Corey stepped onto the deck of the boat, the fire in her belly roaring to life. She closed her eyes and whispered to heat inside her. “I’ve fought you so long. I didn’t know. Now I need you to save us.”
Gallagan was racing toward Corey’s boat and neither one had time to move out of the other’s way. Corey felt the heat bloom in her abdomen, and surge up her torso and into her arms. She pointed her fingers at Gallagan, following instinct since she lacked any real training in casting magic. But this felt primal and base. This was survival.
Corey’s hand shot up as if pressing against an invisible wall. Gallagan’s cruiser thundered through the water, the bow making contact with the invisible barrier formed by Corey’s magic. Gallagan’s yacht crumpled as if it has hit a brick wall. Gallagan was thrown through the windshield and across the deck, where she slammed into the magical barrier with a sickening crunch. Her body slid downward and dropped into the sea and disappeared.
The boat’s engine squealed against the barrier and just when Corey was about to drop her hands, Gallagan’s yacht exploded, throwing Corey backward into the wall of the cabin.
“Corey!” Alicia cradled Corey’s head in her hands. “Are you all right? Oh my god, did you see what you did?”
Corey smiled, feeling oddly light after all the exertions. “Yeah. I saw. I don’t believe it, but I saw it all with my own two eyes.”
A helicopter landed on the upper deck of the Oasis and a hatch opened in the floor of the deck. Three men climbed on to the helipad and crouch-walked to the chopper.
Corey recognized one of the men from the meeting this afternoon. He headed up one of the ten brigades in the Russian mafia. “Where the hell were they hiding?”
“Who?” Alicia asked.
The man stepped up into the chopper, while the two other men pulled something from behind the pilot’s seat. Corey and Alicia watched as the two men hefted a large rectangular crate toward the open hatch in the deck where the men had come from. They hooked a line to the handle of the crate and lowered it down into the hatch. Then one of the men pulled out a flip phone, and…
Corey felt the blood drain from her face. “Oh my God. That’s a bomb.”
Chapter Forty-One
Corey’s thoughts went immediately to the agents, and her partner, Young, who could be anywhere. She hadn’t seen any officers on this side of the Oasis, except for the pair that had cuffed those guys to the railing. Jesus, if the Oasis blew, those bad guys were toast as much as any of the agents who were still on board.
Corey cursed the fact that both she and Alicia had lost their earpieces. They’d never make it as real undercover operatives with the way things have turned out. They were going to have to split up.
She turned to Alicia and grabbed her by the shoulders. “You need to warn the team. Let’s get this rig started.” They hurried into the cockpit and turned the key and started the ignition again. This time, she moved the throttle after the engine started and it took.
“You drive around the other side to the Sea Witch and tell them about the bomb. Tell them you lost your earpiece and they need to get the word out. But whatever happens, you and these girls are your top priority, got it?”
“What? What are you going to do?” Alicia asked.
Corey ignored her. “Make sure you keep driving. Just get away. If that thing blows, we have no idea how big it will be.” She shifted the boat into forward gear and eased the throttle one click. She wanted to run. She wanted to fly. But she couldn’t risk crashing her boat into any of the others. They had to take it nice and easy so Alicia could get the girls to safety.
Corey stepped away from the controls. “Here, you drive. Get me as close as you can to the Oasis.”
“But…” Alicia protested.
But Corey was already out the door. She ran to the bow of the yacht and waited. They passed a pair of smaller yachts that were still tied together, and the first one had been wedged against the Oasis. Corey pointed in that direction.
Alicia steered the boat toward the jam of yachts, and as soon as they were close enough, Corey jumped from the bow onto the deck of the nearby yacht. She bounded from port side to starboard and leapt over the narrow gap between this boat and the one that was up against the Oasis.
She climbed on board the Oasis and raced to the stairs. She had to get to that fly bridge. She had to get to the roof. She had to stop that chopper.
