“Oh.” Words completely escaped her, but as her veins pulsed out a therapeutic beat, she lost herself to the moment by weaving her arms around him. He smelt so lovely, and clutched in his embrace, she felt so right. It was such a strange thing to admit. Especially when she’d spent most of her life resisting human touch.
All too soon, Sterling eased back and when he looked at her, even in the dim light, he seemed to be really, truly looking at her. The intensity of his gaze had her skin prickling. She glanced away and cleared her throat. “We need to get out of here.”
Clinging to a grill, he climbed to his feet and offered her his hand. “I agree. I am so hungry I could eat my left arm.”
“Me too.” She huffed. “The hungry bit, that is—not the arm bit.”
He offered her a lopsided grin, and once again she was grateful she wasn’t alone.
The ship was still swaying and just the thought of repeating what they’d already been through had a sense of urgency shooting through her like adrenalin.
Madeline studied the shaft, and the second she’d identified the best route, she started climbing down. This time, though, she didn’t wait for Sterling. She just hoped he’d keep up.
Four feet down, she reached the writing on the back of the next elevator door.
Deck three.
She glanced down. The flickering flames caught her eye. What could be fueling them? The firemen who’d rescued her from Flint’s home had said she was lucky the timber house had been crammed full. It had been stacked to the ceiling with old newspapers, egg cartons, boxes of bulk items he’d never opened, and loads and loads of rubbish. It had meant there wasn’t enough oxygen to cause an inferno.
Frowning at that memory, she studied the flames again. The elevator was all metal. No wood or combustibles. The smoke, however, was growing thicker, caking her tongue with a bitter tang. She flicked her hair from her eyes and upon seeing her black hands, she recalled the thick grease that was slathered over the cables at the back of the elevator. Maybe that was fueling the fire.
Or maybe it was a ruptured fuel tank spewing highly flammable diesel that was about to explode in a giant fireball.
That horrifying thought blasted from nowhere. She scrambled down faster.
Deck two.
The lower she went, the more visible the other elevator became. It had exploded outward. The external walls were buckled, yet the back corner was crumbled in, like it’d been stomped on.
That elevator had fallen a very long way.
Shuddering at the thought, she silently prayed that nobody had been inside. She also thanked her lucky gods that she hadn’t been. For the briefest of moments, she clutched the tree-of-life pendant around her neck. She’d had the gold medallion made for her twenty-first birthday. The tree had five colorful crystals on each of its limbs that represented the five months she’d been held captive. Not that she needed reminding of those horrific months—Lord no. However, she did need reminding that she’d survived. And not just survived—she’d moved on.
Gritting her teeth, she vowed she was going to do both again. She was not ready for her life to be over.
A deep roar rumbled from somewhere outside the shaft.
“What the hell was that?” she yelled up to Sterling.
“I don’t know.” The fear in his voice was terrifying.
Next second, water poured in from above them. Like someone was blasting them with a fire hose. “Shit. Shit. Shit!” She squealed. “Are we sinking?”
“I don’t know. Quick! Move!”
Cold water pounded onto her head and splashed in her eyes. Squinting through the waterfall and smoky haze, she scrambled down the last ten or so feet. Three rungs to go. Two.
The water doused the flames making them hiss and flare and produce more smoke.
Coughing the caustic air, she finally climbed through to the second shaft and stood atop the buckled metal of the other elevator. Sterling joined her a few seconds later.
Coughing stung her throat. Smoke stung her eyes.
Desperate to see an escape from their hell, she crouched down and peered through a gap in the roof of the battered cube.
Dim light speared the crack in the door, like a distant torch was being aimed through it, and Madeline glimpsed a bright pink fabric. She leaned farther over for a better look. “Oh, Jesus. Hello? Are you okay? Hello?”
A small girl lay on her side on the bottom. She wasn’t moving.
