red caught his eye. The fire equipment. Relief washed through him as he raced toward the compartment that was recessed into a wall to stop it from obstructing the corridor. With the dim visibility, it was lucky he hadn’t walked right past it.
He lifted a portable fire extinguisher off the hook and handed it to Cloe. “Ever used one of these?”
“Only in practice; never for real,” she said.
Quinn nodded. “Same here.”
“That’s good enough for me.” He grabbed a third one for himself and the weight alone instilled a sense of hope that everything would be okay. But when he turned back to the smoke that was getting thicker by the second, he conceded just how inadequate the fire equipment was. He should send Cloe and Quinn upstairs to be with the rest of the crew, not lead them into hell.
He was about to voice exactly that when four men burst through a set of double doors and staggered forward, united with their terrified cries. Their bloodshot eyes were wild, disoriented.
“Are you okay?” Gunner tried to talk to them, but either they didn’t speak English or they were too distressed to comprehend.
Every crew member had to pass an English language test. But throw in extreme stress and communication was near impossible.
He wasted too many precious seconds with the men before he conceded it was pointless. Gunner pointed down the corridor. “Exit. Down there. Go up.” Using his hands, he tried to convey his meaning.
When the foursome scrambled off, Gunner’s gaze snagged on Cloe. Her eyes were loaded with terror.
With his anxiety at tipping point, he clutched her shoulder. “If you want to return topside, I understand.”
She glanced at her husband, and as if they possessed some kind of telepathic communication, they turned back to him and said in unison, “No thanks.”
“We’re right where we need to be, Captain,” Quinn clarified.
The Captain designation was a punch to Gunner’s gut.
It should be Captain Nelson down here with Gunner at his side. A sense of utter inadequacy smashed into him like a tidal wave. The pressure to make the right decisions, to know what he was doing, to save lives, thumped a painful beat behind his eyes.
Thump. Thump. Thump.
Forging through crippling doubt, he turned toward the double doors and forced his feet to move. Five steps later, Gunner’s boot sloshed into water.
His heart slammed into his chest. “Shit! That can’t be good.”
Chapter Ten
Madeline shifted on the elevator floor, moving her foot from side to side, assessing her injured ankle. When she’d landed awkwardly on the stage last night, it was immediately obvious she’d done significant damage. But it wasn’t until she woke this morning and saw the swelling around her ankle bone that she realized just how much.
She’d suffered worse. Much worse. Those wounds had been inflicted a long time ago though, and the pain associated with them had almost faded into oblivion.
Almost.
But in the tiny, blackened elevator, it was impossible to stop her childhood nightmares crawling into her brain. For sixteen years she’d been fighting them. Fighting them hard. But they were always there, waiting to be triggered by the smallest of things.
Or the biggest. Like now.
The darkened space launched her right back into that tiny windowless room.
The closed door reminded her of how many times she’d wished for the door, the only exit in that dungeon, to open. But each time it did, it brought recurring horror.
Professor Flint.
Her kidnapper had insisted she call him that. Professor Flint.
She’d found out later, when he’d died in the house fire, that his real name was John Smith. But his name wasn’t the only insignificant thing about him. He wasn’t a professor either. John Smith was an unmarried car park attendant who’d claimed to still live with his mother. He wasn’t even on the police radar.
In the weeks following Madeline’s miraculous rescue, after she’d been released from hospital, the police had told her they’d believed her abduction two streets from her own home had been an opportunistic one.
They were certain that she’d been John Smith’s first and his last kidnap victim.
None of that information had helped.
It was ironic that the house fire had both lost a life and saved one. How long would she have remained captive if Professor Flint hadn’t fallen asleep drunk with a cigarette in his hand?
It was a question that strangled her brain way too often.
She hugged her knees to her chest. But a visual of her sitting in that exact same position on the rotten mattress in his dungeon flashed into her mind, and she curled her feet to her side.
Smith’s escape from conviction haunted her as much as what he’d done. He deserved to rot in a tiny cell for the rest of his life. Instead, he’d died of smoke inhalation in his sleep. It was too easy. He should have suffered. Like she had.
