When a drop of blood spilled from the glistening shard and splattered onto the deck, Gunner fought the instinct to whirl around and sprint away. His stomach was a ball of scorpions, twisting, turning, stinging. Bile shot to his throat. But he bit it back, determined to fake his bravado better than he’d ever done before.
For the first time in his career, he hated the sunlight. The remnants of the setting sun seemed to be ramping up his visibility, allowing him to see sickening sights with a heightened awareness that he wished would disappear.
If that woman’s demise wasn’t horrific enough, the next body he saw was. It was Sarah. The young crew member who’d worked at the gelato stand. Only yesterday, she’d served him up the daily delight with a smile to match.
She was sprawled on the floor. Her open eyes confirmed she was gone, as did the bloody gash that’d nearly decapitated her.
Jae-Ellen ran to the railing and Gunner clenched his jaw as he tried to block out the sounds of her throwing up.
“Hey, check that one out.”
Gunner spun to the man’s voice, and what he saw was nearly as sickening as the gruesome victims.
Two men, identical in appearance—one was taking photos.
Gunner strode to them and snatched his phone. “Give me that.”
“Hey, that’s mine.”
“As Captain of this ship, I’m requisitioning this phone.”
“Bullshit.” One of the twins lunged at Gunner, and with his fury already at boiling point Gunner jumped sideways, snatched the man’s arm, curled it up behind him, and shoved him face-first into a wall. “You two are despicable. Where were you when the plane hit?”
“None of your fucking—”
Gunner yanked his arm higher.
“Shit. Shit. Okay . . . we were in our cabin.”
Gunner eased off a fraction. “What deck?”
“Deck six.”
“Was there any damage?”
“How would we know? There’s no lights. It’s black as hell down there. Hey, stop it, you’re hurting me.”
Gunner let go and spun him around. “What did you see on your way up here?”
“Nothing.” He rubbed his shoulder.
“There were those people in the elevator,” the other man said.
Damn it, Gunner hadn’t even considered the elevators.
“Hey guys, you should come see—” A young woman burst through Petals’ double swinging doors, but she stopped short when she spied Gunner.
“Ma’am. I’m Gunner McCrae, the ship’s Captain. I need your phone.”
She glanced at her iPhone, then snapped it behind her back.
“Ma’am, I demand you hand over your phone.”
The woman spun on her heel and took off. Pauline raced after her and the swinging door flung back and forth after they shot through it. A woman screamed and seconds later Pauline shoved the passenger back through the doors by a fistful of hair.
“Give him your phone.” Pauline spoke into the woman’s ear with surprising calm.
“Here.” Her eyes blazed as she shoved the phone forward. “It doesn’t work anyway.”
“What’s your pin code?”
“Nine, six, six, six.” She glared at him.
Gunner jabbed the pin and the phone lit up, but no signal appeared. It made sense. The phone had been spared from the EMP pulse because they were below decks, but the strike would’ve obliterated all the satellites. It was something else he hadn’t considered. Even if he could get the satellite phone from the safe, it would be hopeless anyway.
The phones would be useful for lighting and the time, nothing else.
He put the phones into airplane mode to save battery and shoved them into his pockets. “You should be disgusted in yourselves. Show some respect. Now follow me. We need your help.”
Gunner strode ahead and only half expected them to obey as he thrust through the doors to the dining hall. A barrage of noises had his stomach churning. People screaming. Wailing. Sobbing. People calling for help. Yet there was something else—a strange empty static. A void that should’ve been filled with all sorts of sounds. Music, kitchen equipment, the ever-present electrical hum. Laughter.
It looked like a bomb had exploded. Tables, chairs, buffet counters, and giant slabs of marble had been blasted apart. An enormous section of the roof had caved in, revealing a mass of wires that dangled down like thousands of deadly jellyfish tentacles. Smoke clouded the room making it impossible to see to the other side. The air was tinged with opposing odors of enticing meals and toxic fumes. Crockery, cutlery, food, masses of debris, and bodies littered the floor.
