“Where could they be?” The ship swayed, and she stumbled sideways.
Max clutched her shoulders. “Hey, let’s take a rest.”
“No, Max! Stop it. I’m fine.”
“No. You’re not.”
She lashed out, slapping his cheek. “Stop it.”
The candle flame made his bulging eyes look hideously huge.
“The ship swayed; that’s all. Now let’s go.” She strode from the nightclub, through a door that led to an outer deck.
The ocean breeze was swift and so very welcome. Clutching the railing, she sucked in the fresh air hoping to cleanse the smoke from her airways. The moon was a third of the way off the horizon and allowed sufficient light to see the boiling sea. The waves were at least nine or ten feet high and topped with white froth. Her mind snapped to all those poor people who’d gone overboard after the plane engine had skidded across the deck, and she imagined a field of people floating face-down. It was a brutal image.
She’d done enough cruises to know that waves of this scope shouldn’t have any impact on a ship the size of Rose of the Sea. But it was a different story when the ship’s engines and electronics weren’t working. They were essentially on a cork, bobbing on the water.
At the mercy of the sea.
Max reached the railing beside her and a heartbeat later, a blaze of lightning forked the sky, emitting a violent crack that made her jump.
“Sally’s scared of lightning.” Max’s voice was loaded with sorrow.
Gabby was a second off rebuffing his statement when she glimpsed the trouble in his eyes. It confirmed it was true. A piece of her heart cracked at her not knowing that about her own daughter.
“She’ll be hiding somewhere inside then.” Gabby stormed away. Clenching her teeth, she charged back through the doors. Barely any moonlight penetrated the space and the blackness was so complete, it left her no choice but to wait for Max and his candle.
His candlelight allowed her to get her bearings, and she saw two posters beside a set of elevator doors. “This is where we first boarded the ship.”
“Oh yeah. You’re right.
One of the posters had a woman wearing a skimpy silver costume and dangling upside down from a red sash. The other poster had a picture of three chargrilled prawns sitting atop a colorful salad. Her stomach rumbled as if it smelled the food. It was impossible to remember how long ago she’d eaten. The kids had been going to join them for dinner at the Chinese buffet.
“The kids missed dinner.” Max must’ve read her mind. “They must be starving.”
“Pfft.” She chuckled, trying to make light of the moment. “Adam probably filled up on every flavor of ice cream.”
“He’s lactose intolerant.” Max looked at her, deadpan.
A blaze of heat raced up her neck.
She knew that. Of course she did.
Max’s expression morphed from bewilderment to disappointment. But there was something else there she couldn’t pinpoint, almost like he’d had a reality check. Fearful he was about to say something she didn’t want to hear, she turned toward the right-hand doorway. “Let’s go.”
Striding across the flattened carpet, she passed the abandoned shore excursion desk and the photo gallery where a week ago they’d laughed themselves silly at the ridiculous family portrait the overzealous photographer had pressured them into taking. It’d seemed a good idea at the time, particularly as all four of them were together and because they were dressed for the evening show. But the resulting photo had been amateurishly photoshopped to adjust their skin tones and cropped to position them in front of a photo of Rose of the Sea.
Oh God. That ghastly photo could be the last family portrait they’d ever take.
No. It will not. Fear stabbed at her stomach. Stabbed at her brain.
We will take many more family photos. Proper ones, with a real photographer.
She spun on her heel and stormed back to the wall of photos. It took her two seconds to find it. She snatched it off the wall and ripped it to shreds. With that done, she turned back to Max. His jaw was ajar and eyebrows raised, posing a silent question.
“Don’t ask.” She pushed past him again, and the sound of voices had her heart jumping. “Do you hear that? Sally? Adam?”
Casting caution aside, she strode onward. “Sally. Adam.”
But her thumping excitement nosedived when she found the source of the voices. “What are you doing?” she yelled at the group of men inside the duty-free cellar door.
One of the men jumped. “Jesus, lady, you scared the crap out of me.”