“Sterling, there’s a girl in there.” Water poured into the elevator, splashing up onto the girl. She still didn’t move. “Oh God! I think . . . I think she’s dead.”
“Let me see.”
She eased aside and as she swept her wet hair from her eyes, he lowered down onto his stomach and poked his head through the gap.
“Hello. Are you okay?” After a pause, he pulled back. “I can’t tell if she’s alive or not. But those doors are slightly open. If we can get in there, maybe we can get out.” His voice was loaded with hope.
It was the energy boost she needed. “Okay. Okay.”
Blocking out the image of the girl’s lifeless body, she searched the dimness for the access point to the elevator. Her heart sank at what she saw. It was another combination lock with a shank as thick as her little finger. “Shit! Not again. How are we going to break this?”
Sterling squatted at her side and she inhaled his delightful cologne. It made the situation so bizarre. Water tumbling onto her head and splashing up into her face. Smoke stinging her eyes and burning her throat. A lifeless girl in the ruined elevator below. And a handsome man who smelled lovely at her side. She was in a warped dream.
“Stand back.” He reached across her chest and guided her away from the access panel. “I have an idea. Get up on that.” He pointed to one of the beams that crossed the top of the elevator.
Sterling stomped onto a panel between two thick metal beams. He did it again and again. Each time, the sound changed a fraction, like it was somehow becoming more hollow. Madeline joined in, using her good leg, concentrating on stomping her sneaker in the same place near the access door.
They hit it in unison and it bowed inward. He grinned at her. “It’s working. Keep going.”
Three more kicks and the side came away, buckling into the space below. “Yes!”
The waterfall above them had petered down to a trickle. Hopefully that’s the last of it.
Finally, the entire panel fell inside the elevator, barely missing the girl. Yet she still didn’t move.
“We did it.” Sterling’s grin was a mixture of triumph and grim reality. He held his hand toward her. “Ladies first.”
Madeline reached for him, and squeezing his palm to hers, she sat with her feet dangling into the elevator, held onto a metal crossbeam, and jumped down. Pain shot up her leg and she winced at her ankle injury. It seemed like days ago since she’d done that. She hoped like hell it wasn’t.
Sterling joined her, and they had to wriggle away the panel they’d broken to reach the girl. He knelt down and touched two fingers to the girl’s neck. Madeline dragged her eyes away from the limp body to study their planned exit instead.
The right-hand door was tilted at a twenty-degree angle. But the gap wasn’t big enough for their escape.
“She’s alive!” Sterling blurted.
A wave of relief wobbled through Madeline. “Thank God.”
Sterling squeezed the girl’s arm. “Hey, are you okay?” She didn’t move.
Madeline guessed she was thirteen or fourteen years old. She was on her side and had no obvious injuries. At least none involving blood.
But then she spied the soot around the girl’s nostrils. “Smoke. She’s suffering from smoke inhalation. See the black smudges around her nose and her puffy skin?”
“Are you sure?”
“Trust me. I know.” Madeline’s mind flashed to the first time she’d looked into a mirror after she’d been rescued from that house fire. She hadn’t seen herself for more than five months
. That reflection had been horrifying. She’d barely recognized herself. Yet it wasn’t because of the black soot around her nose and mouth. Nor the fresh cigarette burn on her neck. Or her greasy matted hair. It was her eyes. They were sunken, withdrawn, vacant, and her irises had been much darker than she’d remembered.
Madeline shuddered the recollection free as she watched Sterling try to awaken the poor girl. “We need to get her out of here.”
The ship’s sway had become more pronounced. Maybe it was because they were in the enclosed space. She hoped that was it. But the ship shuddered and tilted again, rattling the metal around her. Something was catastrophically wrong.
Clutching the railing along the back of the elevator, she braced for the ship to roll back the other way.
A roar as loud and as terrifying as the one they’d heard earlier rumbled around them.
Sterling shot to his feet. His wide eyes darted from her to the doors. “What the hell--”
Water burst through the gap in the door, spearing them in a powerful spray. Sterling slammed to the back wall with her.
