by Milly Taiden
“I’m a-a hero?” The tears slowed and a smile inched onto his face.
Otso winked at Leah and slapped Ivan on the back. “Absolutely.” They headed toward the end of the hall. “Now, let’s get your girlfriend fixed up.”
Ivan squished against the wall when he passed the body on the floor. “What girlfriend? I don’t have a girlfriend.”
Leah slowly inhaled deeply. The last time a gun touched her, she stared down double-barrels, one brown eye, one blue eye. With her back against the wall and eyes on the dripping gore, she shuffled to catch up with the commander and Ivan. In her peripheral vision, Korhonen’s dark form stepped closer. Leah whipped her head around as Ivan turned the corner, leaving her and the monster alone.
Korhonen advanced toward her; she hadn’t forgotten their previous encounter in the medical room. She stumbled back along the path she’d just taken. He reached out and grabbed her under the jaw. “I’m glad you’re still alive, angel. In case you’re getting sentimental over Otso, him giving up his gun for you, don’t. He knew the boy was there and depended on him to save you. Our commander is weak, no longer deserving of his men—”
Ivan poked his head around the corner. “Hey! Leave her alone.”
Korhonen released her chin and laughed. “Until we meet again.” He knelt in front of the dead pirate, and she ran.
Leah squirmed between Otso’s legs. The cabin’s desk chair she sat in hurt her bruised bottom. Ivan sat on the sofa, watching Otso treat her shoulder wound. She clenched a water bottle in her hand and squeezed her eyes shut. The prickly feeling of her skin tearing away from the dried, blood-soaked material almost made her sick.
Half leaning against the desk, Otso scowled and lifted the tweezers from her shoulder. “Stop moving, Princess. I barely touched it.”
“It feels like you ripped it off. Don’t call me princess.”
Ivan laughed. “You’re such a baby.”
Leah glared across the room at him. “Try ripping off your shoulder with a claw hook and see how it feels.” Carefully, she twisted off the lid of a water bottle.
Otso sat back on the desktop, arms crossed. “I can already tell how this is going to end.”
She grimaced. “What’s that supposed to mean? Just put a bandage on it.”
“I would if you’d stop wiggling.”
“I’m not wiggling. I’m shifting my weight. This chair is hard.”
Ivan groaned. “You guys are killing me.”
Otso scooted onto the desktop and dragged his backpack from the far corner. He dug around and pulled out a plastic pill bottle. He shook out two tablets and dropped them on the desk in front of him. They stopped rolling before reaching his thigh. He twisted back around and unzipped another pocket.
Imagining the coming pain, Leah snatched up both pills and downed them in one swallow. Otso pulled a small knife from a pocket and looked down at the desktop.
“Where’re the pills.”
“I swallowed them already.” She gulped another swig of water.
Otso’s eyes widened. “Both?”
“Well, yeah. You put down two.”
He grinned and shook his head. “Those were painkillers for a high tolerance level. Only a half was for you.” He stuffed the knife back into the bag.
“You should’ve said something before you set them down.”
With a raised brow and smirk, he said, “I didn’t think you’d be so quick to grab something between my legs.”
Embarrassed horror flooded her face with burning coals. Ivan rolled on the sofa, laughing. She sprang from her chair and stomped toward the door. “I don’t have to put up . . .”
Otso grabbed her elbow from behind. She jerked it away and kept walking. A hand slid around her waist and lifted her off the floor. She crossed her arms, winced from pulling the wound, and pressed her lips together.
The commander sat her on the chair. Both he and Ivan still laughed. Leah stared straight ahead, stoic. Otso mussed her hair and headed for the bathroom.
Ivan sat up on the sofa, now somber. “Sorry I left. I thought you’d stay there ‘til someone came to get you.”
She straightened in her chair. “Where did you get the gun?”
“You knocked it out of a pirate’s hand. My friends have guns.”
Leah wanted to scream at the top of her lungs. She’d had enough of his new group. “Those friends will get you into nothing but trouble, maybe even killed. My dad was a detective with the Chicago PD. He had to shoot kids in self-defense. Some not much older than you. It tore him up. Stay away from that.”