“What the hell are you doing?”
“We’re drinking. What does it look like?”
“You know the ship’s sinking, don’t you?” She tried the same tactic she’d used on the kids looting the store.
“Huh. Where’d you hear that? The Captain said it’s definitely not sinking.”
“He did? When?”
“We overheard him talking to some of the crew when they were heading toward the pool deck. As soon as he said that, we came down here. . . figured we can’t do anything else, so we might as well drink.”
While it was a relief to hear the ship wasn’t sinking, it was what she hadn’t heard that was the worry. “What else did he say?”
The young man offered an open bottle of bourbon to her and although it was very tempting, she declined. “The Captain said something about not being able to communicate back home. Oh, and he mentioned that it was an EMP, but we’ve got no idea what that is.”
Gabby nodded. She’d been right. And that meant they were in real trouble. Not just her family. But every single person on this ship. She clutched the man’s wrist. “Have you seen a couple of teenagers, a boy and girl, about this high? We’ve lost our kids.”
He tried to snatch his arm away. “Calm your farm, lady. Let go of me.”
“Have you seen them?”
“No.” He yanked himself free.
A young woman stepped forward. Her blond hair curled about her face with a youthful bounce. “Listen . . . everyone was told to go up to the pool deck. Your kids are probably up there trying to find you.”
“She’s right, Gabby. Come on.” Max reached for her hand, dragging her away.
As they departed, the group burst into laughter. Come tomorrow though, they wouldn’t be laughing. Everything was about to go to hell.
Hell . . . they were probably already there.
Max led the way, and when they passed a couple of shops which had a dozen or so people looting the shelves, Gabby joined them and replaced the candle she’d lost with another one. And once again, she filled her pockets with chocolate bars.
At the cocktail bar, several people were helping themselves to drinks. They had candles lit and were chatting and laughing like it was all a big joke.
She shook her head at the absurdity of it all.
Sadly, it was exactly the type of behavior that would make headline news. She could picture it now . . . Sipping cocktails while the ship went down—what a way to go.
It was all so surreal.
At the atrium, they stopped and called out the kids’ names again. The large open space spanned four decks and their voices echoed into the dark void. It was like a scene from a post-apocalyptic movie.
“Sally! Adam!” Gabby screamed until her already suffering throat burned. When she pulled back, she rubbed her weary eyes. She didn’t want to admit it, but she was tired. And hungry. But most of all, she was scared for her children. “Where could they be?”
“Maybe we should go up to the pool deck and see if they’re there.”
She rolled the thought around her brain. It just didn’t feel right.
“Gabby.” Max touched her shoulder. “Come on.”
After walking through a carpeted area with cushioned seating set in various configurations, they entered a section that looked like an enormous wrecking ball had smashed through it. But it wasn’t a wrecking ball. Gabby knew exactly what it would
’ve been. The plane engine. The giant projectile, about the size of a cement truck, had carved a trail of destruction through the middle of the ship.
The entire elevator shaft was obliterated. Doors gone. Walls gone. Elevator gone. The size and extent of the damage was consistent with when the engine had smashed through the upper deck, taking out everyone like they were bowling pins.
The only thing left of the elevator was a shredded foursome of two-inch cables that had once held it in place.
A whistling noise came up through the hollow shaft and her brain forked in opposing directions when she pictured the demise of the elevator itself. The first was utter horror for anybody who may’ve been inside when it dropped to the bottom in about three seconds flat. The second was a potential headline: Dozens killed in elevator plummet.
Headlines like that attracted attention.
The eerie quiet had her artistic license already working the silent creepiness into an engrossing news story when she heard something. “Shhh! Max, listen.”
“What?”
“Do you hear that?”
The boat groaned and she clutched the handrail as she pitched to the right.
“Help.” It was a child’s voice. Barely audible.
“Oh my God.” Her heart launched to her throat. “Did you hear that? Hello. We’re here. We can hear you.”
“Help!” The voice was distant, a mile away.