“What’s happening?” she yelled, turning away from the torrent and scrambling to a corner.
“I don’t know.”
Within seconds, the water was over her Vans. “We have to get out of here.”
Sterling dropped to his hands and knees, crawled to the girl, lifted her face from the water and rolled her onto her back.
But the girl was the least of their worries. If they didn’t get out of there, they would all drown. With her hand guarding her face, Madeline stepped through the waterspout and used the door as a shield. “Sterling. Help me! We have to pull them apart.”
He sloshed to her side and together, they wrapped their fingers around the broken door. “Ready?”
“Go!” Clenching her teeth, every muscle strained as she pulled on the door.
“Keep trying.” The vein on Sterling’s temple bulged. “We can do it.”
Madeline heard a choking noise and spun toward the sound. It was the girl. Her face was in the water. Madeline jumped through the spray and lifted her head onto her lap. “Hey, it’s okay.” It was too dark to see if her eyes were open. “Can you talk?”
“Madeline!” Sterling yelled. “We have to get out of here now.”
The decision to leave the girl was brutal. She could drown. Then again, if they didn’t open that door, they’d all die. She rolled the girl onto her back. The girl’s head bobbed in the water to just over her ears. The teenager actually looked peaceful.
Madeline stood again and gasped. The water was already above her knees. The whites of Sterling’s eyes were enormous. He was terrified too.
“Madeline.” Sterling yelled over the gushing water.
She bulged her eyes at him. “Yes.”
“I’ll push from this side; you pull. Okay?”
“Okay.” She huffed out a huge breath.
“Ready.”
She gulped air and held her hands forward.
“Set. Go!”
Squeezing her eyes shut, she plunged through the waterspout. Her hands connected with the edge of the door, and bracing her feet against the other door, she blocked out her throbbing ankle and pushed.
Nothing happened.
She pushed harder.
Her back bones crunched together. Pain shot down her legs.
Water rammed into her left ear, and she pictured her eardrum bursting.
Her brain careened from ‘we’re nearly there’ to ‘we’re going to die.’
Yet the door didn’t budge.
Just as she began fighting a mental debate over giving in, it jolted sideways and she lost her footing. She splashed into the water, plunging right under. When she scrambled to her feet, the water was up to her hips. Shoving wet hair from her eyes, she glared at the gap between the doors. It was barely twelve inches. It would be a tight squeeze for her, let alone Sterling. “Is it enough?”
“It’ll have to be.” He waved her forward. “Come on. Come on. Hurry.” His clipped voice was machine-gun staccato.
Using her hands, she shoved through the water to reach him.
He grabbed her arm, dragging her forward. “You go through first, then I’ll push the girl through and you grab her.”
Madeline glanced at the girl. She was floating on the water, thankfully face-up. She was so still. Madeline’s heart clenched like a fist. Maybe she’d passed away.
The boat began tipping sideways again. Water crawled up her body. “What’s happening?” It reached her waist, her breasts, her shoulders, her neck. She was forced to swim to keep her head above the water.
“We have to get out of here.” Sterling clutched her wrist and pulled her toward the door. “Go, Maddy. Go through.” The triangular-shaped gap they’d created was now beneath the waterline and light filtered through the green water like a weird alien eye.
She glared at him. “I’m not going without you.”
“I’ll be right behind you.”
She shook her head and clenched her jaw. There was no way she was leaving him. Madeline knew what it was like to be abandoned. It was the most soul-crushing experience in the world. “I’m not leaving you.”
Sterling palmed her cheeks, drawing her eyes to his. “Listen to me. You first, then the girl. Then me.”
She shook her head. “We can do this together.”
“No, we can’t.” He clutched her shoulders. “But we have to move now. Or we’ll all drown.”
Her mind battled with indecision. Her gaze shot from Sterling’s wide eyes, to the floating girl, to the green alien light.