Her father’s image, proudly displaying a shiny gold star over his heart, flashed in her mind. She remembered Mom always ‘polishing’ the emblem with her fingers when Dad kissed her before leaving for work. Leah shook her head and slammed the memory behind a door.
“No problem. I’m never touching another gun.”
Guns turned her life upside down. Winchester and Gatlin should have been shot for their deadly inventions.
Leah slumped against the chair’s back, and then her stomach lurched. Magazines slid across tables and a cup tipped and rolled to the floor. She jumped to her feet only to lose her balance. Her arms pinwheeled then she found herself yanked sideways.
She wrapped her arms around Hannes’ waist as his hand gripped the bathroom doorframe, keeping him from sliding with the ship’s steep slope. Once again, his arm was around her. Her hands clasped behind his jacket, pressing against his stashed weapon. Heavily breathing, she laid her head against his chest. For a brief second, she felt both safe and in danger. The boat evened out, but neither loosed their hold on the other. She’d forgotten how good it felt to be held.
She looked up at his sly grin. Just like in the storage room, he enjoyed playing her to the fullest. He looked at her like a damn filet mignon. “Get off me, jerk.” She pushed him against the wall.
“You’re the one clinging on to me like you can’t get enough, Princess.”
“Don’t call me princess.”
Warning sirens erupted. She and Hannes shared a worried look then sprinted for the door. Ivan rolled to his feet. “Hey! Wait for me!”
NINETEEN
The ship seemed to be traveling faster than usual. Leah had never felt the ship “moving” before. Now, motion sickness threatened. Otso raced her up the stairs leading to the bridge. Stepping off the top tread, her vision spun, and she fell against the rail. “What’s wrong with the ship? Why does it keep tilting?”
“That wasn’t the vessel.” Otso grabbed both sides of her waist and stood her up.
She slapped his hands away. “What? Of course--”
“The painkiller overdose is taking effect.”
She stopped and looked at him. “Already? What does that mean?”
“You might get hot or cold, have trouble breathing, or hallucinate until you pass out. Then you could go into a drug-induced cardiac arrest, coma, or die.”
That’s not what she wanted to hear. A gust of wind whipped around the corner. Otso hurried onto the bridge with Leah close behind. Both stopped at the entrance and gawked as wind blasted through blown-out windows.
Fragments of glass littered everything. Sheets of paper floated along the ground and over damaged displays. Cabinet doors hung open, some on only one hinge. On prone legs, a pair of black boots, toes up, stuck out from around the far corner. The feet of the person lying on the floor didn’t move, nor did anyone pay attention to the boot’s owner.
A man dressed in a formal white suit wiped his brow as he turned toward them. The captain kicked through glass and wood splinters from the shattered counters and shook Otso’s hand. “Gracias, my good man. With your help, we survive.”
“Yes, but this looks like a war zone after a bombing raid.” He ran fingers through his hair.
The captain stared at his destroyed room. Blood smears stained his jacket. “The pirate stay in corner behind you and fire at will. My men hard to stop him. But they did.” His eyes glanced to th
e boots. A small cry came from Leah’s throat before she covered her mouth.
Like the other men, sweat beaded on her forehead even though she shivered in the cool breeze. “Why did the ship lean to one side a minute ago and aren’t we going a little fast?” At the bow, water splashed high along the sides as the boat cut through.
“Ah.” The captain nodded at the fried electronics along the counter. “When restart the navigation, everything go loco.” He opened the sliding door to the chart room and spoke Spanish to the man sitting at the computer in the corner. Otso pushed Leah to the side and stepped into the small room. She tried to crowd in, but with the chart table taking up half the space, no room remained. She stood at the door and listened.
“What do you mean ‘you can’t stop the ship’? If the computer has taken control, turn it off.”
Behind Leah, a voice peeped out. “Cool, like HAL in 2001 Space Odyssey.” Everyone looked at the boy. “You know, Dave. How are you today, Dave?”