A gory chunk of flesh slipped off the ceiling and splattered onto the patterned lino at his feet. The disgusting sight triggered a starter gun in Gunner’s brain. He raced to an extremely obese man on the floor who had a nauseating mix of bloody flesh and the roast of the day across his chest. Gunner knelt at the passenger’s side and felt for a pulse in the folds of his neck. The man was dead. Gunner crawled to another passenger. A woman this time. She, too, was dead.
With each body he examined, he found it harder to breathe. His lungs burned as he struggled to inhale. He struggled to exhale too. He struggled to think . . . to comprehend what he was doing. What he should be doing. The situation was brutal. Sickening. Each additional body he confirmed as deceased was shocking. Young children. Middle-aged women. Elderly couples. It was a battlefield of blood and gore . . . and every single victim was innocent.
“They’re all dead.” Jae-Ellen’s voice bordered on hysterical.
Gunner blocked out her distress and pushed onto the next victim. The situation was a ticking bomb.
He needed to examine the damage to the rest of the ship.
He needed to see if the hull had been compromised.
He needed to make a decision on whether or not to abandon ship.
For the sake of all souls on board, he needed to leave the victims that were injured, dying or already dead in Petals restaurant and inspect the impact zone.
Gunner checked one more victim, and after confirming she had no pulse, he pushed to a standing position. A flood of heat washed through him, bathing his already clammy skin in a sickening veil and pushing him to the edge of consciousness. He clutched a chair, and sucked in heady gasps, determined to shove the wave of nausea down.
“Captain! This woman’s alive.” Pauline’s comment was the reprieve he needed.
“Okay. That’s good.” His eyes skipped to the three passengers who’d followed them into the restaurant. They were standing aside, mouths and eyes wide, seemingly unable or incapable of moving.
“This one’s alive too.” Jae-Ellen was kneeling beside an injured woman, who was sitting up and holding a bloody hand to her forehead.
Two alive in a field of bodies. The ratio was terrifying.
Gunner scanned the dining room, doing a visual assessment of impending danger. Satisfied it was safe, he pointed at the identical men. “You two. What’re your names?”
“Ken,” said one.
“Colin . . . Col,” said the other.
“Okay, clear this area. I want nothing but the bare floor.”
The twins nodded and when they gathered an upturned table and lifted it upright, two bodies were revealed.
Gunner raced to the women who were both lying face-down in a mutual pool of blood. Before he’d even felt for a pulse, he knew they’d be dead.
They were.
He glanced up at the woman who’d been with Col and Ken. Tears streamed down her cheeks; finally, she was showing some compassion. “What’s your name?”
“Brandi.”
Gunner stood and stepped back from the blood. “Do you have family aboard?”
She pointed toward Col and Ken. “Just my twin brothers.”
“Looks like you got lucky.” Gunner used his eyes to indicate to the bodies at his feet.
She sucked her bottom lip into her mouth and her chin quivered.
He turned to his Thir
d Officer. “Jae-Ellen.”
Jae-Ellen glanced up from the injured woman who, other than the gash on her forehead, seemed to be okay. “Sir.”
“There are first-aid stations in the kitchen; take Brandi with you and grab as many supplies as you can.”
“Yes, sir.” Jae-Ellen leaned in to speak to the injured woman. Once the woman nodded, Jae-Ellen stood and sprinted Gunner’s way. Her eyes held his gaze, portraying both an inner strength and a fragile veneer. She was holding it together. . . for now.
“Here, take this phone; it’ll be your only light.” He placed his hand on her shoulder, and was surprised to feel her trembling. She was suffering more than she was letting on. But for the sake of both of them, he couldn’t even ask if she was okay. It was a stupid question anyway; neither of them were okay. Not a single person on Rose of the Sea was okay.
Jae-Ellen nodded, and with the flashlight on, she sprinted toward the kitchen area with Brandi in tow.