“Madeline!” He shook her. “Go! Now!”
“Okay, but if you don’t come out, I’m coming back in.”
“You crazy woman.” His hands clutched her cheeks and without warning, he kissed her.
It was so sudden, so spontaneous, so perfect, she couldn’t help but grin. “You don’t know the half of it.”
“Go. Go!”
Madeline turned to the spouting water, sucked in a few breaths, then, with a huge lungful, she plunged beneath the water and dove toward the gap. She was through and out so quickly she was taken by surprise.
Swimming in neck-deep water, she glanced around. There was enough green light to see boxes and crates everywhere. Some of them were floating. The bigger ones were toppled like they’d been merely Lego blocks and not the size of washing machines.
She banged on the door. “Sterling. I’m out.”
A beat of silence was followed by a long groan from the ship. It was deep and loud, like she was trapped inside a monster with an ulcer. That thought had shivers racing up her spine. “Sterling. I’m out. Do you hear me?”
“Sterling!” She slammed her fist on the door.
“Okay, get ready. Here comes the girl.”
Her rising panic evaporated at the sound of his voice. She stood next to the crippled door with her mouth barely inches above the waterline. She pushed her hands through the gap in the door. “Ready!”
A heartbeat later, she felt a small hand. Clutching the girl’s wrist, Madeline pulled and the girl came through as a lifeless body. The second Madeline lifted her head above the water, she started sputtering. “Okay. You’re okay.” The girl’s eyes remained shut but at least she was gasping for air.
But Madeline had to ignore her for now. Sterling needed her help.
She dragged the girl to an upturned pallet, and using all her strength, she half rolled, half shoved her limp body on top. The second the teen was secure with her face free from the water, Madeline swam back to the elevator.
“Sterling. She’s safe now. Your turn.”
He banged twice on the door. “Okay.”
She repeated her earlier move, bracing herself against the door and pushing her hands into the gap. But the water was higher this time and to reach him she had to hold her breath and dive under. When his hand clutched hers, she gripped on and pulled. His arm came through far enough that she could raise her head
above the water. The top of his head appeared.
But then he stopped.
She pulled harder, but he didn’t move.
His hair floated about as his head snapped from side to side.
Screaming in frustration, she pulled harder.
But it was useless. Sterling was stuck.
Twenty seconds.
She braced her feet on the door and pulled with everything she had. He thrashed from side to side. But his head remained submerged.
Forty seconds.
His hand squeezed around hers. She clenched tighter. “Come on!”
One minute.
A sob burst from her throat. “I’m not leaving you.”
The boat groaned as if defying her. “Come on, Sterling!”
The water began to flow in the reverse direction. In the space of a few seconds, the height dropped five inches. It was a miracle.
He tried to pull back, but she kept him there. Every inch . . . every second, was a mental battle between keeping him there and letting him go.
“Hang on. The water’s moving.” She screamed through the door, but she had no idea if he heard her.
The top of his head emerged from the water and she wedged her hands beneath his chin. His eyes opened and she kept his gaze as the water crept down his face with excruciating slowness.
The second his nose came free, his nostrils flared, sucking in oxygen. His mouth was next and Sterling gasped for air with great heaving breaths.
“Oh thank God, thank God.” She brushed a curl of hair from his eyes. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah.” He panted. “I’m fabulous.”
Ignoring his sarcasm, she repositioned her hand beneath his chin. “The ship’s going to roll back again, so we don’t have much time. Where are you stuck?”
His fingers bit into her wrist. “My hips.”
“Okay, try going one hip at a time. Curve your back.”
He released her grip, and dropped his hand into the water. The agony on his face had her cringing in sympathy. He clenched his jaw and a growl roared from his throat. The angle of the boat began to shift. It was rolling back again.
“Oh shit, Sterling. Quick! Come on.”
Waves of Fate | Book 1 | First Fate Page 18