Corey threw caution to the wind and ran as fast as she could. She took the steps two at a time and then rounded the rail to take the next flight up. When she got to the upper deck and the helipad, the chopper was just lifting off.
The man watched Corey through the glass bubble on the front of the helicopter that always reminded Corey of an insect’s face. He grinned, showing white teeth as the helicopter lifted an inch off the decking.
Corey swore that if she was ever undercover again, it didn’t matter if they had her in a string bikini, there was no way she was going to be without her Glock ever again. But, the situation being what it was, she did what she had to do to improvise.
Corey grabbed the end of a deck rope at her feet and tied the end into a thick knot. She swung the knot like a grappling hook, and as the helicopter took off, she closed her eyes, whispered a prayer, and let it go.
The chopper got about 12 feet over Corey’s head when the rope collided with the rotor blades in spectacular fashion. Afraid of flying debris, Corey stepped onto the ladder in the hatch, and pulled the lid down just as bits of metal and flying blades lodged themselves into the deck like a flurry of throwing knives.
The rope tangled over the center of the rotor, choking the motor. The chopper’s engine whined and then stuttered before letting out a pop and a hiss. Corey lifted the hatch door in time to see the helicopter careen sideways off the boat and land top-first into the ocean.
A small ping rang at Corey’s feet. She looked down and saw the bomb, sitting on the floor at the foot of the ladder, its timer ticking down.
The digital readout flashed 01:49, and judging by the seconds dropping off like they meant nothing, the one on the display signified a minute, not an hour. This thing was going to blow in less than two minutes.
She was in some kind of hidden passage that had been built into the center of the boat. There were doors for each of the deck levels and then it ended at the lower deck. Corey descended on the ladder until she was at the door to the main deck. She shoved it open.
She emerged behind the bar. The door had been hidden behind a huge mirror. Corey hurried across the deck, searching for a way off the boat.
She circled the deck, unable to find any boats that were close enough to reach on her own.
“Shit.” Then she remembered.
Corey ran toward the back of the boat and jumped onto the dive platform. She straddled the remaining Jet Ski, grateful to see the key already in the ignition.
She cruised around to the starboard side of the Oasis, following in the path Alicia would’ve taken with the girls. She couldn’t find anybody. How the hell can you lose dozens of agents and a boat full of criminals in the middle of the ocean?
Corey came around the corner of the stern and caught a glimpse of Alicia pulling her boat alongside the Sea Witch which was loaded with agents on board. The Sea Witch was no longer attached to the Oasis, but it wasn’t very far away. And from the looks of things, it appeared they were trying to get back to tie onto the Oasis.
Alicia didn’t slow down as she sailed past the Sea Witch, much to the surprise of the agents who waved her back. They instructed her to turn around and tie on. Corey could see Alicia shouting at the agents, but they couldn’t hear her over the engine noise. They didn’t know.
Corey gripped the Jet Ski’s handle and twisted, throwing it into full speed, as she buzzed across the water toward the Sea Witch.
The Jet Ski caught air as it bumped over the water. She shouted toward the Sea Witch, but just like Alicia, her voice was lost among the whine of her motor. She scanned the de
ck of the PIO’s boat, looking for anyone who was watching her. Then she caught sight of a light baseball cap among the crowd of dark-uniformed agents.
“Young!” Corey screamed.
Her partner didn’t appear to have heard her, but he did seem to notice the movement on the water and turned in her direction. Corey waved one arm wildly overhead and then gripped the controls again when she almost fell off the rig.
“Bomb!” Corey screamed, but it was no use.
Young shrugged and lifted his hands, signaling that he didn’t understand what she was saying.
Corey pointed back to the Oasis and tried to think of a way to pantomime an explosion, when the Oasis burst into a ball of flame.
The shockwave hit Corey and she lost hold of the Jet Ski. She flew through the air, propelled by a wall of heat that felt like a wrecking ball twisting her like a piece of seaweed caught in the breakers. The last thing she saw was Young, his eyes wide with surprise, hands cupped over his mouth, shouting at Corey.