“Also, grab whatever you can to cover the bodies. And find a notepad and pen,” he hollered after them.
“Yes, sir.”
The brothers were making a thunderous racket as they tossed chairs and tables aside. But in between each clatter, the stillness was disturbing. Deathly. Petals should be a hive of activity with hundreds of people enjoying their evening meal.
Instead, it’d become a morgue.
Gunner shoved that distinction aside and stepped toward the blast zone.
The explosion had created a hole in the side of the ship that was the size of a double-decker bus. He inched up to the edge, looked into the giant chasm and gasped. A young bearded man was dangling from a rod of metal reinforcing. Several poles had pierced his torso, pinning him to the shredded circumference like some kind of sick artistic homage to Jesus on the cross.
Gunner forced his eyes away and peered into the crater. The destruction was shocking. Five decks had been directly impacted by the collision. The blast zone from the resulting explosion looked like a prehistoric monster had taken a giant bite out of the ship.
He prayed the hull remained intact.
If not, he had a whole set of additional problems to deal with. And very little time.
Halfway down the hole, a dim light was filtering through, offering a slight visual. At the very bottom were the remains of the plane. A column of dirty smoke spewed from the plane’s carcass and drifted out to sea. Movement in the plane caught his eye and he searched the smoke for clarification. A heartbeat later, his breath died. Flames! The air punched out of him so fast his ears stung. “Shit!” His stomach heaved a violent warning. Searing. Painful. Urgent.
Tongues of orange fire were licking up the side of the plane wreck creating a tornado of glowing embers that filled the air like thousands of deadly fireflies. It was impossible to tell if the sprinkler systems had triggered. And even if they had, it was impossible to know if the water pumps were working.
He had to get down there. And fast.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw Jae-Ellen sprinting back with two first-aid kits and a handful of linen. He strode to her. “Jae-Ellen . . . Pauline . . . keep assessing the victims. Just do your best with the injured.”
They nodded, grim-faced.
The light was draining away from the room, and with it went the light from Jae-Ellen’s eyes. Gunner had to force her distressed look from his mind and keep moving.
“Brandi, use the passenger lanyards to make a list of the victim’s names and check their pockets for phones. Keep them if they are working. Then cover the bodies. Okay?”
Her eyes bulged and when her face washed with gray, he thought she was going to throw up. Ignoring her reaction, he spun to her brothers. “Col and Ken, once you’ve finished clearing this area, move all the bodies over there.” Gunner pointed at the largest seating area in the middle of the room.
“Sir?” Jae-Ellen’s bottom lip quivered. “Where are you going, sir?”
“There’s a fire down there. I need to extinguish it and assess the damage.”
“Are we abandoning ship, sir?” The terror in her voice was brutal.
“I’ll know more soon.”
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
A tear trickled down her cheek, and she slapped it away as if annoyed by its presence. “Don’t abandon me, sir.”
He touched her trembling shoulder and waited until her gaze met his. “I promise you, every single person still alive right now will leave this ship before me.” The second the sentence tumbled from his lips, he knew it was a lie. But it was just like the lies he and his mother had told. Once they’d been triggered, the landslide of consequences were unstoppable.
That was twenty-four years ago. Since then, his life had forever been carved into before that moment and after.
Now he was trapped in another life-defining moment.
Except there was one extreme difference. In his past, there had only been two lives at stake.
Now there were hundreds.
Gunner always knew his lifetime of lies would one day come back to haunt him.
But he’d never imagined it would be as catastrophic as this.
Chapter Seven
Madeline didn’t mean to rock as she hugged her knees. But she couldn’t help it. It was a trick she’d learned to help her transport her mind from reality. Her concentration was on moving her body, back and forward, back and forward, not the blackness seeping into her brain. Nor the constant tick that echoed about the metallic cube, counting out the never-ending seconds of their entrapment. Tick. Tick. Tick.