“We’re coming. Where are you?” Gabby bounced off the walls, left and right as she raced to keep up with Max.
“Help!” It was a girl’s voice. Was it Sally? Please let it be Sally.
Gabby’s brain froze on a mental picture of her beautiful daughter, covered in blood and screaming for help.
“We’re on our way. Where are you?” Max’s voice boomed in the enclosed passageway.
“In here. In the theater.”
Max shot ahead, and Gabby dashed after him. They burst through the double entrance doors to the theater and she gasped at the disaster zone. The giant engine that had crippled the elevator had demolished several rows of chairs and destroyed the upper theater stalls before it had smashed a gaping hole in the side of the ship.
Faint light streamed in through the hole, and it took Gabby a couple of thumping heartbeats to realize it was the moon.
“Sally! Adam!” Max screamed into the near-black room.
“Dad.”
Gabby just about crumbled to the ground. “Adam!” Her throat was choked with emotion; she could barely breathe.
“Adam! Adam!” Max’s screams were shrill with terror as he clambered over chairs. “Where are you?”
“We’re up here.”
“Oh my God.” Gabby flicked away tears as she tried to keep up with Max. The moon provided enough light to see through the smoky haze. What she saw had her crying for both joy and fear. Her son was looking down from the only remaining portion of the upper theater stall.
“Adam. Where’s Sally?” Gabby yelled up to him.
He shook his head. “I don’t know. What’s happening?” Despite the dimmed light, she saw tears streaming down Adam’s blackened face. Beside him were two boys and a girl. All were crying.
“Are you hurt?” Max stood on a chair and looked up at the balcony.
Barely ten feet of the stall was remaining. Gabby’s legs buckled beneath her as she realized with utter horror that their son . . . their thirteen-year-old boy, Adam, had been inches from death.
The boat shifted and Gabby clawed at chairs as she toppled. She missed them all and landed heavily on the floor. Blinking back her shock, she turned and came face to face with a young girl whose long dark hair covered her face. But her head was twisted at a hideous angle.
Gabby squealed and jerked back. Tears stung her eyes. Her chin quivered.
“Sally? Oh God, Sally?” A sob burst from her throat. “No. No. No. No. No.”
Gabby couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t think. With trembling fingers, she reached forward and scooped the hair back from the girl’s face.
“Oh, thank God.” Relief liquified her bones as she gasped at the young girl’s eyes, staring blankly into the distance. Shivers rained up Gabby’s neck. She scrambled to push away from the tiny child, riding a painful wave of both guilt and relief. Then she saw a pair of bloodied legs in the aisle.
A terrified shriek tumbled from her throat as she scrambled over chairs to get to the body. It too was a young girl, barely eight years old. Gabby rode another violent wave of guilt as she thanked God the body wasn’t her daughter’s.
Standing again, she turned her gaze toward Adam, whose howling strangled her heart, but her eyes snagged on yet another body. Then another. Three. Six. Ten. All of them were young kids. All sprawled at awkward angles. All dead.
Her heart thumped in her neck. Her breathing rushed in and out in short, painful gasps. Dragging her eyes away from a bloody corpse, she looked up to her son. Tears streamed down his dirty cheeks. His mouth was wide open with terrified screams.
“Adam.” Her chin quivered. “Where’s Sally?”
He shook his head. “I don’t know.” His wailing carved a brutal hole in Gabby’s heart.
“When did you last see her?”
“She was going to our cabin to change her shoes.”
“When?” Gabby shrieked. “When?”
“It was . . .” he howled, “. . . it was right before that happened.”
Gabby’s mind snapped to the shredded cables where the elevator had been.
She fell to her knees. Her world swam. In the distance, lightning blazed across a thick black cloud and her brain struggled to comprehend how that could be. A stench as pungent as it was sickening invaded her nostrils. She gasped for air, sucking back the rancid odor. She tilted sideways. Her cheek hit the rough carpet.
Her arms and legs were lead weights. Impossible to lift.