Corey slammed back-first into the water and lay stunned as she sank for a moment before she could move her body again. Above her, the sky turned into fire as the Oasis explosion spread to the nearby boats. She kicked to the surface and sputtered to breathe as she cursed her ridiculous gown once again and tried to get her bearings.
The ocean around her looked like a war zone. The explosion left a gaping hole in the hull of the Oasis, and she was taking on water. Bits of the burning boat, splinters of wooden furniture shreds of fabric, and all kinds of things floated on the surface of the water.
She turned around, and spotted the Sea Witch, intact and about forty feet away. Some shrapnel from the Oasis had been thrown onto the deck, and the crew threw magic over the flames, extinguishing some and pushing others overboard into the water.
Corey scanned her view for Alicia’s boat. But she couldn’t see her anywhere. Her Jet Ski bobbed in the water nearby. She swam toward the Jet Ski and pulled herself out of the water, sitting sidesaddle on the seat. She tore her dress at the thigh slit, working her way around the length of the dress. When she had finally managed to turn it into a mini-dress, she balled up the rest of the fabric and wrapped it around the handlebars.
The Jet Ski wouldn’t start. Corey inspected the controls and realized something had come into contact with the dashboard and torn the kill switch key away. There was no way to start it without the safety mechanisms in place.
“Corey!” Young’s voice reached her over the crackle of the flames all around her.
Corey waved at her partner, who stood on the deck of the Sea Witch, smiling at her like a goof ball. Young waved a thumbs-up sign at Corey, asking if she was okay.
Corey nodded.
Not willing to wait another second, and no longer encumbered by the length of her gown, she dove into the water and swam to the yacht.
Chapter Forty-Two
Young attached the ladder to the dive platform on the back of the Sea Witch and helped Corey climb on board. “Damn, partner. You didn’t have to blow the thing apart.” Young smiled.
Corey laughed and realized how tired she was. “Yeah well, next time they know better than to mess with us, eh?” She squeezed the excess water from her hair, and twisted it over her shoulder. “Alicia?”
Young nodded. “Yeah. She just pulled up.” He glanced over his shoulder where Alicia’s boat had been tied up alongside the Sea Witch. She and several of the agents were helping the girls one-at-a-time cross over from Alicia’s boat to the deck of the Sea Witch.
“I was wrong about her. She really came through for those girls,” he said.
Corey reflected on that for a moment as she watched Alicia steady another girl and hand her off to another waiting agent. “Yeah. She’s a lot tougher than she looks.”
Corey went to one of the bedrooms on the lower deck and changed out of her ruined gown and into some sweats. She was cold and tired, and she longed for her own bed. More than anything else, she was grateful that they made it through the night. She couldn’t wait to get back and let Bronwyn know that her daughter was safe. Not only was Alicia safe, but she was an absolute badass when she needed to be.
Agent Parks put together a makeshift debrief, collecting information from all the agents, and the MCU team, to piece together who knew what.
Corey filled in the gaps to cover what happened to Gallagan and blew the team away with her account of the Russian boss and the helicopter. Agent Parks produced photos of the players in the organization and Corey was able to pick out the head of it all, a guy called Volk, “The Wolf” and his second-in-command, Valeri Karlov. They ran the entire heroin operation over the ten brigades. She didn’t recognize the third guy from the chopper among any of the photos.
Nobody had known The Wolf was on board and the news of his death would send a ripple of unrest through the crime syndicate. Good.
All told, they apprehended seventy-three individuals who were guilty of an as yet unnamed multitude of criminal activities. The also had six of the ten known brigade leaders in custody. A seventh had been killed by gunfire, another in the chopper, and they believed another died in the explosion. Three of the yachts turned out to be loaded with heroin, and they were cataloging the dozens of rooms filled with suitcases of cash.
