Escape The Dark (Book 1): Dark Tides
Page 16
Triumphant, he slid toward the railing at the side of the ship. He didn’t want to be here, would much rather have stayed in the center, but there was nothing good to tie off to there. The railing was stable. He tied a quick lark’s head knot around the highest rung, then used the dangling ends to tie a figure-eight knot around his own wrist. It wasn’t perfect by any means, but he felt a lot more secure than he had a minute ago. At least this way he wouldn’t be thrown off the boat.
Probably.
He clung to the railing with his free hand and squeezed his eyes closed, but that made the pitching feel even worse, so he opened them again. He tried to keep his eyes on the horizon, but he couldn’t see it. All he could see was the next big wave, on its way to try and drown him.
Dear God, these waves were big. Adam had never seen anything like them in his life. They had to be over fifty feet high!
No sooner had he thought this than one of the massive waves rose up over the hull of the ship. Adam had a split second to stare up at the thing and marvel at its size and power before it broke and crashed down on him.
He hadn’t been ready. His lungs filled with water, and his eyes burned with salt. He clung to the rope in his hand, feeling the deck disappear beneath him, feeling his body lift up or the wave push the boat down. He didn’t know. It didn’t matter. All that mattered in this terrible moment was hanging onto the rope in his hands. As long as it didn’t slip away from him, he knew, there would be an end to this.
He didn’t even notice at first when his head emerged above the water again, because the rain was coming down so hard. What eventually gave it away was the noise. He could hear that he was no longer submerged.
He opened his eyes, spitting, choking, and leaned over to vomit off the side of the ship.
He couldn’t take another wave like that one. He couldn’t.
He would.
He would take as many waves as the ocean wanted to dish out. This storm wasn’t going to beat him. Not after everything he’d been through. He wouldn’t allow it to end like this.
He was sitting in a pool of water that completely covered his legs, and he realized how much water must have come up on deck after that last wave had hit. He should probably try to bail some of the water out. But there was so much of it, and going for a bucket would mean leaving the safety of his rope…
Another wave hit. This one wasn’t as big as the last, but it was enough to drive all thought from Adam’s mind for a few more seconds. This time, when he came up for air, the water was up to his waist.
And it was rising.
The boat was taking on water.
Oh, God, he thought, I’m going to sink.
If the boat went down, it really would be all over. Adam knew he wouldn’t be able to survive for more than a few minutes in the water, not with the sea as rough as it was. He’d be torn apart. And thanks to the EMP, even if there had been another vessel close enough for him to swim to, he wouldn’t have been able to see it. It was too cloudy, and no ships had running lights anymore.
There was nothing else for it. He was going to have to try to bail out the ship.
He thought he remembered seeing a bucket in the kitchen. Maybe he could run for it.
Summoning all his courage, he let go of the rope and got to his feet—
Another wave rocked the ship. Adam’s feet flew out from under him. The sky seemed to spin overhead, and he had enough time to pray that he was going to land on the boat and not in the sea before his head struck something and the world faded.
Chapter 21
The first thing he was aware of was the sound of seabirds calling.
It was a strange sound, almost alien in its unfamiliarity, and it took Adam a long moment to pin down why he felt so unhinged by it. When the thought came to him, it was with a sense of disbelief. I haven’t heard a seagull in months.
It was true. They’d been too far out to sea, and the flocks tended to stay near the shore. Which meant…what, exactly?
Was he back near the mainland?
The next thing he was aware of was the deck of the boat under his back. Somehow, by some miracle, he was still aboard. And the boat was still afloat.
Or was it afloat? The next thing Adam noticed was that the rocking of the waves was gone. And not just that of the furious storm he’d just experienced, but the gentle rocking he’d grown accustomed to over the last several weeks. It was as if he was lying on dry land again.
He opened his eyes.
He was looking at a long stretch of rocky beach. It was nothing he had ever seen before. Wherever this was, it was clearly far away from the pier where Cody’s yacht had been docked. It was nowhere near the place where Krista, Ray, Duane, and Max had been dropped off. This was somewhere new.
More to the point, Adam had survived the storm.
He rolled onto his back and stared up at the sky, a huge swelling of relief rising in his chest. Once again, he had lived through a situation that should have bested him. The yacht had been going down. And yet, somehow, he was safe. He’d survived.
Artem, he thought, would have been proud.
The laughter that escaped him then was almost hysterical. There was nothing funny about the situation, but he was so utterly overwhelmed that he couldn’t control himself. He felt deboned, exhausted, lying back on the deck of the yacht that had carried him so far and through so many trials. God only knew what awaited him next. But today, in this moment, he was alive. And that was good.
God, it was good!
It came to him gradually that the deck was at a slight slant. He would need to be careful moving around. He didn’t know if the yacht was seaworthy anymore or not—he thought not—so he would pack a bag and set out along this beach. Maybe he’d be able to find a safe place to hole up for a while. He started to get to his feet—
And heard a familiar click.
It was unmistakably the cocking of a gun.
Adam turned slowly to find himself face-to-face with the barrel of a rifle in the hands of young man with a deep scowl on his face.
TO BE CONTINUED
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