“Hey, Madeline, don’t worry. They’re coming back. I’m here with you.” Sterling was calm, way too calm.
“I hate the dark.” The words blurted from her mouth, and she regretted them the instant she’d uttered them. Years of therapy had helped her grasp how foolish being afraid of the dark was, yet it had still failed to exterminate the grip that phobia had on her.
Flashbacks to the long dark hours she’d endured at the hands of her kidnapper were always there. Lurking like a predator. Preying on her weakness. Darkness served as their highway, giving the retched memories unfettered access to her conscious mind.
Darkness was her enemy.
She even slept with a small nightlight. And despite their initial objections, her cabin-mates had allowed her to keep it.
“Hey, mind if I sit with you?”
She jumped when he spoke, but there was something about his voice that she found soothing. Madeline latched onto the melody, begging for it to simmer her frantic thoughts. The extent of her indecision throbbed in her chest and it was a long, agonizing moment before she convinced herself that she was fine. That he was fine. She sniffed back her tears. “Okay.”
He sidled in beside her and sat so close their shoulders touched. “I’m here for you, okay? We’ll do this together.”
She nodded and then, realizing Sterling couldn’t see her, she said, “Okay.”
He was nestled in beside her, close. Way too close. She’d never let a stranger sit with her like this before. Especially a man. And she was torn between staying frozen in position and shuffling sideways.
“There you go. Want me to put my light back on?”
“Yes please.”
He did, and as he rested his phone facedown at his side so the light was shining upward, she wiped her fingers beneath her nose, and sniffed back her imbalance.
“So, you must be staff, huh?”
“What?” Her mind puzzled. “How did you know that?”
“I’ve got one of the cheapest cabins on the ship. On the bottom decks. You came up from a lower deck, so I figure you came from one of the staff cabins.”
“Yeah, you’re right. I usually take the stairs.”
“Pfft. I bet you wish you had this time.”
“Yeah. I’m trying to rest my ankle. I hurt it in last night’s performance.”
“Oh, are you a dancer?”
“Yes. Did you see the show?”
“I
did. You were the best in your row.” He chuckled.
She huffed out a shaky laugh. “Did you see the high-ropes act?”
“Yes. Oh my God. Was that you?”
“Sure was.”
“Wow. So. . . no fear of heights then.”
“Nope.” She’d take climbing a mountain over tunneling beneath it any day. “Just the dark. What about you? What do you do?”
“I’m a teacher. Elementary school. I’ve been doing it for about six years now.”
“Huh. I could never do that,” she said. “Don’t have the patience.”
He huffed. “It can by trying, that’s for sure.”
They fell into silence. Each night on all of the eleven cruises she’d worked on, she’d found the repetitive beat of the engines therapeutic. She’d used that beat as her focal point to lull her to sleep. But with both the lights and the engine beat gone, the emptiness smothered her. Seeped in. Crawled up her spine. Tickled her neck.
The minutes ticked on and her mind slipped once again to her eight-year-old self. Nearly every waking moment during her entrapment, she’d dreamed of being rescued. But the days had become weeks and the weeks had become months.
And Madeline had lost the ability to hope anymore.
She’d been held captive for five months. She’d thought it was longer. Two years. Maybe three. Without a window to the outside world, there was no day. Only night. Tracking time had been impossible.
Exactly like now.
Had the sun already set?
The incessant noise was the only clock. Tick. Tick. Tick.
Desperate for another avenue of focus, she cleared her throat. “So, ummm, were you enjoying the cruise?”
He rumbled out a small groan. “Yes and no.”
“I mean before this.” She huffed.
“I meant before this.”
“Oh, you weren’t?” She glanced at him and saw what she thought was sadness in his expression.
“It was meant to be my honeymoon.”
She scrambled for a suitable response. “Oh. That’s ummm . . .”
“My lovely bride didn’t show up at the church.”
“Oh, wow. You poor thing.”
Waves of Fate | Book 1 | First Fate Page 6