Otso frowned and turned to the two men. “Why hasn’t the speed governor kicked in to slow down the engines? How fast does the ship have to go before the speed trip cuts the fuel supply? Will the engines blow before that?”
The captain threw his hands up. “Señor, we working on it. Please. The navigation system no take over the ship. It stop us from manual controls.”
“Have you radioed or called for help?”
“We try, but signal no transmit. We work on it by hand, too.”
Otso rubbed his eyes. “Where does our new course take us?” The captain scooted to the corner, pulled a map out of a roll tube and laid it on the table. He lined a ruler against points. Everyone gathered around, including Ivan who snuck his way in.
Leaning against the chart room’s pocket door, Leah suddenly couldn’t breathe. Her ribs crushed her lungs. She clung to the frame, unable to make a sound. Otso studied the map on the table, not seeing her distress. Ivan ogled the captain’s gadgets.
A loud gasp escaped her as she sucked air into her mouth and coughed. Otso circled the table. “You okay? You should go to your cabin before the symptoms get too bad.”
She swiped her forehead over the dress’s sleeve. “I’m fine.” She brushed off Otso then snapped at the captain. “Don’t just stand there. What do we do next, dammit?” God, it was hot in here.
The captain shuffled to the desk and sat in the chair vacated by the navigator. “This is the navigation program. We turn off computer, but no good.”
Leah grunted. “Just because you turn off one computer doesn’t mean the programming quits. There are back-ups and protocols for power failures. This station could just be a display terminal. You probably have internal hard drives in the front consoles that are trashed or frozen. You have to reprogram them to take them offline. That’s the only way.”
A flash of bright light burned into Leah’s vision, jabbing worse than her migraines. Her hands slapped over her stinging eyes. What the hell? “Ivan, if you’re playing with something, stop. It hurts my eyes.” The boy didn’t reply. In fact, she heard nothing at all: no wind through the windows, no sirens, no voices from the command center.
Peeking through her fingers, she saw the family photo that hung across the hallway from the bathroom in her parent’s home, bloody handprint below, chalk outline of her dad on the floor. She smelled the pretty soaps Mom said were only to look at. The light flashed again; she whipped her head away, a pain worse than a bullet to the head digging in. She gritted her teeth.
“Leah?” Otso looked back on her.
“I’m fine.” She waved him off and leaned against the door casing. Chills ran down her back. Roclas was coming. She felt him nearby. He found her—and she was glad.
In front of the computer, Otso stood behind Ivan, and the boy hung over the captain’s shoulder, staring at the monitor. “Once, someone hacked my game. I couldn’t get my weapons screen to open and had to fight clones for two days in a loincloth. That sucked.”
Hacked? Yes, she hacked the bastard Roclas. And had paid the price for it. Now, he was coming to finish what he started. He would kill her this time. Dad wasn’t here to save her like before. He abandoned her.
She needed a weapon. Dad used his gun. She didn’t have one, didn’t want one. If you missed your target, there was no ‘try over’ for the collateral damage.
But if she didn’t fight, Roclas would kill her then the boy. Nobody was going to hurt her family anymore, as long as she was alive. Seeing Otso with his back to her, she knew the solution. Her heart skipped a beat. She couldn’t do it. Couldn’t. Had to. She swallowed hard, stepped behind him and took the gun tucked under his jacket.
Otso’s hand slapped over his empty waistband. He spun around, and tried to grab the gun from her hands. Leah put an elbow into his stomach and twisted away, pistol pointed at his face. He slowly brought open hands forward. Ivan glanced back from the computer monitor. “Holy cow, Leah! What are you doing?”
Her eyes never wavered from the man. She held the gun with a steadiness she didn’t feel inside. “He’s here.” Her voice scratched over her throat. “And I’m going to kill him. I will have justice.”
Leah stared at Otso’s questioning face. He stepped toward her. She staggered backward into the bridge’s walkway. Sweat stung her eyes. “Stay back. No one is stop--” Another bright flash sent pain searing through her skull. She cried out and squeezed her eyes shut. Stay alert. Her eyes popped open, seeing her childhood bathroom decorated in Hello Kitty colors.