Agent Parks made it clear to everyone that while nothing should diminish the job they’d done apprehending all the bad guys or take away from the fact that this would go down as the largest organized crime and drug bust in history, the most important return on tonight’s operation was the fact that all the Half Moon Girls were safe and accounted for, and not one agent—or MCU officer, he added with a tip to Corey and Young—had been lost.
All the girls were aboard the Sea Witch, wrapped in blankets and sipping sports drinks. Most of them had sobered up, and a few of them had broken into sobs when they realized what happened. Some of them were in shock. All of them had the full attention of agents trained to deliver first-aid.
Corey navigated through the sea of people now crowding the decks of the spacious yacht until she found Alicia, tucked into the corner of the L-shaped sofa on the aft deck. Corey grabbed two bottles of water from one of the coolers and sat next to Alicia.
“You doing okay?” Corey offered Alicia one of the bottles of water.
Alicia shrugged. Nodded. Shrugged again. “Yeah. I think I will be, eventually. You?”
“Me too.” Corey smiled. “I’m proud of you, Alicia.”
“I don’t know Corey. I lost my head a bunch tonight. And I almost…”
“Yeah, but you didn’t. And that’s what matters.”
Alicia shook her head. “You don’t get it. I wanted to. I still want to. I mean, I know Gallagan’s not even the one who actually killed Nikki. But I have this anger ball inside me and it feels like the only thing that will make it better is an eye for an eye. For Nikki, you know? Nikki deserves better. She deserves justice.” Alicia blinked and let the tears flow.
Corey thought about all the times things had gone wrong for people in the world only to find justice was never served. She thought about her own life, and all the baggage she carried because of Darby Paul and the man in white. Those men were dead now and it brought her no peace.
Years of therapy and she still was learning how to deal with all the facets of a life after deep trauma. A lack of justice was part of it, for sure.
Corey put her arms around Alicia and pulled her into a hug. “Yeah. I get it. But personal justice isn’t justice… that’s vengeance. And vengeance is hollow. It’s an empty promise that never delivers. Vengeance won’t fill the hole in your heart. You know? These monsters have put you through enough. The best revenge would be refusing to carry their evil with you for the rest of your life.”
Alicia squeezed Corey. “It’s hard. I close my eyes and I see Nikki. When it’s quiet, I hear her choking. She dies over and over again in my mind every day.”
Corey pulled away in looked Alicia in the eyes. “You listen to me. None of this was your fa
ult. I know I’ve said it before, but I think you have forgotten… so I’ll say it again. Nikki led us to you. It doesn’t make her death okay, nothing ever will. But we found you because we lost Nikki. Don’t lose sight of that. Live your life despite the monsters who want to cut you down. Be stronger than them. Because you are.”
“I don’t know about that. I don’t feel very strong.” Alicia sniffled.
Corey thought again about her own demons, and the things her monsters had done to her. She knew the words she spoke to Alicia were as powerful to her as they were meant to be for her friend. She smiled and touched her forehead to Alicia’s.
Corey put her arm around Alicia’s shoulder and they nestled into each other as the engines rumbled to life.
They were heading home.
Corey held Alicia’s gaze. “That’s okay if you don’t feel strong. Because I know that you are. You’re survivor Alicia, don’t you ever forget it.”
Chapter Forty-Three
Corey and Kojak ran up the steep incline, racing together to the peak of the rise. She smiled as Kojak overtook her and then laughed as she climbed to the summit and her dog licked her face as if apologizing for beating her to the top.
“Hey girl. Good race. I’ll do better next time.”
Kojak panted heavily and bounded off to smell all the things.
Corey sat on the grass and watched the glowing horizon, waiting for the sunrise. In the weeks since they’d ended Operation Oasis, she’d been working with Dr. Glowden, trying to find a path forward.
She knew now, beyond a shadow of doubt, that her magical soul was intact. She battled with herself, swinging wildly between gratitude to her younger self for protecting something so precious, and then castigating her adult self for not knowing better what was going on and facing every single sign of her magic with paralyzing fear.
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