Everything swirled around her like she was caught in a tornado.
Her body melted into the carpet.
Her world went blank.
Chapter Nineteen
“What’re we going to do, Sterling?” Madeline’s voice was hoarse from screaming. Her fists were sore from banging on the closed elevator doors and her eyes stung from the smoke that was growing thicker by the second.
“I don’t know. We’ve run out of options.”
They’d stopped halfway down the elevator shaft. According to the number on the back of the metal doors beside her, they’d reached deck four. Above them was their elevator, stuck somewhere between the sixth and seventh decks. Below them was an elevator shaft, at least four decks deep, filled with smoke. And at the very bottom was a fire.
They couldn’t go up. They couldn’t go down. They had no way out.
Madeline knew exactly what it was like to have no way out, yet at the same time cling to ludicrous hope that a solution would miraculously appear. The crazy cycle of hope and disappointment could spin around with fierce and soul-crushing repetition for days.
Every time Professor Flint had opened the door to the dungeon, her hopes had soared. Sometimes she’d actually looked forward to his visits. Begged for them even. And then the horror would happen. Afterward, he’d turn off the light and shut the door, plunging her into absolute darkness.
Absolute darkness.
It was still her greatest fear.
With the flames flickering below, at least she could see.
She turned her gaze to Sterling. He scanned the elevator shaft. Down to the fire. Up to the stranded elevator. To the doors that were impossible to open. To the four solid walls that were impenetrable.
She should be petrified too. Out of her mind.
But she wasn’t.
Maybe after surviving the very worst a human could suffer, nothing could be as terrifying. Even dying.
She’d thought about killing herself many times in that dungeon. After she was rescued, she’d thought about killing herself too. She’d felt like a freak. Nobody knew how to talk to her, how to look at her witho
ut getting all weird. The media were relentless, hounding her for sordid details. Snapping pictures like she was a monster. Sneaky reporters would pretend to be her friend only to ruin that trust in the most soul-crushing of ways.
Her therapist had diagnosed her with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. PTSD. The acronym had been rolling around her brain for sixteen years. During her entrapment, she’d taken to humming and picturing herself dancing to music. Free as a bird in the beautiful blue sky. Her therapist had honed in on that. It had turned out to be the only good thing to surface from that therapy . . . the suggestion that Madeline take up dancing.
She didn’t just take it up. She’d become obsessed and it had consumed her life.
Dancing made her free.
It made her glad she hadn’t killed herself. She was glad to be alive.
I am glad to be alive.
Anger boiled in her belly. Heat blazed up her neck. Her pulse thumped in her ears. The idea that she was going to die in this smoke-filled shaft seeped into her brain like ink, staining her sanity, and cell by cell, sending her just a little bit mad.
Her rage formed a volcano. Flaming-hot fury swelled from deep inside her, inching up her backbone like a slithering cobra. Unable to contain it a moment more, she stood on the grill and screamed into the void.
“What? What?” Sterling’s eyes were huge. His expression confirmed he was petrified.
“Sorry.” She’d been so caught up in her own demise that she hadn’t thought about Sterling. “I’m so sorry, I just—I can’t believe this is happening again.”
His eyes bulged further. “You’ve been stuck in an elevator before.”
“No. Not specifically.”
“But you’ve been trapped before?”
She nodded, but didn’t elaborate.
“Okay.” He paused, maybe waiting for clarification. An awkward beat passed between them. “How did you get out last time then?”
She liked that he didn’t pry; it demonstrated the type of man he was—compassionate. Not many people she met fit that criteria.
She gazed down at the fire.
She’d survived a fire last time. She was determined to survive this.
The flames seemed to be subsiding, yet it had the opposite effect on the smoke. It was becoming thicker, more caustic. Covering her hand over her mouth, she blinked through the haze and spied the second lift. It was right down at the bottom. But there was something weird about it. It was out of shape. “Sterling. Look at that other elevator.”
Waves of Fate | Book 1 | First Fate Page 15