The shadow in the dark hallway of her childhood home slithered toward her, blocking the view of the only photo evidence she had of her family’s existence. The same photo she’d carried for twenty years. “Don’t move!” Her voice cracked. Be strong. The image stepped across the bathroom threshold. The man with one blue eye, one brown eye--the source of terrors that kept her cowering and the cause of nightmares that ripped apart her heart--slid into the light.
Leah fell against the counter but quickly rebounded. “We meet again, Roclas. But I’m holding the gun this time.” Her eyes refused to blink. Unsteady breathing jarred her body, making her aim sway. Focus. “Many years I dreamed of this moment. What I would say, what I would do.
“I’ve waited twenty years for you. Woke every morning wondering if today was the day you’d find me. The day I’d finally see my family--who you took from me!” Hot tears rolled. “Do you have any idea what you did to me?” Her hands shook. “DO YOU?” She choked back sobs. Anger churned out like venom. “Three words from your mouth turned my life into a fucking hell: I…find...you.” Her vision blurred, knees buckled. The man moved forward. She waved the gun. “No!”
He stopped.
She grunted; her eyelids grew heavy, but she felt weightless. She grinned. “Of course, you’re not the only one to blame.” Down the hall, her father lay on the carpet, inside the chalk outline. His pajama top hung in shreds over his disfigured torso. He pointed his police revolver in her direction.
“Leah, run! Hide!”
Expecting the deafening blasts that always followed those words, she fell to her knees, arms covering her head. “No more! Please, no more.”
All was quiet. No exploding shotgun, no screaming. She peeked out and then sat back against the bathroom cabinet and laughed while her tears fell. “Same thing in every nightmare, Dad. You were a great policeman, saving the world from bad guys, but you couldn’t save your own family. And it was my fault.”
She snatched the gun with both hands and tilted up her head. “Don’t worry, Dad. I’ll make up for getting you killed.” Leah focused on the killer directly opposite her and squeezed the trigger as many times as she could before passing out.
TWENTY
Standing opposite Leah outside the chart room, Hannes studied her eyes. She didn’t look at him; she looked through him. His body tensed, ready for the instant she succumbed to the drug.
He stepped forward. Leah bumped into the counter under the bridge windows. Before his eyes, she transformed from
a hard, angry woman, into a scared child. A flurry of emotions welled in him. His fingers dug into the palm of his hands. She would not get to him. He ran his fingers through his hair.
Ivan poked his head out the side of the door, saw Leah with the gun pointed forward, and snapped back behind the wall. “She makes computer games, King Bear, sir, but maybe she can fix this computer.” The boy nodded toward the small desk.
Behind him, he heard the child Leah. I have waited twenty years for you, Roclas. Hannes spun around. Twenty years? She had to be a child then, ten or eleven…what you did to me?
His first thoughts gushed ice water through his body. A piece of anger raged against the drug dealer. Claws popped from his fingers. He willed them back. Hannes studied Leah trapped in her own mind. She barely breathed between choking sobs and mumbling shouts.
Her entire body shook. Fury burned in her bloodshot eyes. What had happened to her? Flashes of his tortured past rose from its inner grave: bodies undulating on wet concrete, the blood-filled syringes, the ungodly pain, walking skeletons, unrecognizable human forms chained to a pole, blood covering his hands. He shoved those images into his black pit--the bottomless hole that fired his will to live, to get justice.
He shared in her pain, her self-hatred held inside for so long. Leah’s eyes rolled up, and she fell against the counter. Hannes lunged forward. She rebounded and steadied the weapon’s sight on him.
He backed off. What was she reliving? He needed to know what she physically survived that killed her soul. He could save this broken angel from suffering the hell he knew all too well. …not the only one to blame. She looked at the floor and melted into an agonizing heap on the carpet…every nightmare, Dad.
Hannes saw it. Her vision played in his mind. He saw the image on the floor. Her protector, her father. ...great policeman...couldn’t save your own family... He saw the evil shadow reflecting in her eyes—Ojo Azul, Blue Eye--the one who killed her family, hunted her day after day, making her wait to die.