Sometimes her tumble down Memory Hell became so vivid that she had to vomit out the horror inside her.
Sometimes, she wished she’d died in that room.
Flashbacks invaded her brain when she least expected it.
A rainy day would have her smelling the dank concrete walls that had seeped with dirty water during each downpour.
Dripping sounds would have her blocking her ears. The smell of smoke would bring back brutal memories of the night she’d nearly died.
She could smell it now. Smoke. It invaded her nostrils like it was acid seeping in and corroding her brain. Fear crawled up her neck. Invisible spiders inched up her hairline. She shuddered and squeezed her palms to her eyes until pretty colors darted across her eyelids.
“What’s that?” Sterling’s voice shot through the silence.
She flinched. “What?”
“Smoke. Can you smell it?”
“Shit!” It wasn’t her imagination.
Sterling scrambled to his feet. “Help! Help!” He banged on the doors. “We’re in here. Help!”
She launched at the door and thumped her fist on the metal with him. “Help!”
“We have to find a way out, Madeline.” He touched her shoulder.
She recoiled. Hours and hours of therapy had failed to eradicate that involuntary reaction to surprise human contact. Fright was permanently pending at the forefront of her brain.
“We have to find a way out.” Sterling’s hands scraped across the doors.
Shoving her anxiety aside, she inched her fingers over the smooth metal. At the button panel she jabbed each one, desperate for a flicker of life. Nothing.
She lowered to her hands and knees. With every breath, rancid smoke clawed at her throat. Suddenly she was eight years old again, crawling on the dirty floor in complete darkness, searching for an escape from the smoke-filled hellhole. The memories smothered her. Engulfed her, along with the profound sense of looming death that’d oppressed her for years. Her chest squeezed. She couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. Tears stung her eyes. “We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die. We’re gonna die.”
“Hey, hey. No, we’re not. Okay? We are not going to die.” His hand brushed her shoulder again.
She cringed at his touch and a gasp tumbled from her throat as a tornado of terror twisted ins
ide her, growing in size and power.
“Hey, come on. It’s okay. We’ll find a way out.”
“We’re trapped. I’m trapped.” A sob burst from her throat. “I’m trapped again.”
“Hey.” His hands gripped her shoulders and he tugged her to his chest.
She wanted to both scream her lungs out and melt into his embrace. She did neither. Her body stiffened, useless against the raging emotions barreling through her. Flint had forced himself on her; the weight of his body had pinned her down.
“Madeline.” Sterling’s tone was a dose of warm chocolate, luring her back like a buoy, pulling her out of her nightmare. His hands were gentle, caring. His voice was calming.
She forced her brain to acknowledge the differences between her kidnapping nightmare and what was happening now.
Between her childhood self and her twenty-four-year-old self.
Between Sterling and Flint.
“Listen to me.” Sterling clenched her shoulders and eased her away from his chest. “There must be an exit in the roof. Do you think you could climb up on my shoulders and have a look?”
Madeline flicked tears from her eyes. “Okay.” She swayed toward him and he turned around. Surging way beyond her comfort zone, she placed her hands on his shoulders.
“That’s it. Use the hand rail.”
She didn’t need the hand rail. Years of dance training kicked in and with ease, Madeline launched herself up his back and curled her legs across his shoulders. He wrapped his arms over her thighs to keep her in position, just like a little child sitting on their daddy’s shoulders. She put her hands up and touched the ceiling. “Okay, I can reach. Walk around.”
“I’ll start in the corner.”
“Oh my God, it’s here. It’s a panel.” It’d been so easy. Too easy. Like it was some kind of sick joke.
“Can you open it?”
Madeline placed both palms on the panel and pushed upward. It moved an inch. But that was all. “It’s stuck.”
“Try again.”
Gritting her teeth, she pushed again but it wouldn’t budge. “It’s not lifting. Something’s stopping it.” With the panel held ajar, she guided her fingers through the tiny gap, trying to work out what was obstructing it. Her hands closed around a circular metal object. Fury barreled through her.
Waves of Fate | Book 1 | First Fate Page 8
