Fateful (28 page)

My whole body goes cold.

“What might Alec do to save you from pain?” Mikhail tilts his head, narrows his eyes. I see the wolf in him so strongly now, more strongly than I did when he had fur and fangs. “Handing over the Initiation Blade would be only the beginning.”

That’s the moment when I become so afraid that I go beyond fear. Within the space of one blink, I’m suddenly consumed by white-hot rage. Mikhail wants to hurt me? I’ll show him hurt.

I slam my hand into his face as hard as I can, so hard the bones of my arm ache. In that first instant, surprise is on my side, and Mikhail’s only able to stumble backward. I use that moment to go after his eyes with my fingernails. He shouts out in pain, and it’s the sweetest sound I’ve ever heard.

But then my advantage is lost. Mikhail recovers and grabs my arm, twisting it savagely behind me until I’m afraid the bone will break. I scream again and again, but there’s no one to hear. Mikhail’s other hand claps across my mouth anyway, less to silence me and more as if to smother me.

He pulls me against him, his chest to my back. Surely he can feel the terrified pounding of my heart. “You’ll pay for that,” he mutters into my ear, his voice silky. This one enjoys fear—drinks it the way others do champagne.

His hand tightens against my face, and I think he might forget his plans for manipulating Alec and kill me just for the fun of it. But that’s when the ship begins to shake.

It’s the strangest sound—like a thousand marbles being spilled across a stone floor, though deeper and larger than that. The vibration of it ripples up through our feet, and there’s another kind of motion too. A shudder. As though the ship herself were as afraid as I am. And it’s so close. . . .

We stand still for a moment, Mikhail as startled as I am. Perhaps he’s trying to figure out what happened. I’ve got more immediate concerns.

I drive my elbow backward into his gut hard enough to make him retch. His grip loosens enough for me to pull free. I run away from him as fast as I can, but not fast enough—Mikhail’s inhuman speed means he’s on me again in a second. He slams into me, driving us both down to the floor. His fists clutch my hair, and I cry out in pain. Though I try to roll over and free myself, I can’t. If only I had that Initiation Blade now, I’d stab him through the heart—but I think of something better.

With my one free hand, I reach into my pocket and close my fingers around Alec’s mother’s locket. Her
silver
locket.

With the locket in my palm, I smack my hand against the side of Mikhail’s face, and there’s no sweeter sound than his howl of pain. As he recoils, clutching his injured cheek, I roll over and get myself free. Stumbling to my feet, I start running for the door to third class. People will be there, friends and strangers alike. Surely Mikhail wouldn’t hurt me in front of a crowd of witnesses.

Just as I grab the doorknob, though, Mikhail clutches me by the waist and pulls me backward so hard I lose my balance. My sweaty fingers lose their grip on the locket, and I shriek as it falls to the floor. Then he slings me over his shoulder as though I were a rolled-up carpet.

“You’ll pay for all of that,” he says through gritted teeth as I pound helplessly against his back. “You have no idea how much you’ll pay. Before I’m done, Alec will have to beg for your scraps.”

He pulls open a door—the squash court, I think—and drags me inside. When he flings me down, I stumble backward, and I expect to see him turn into the wolf at any moment.

Instead, he just stands there. Mikhail’s not even looking at me. He’s staring at the far corner of the room.

Slowly I turn my head in that direction, and that’s when I see the water.

One corner of the room is bubbling with dark water. It’s like the spring near the duck pond on the Moorcliffe grounds, almost silent but constant. The puddle in the corner broadens by the second, doubling in size within the time it takes me to recognize what it is. Did a pipe burst? Is the swimming pool overflowing? I don’t understand why the squash court would be flooding in the dead of night.

“
Bozhe moy
,” Mikhail says. “We’re taking on water.”

“You mean—the ship?” That sound we heard—the shudder that passed through the entire
Titanic
—it led to this?

Mikhail doesn’t answer me. It’s as if the mere sight of the water has all but erased me from his mind. I wonder if I could slip out the door; maybe he wouldn’t even notice.

But then he backhands me so roughly that my head slams into the wall. Everything goes dim—not black but gray—and I swoon so that I almost can’t stand. Then I feel his hands on my shoulders as he bodily throws me across the room.

I know that I fall, though I can’t feel the impact. I hear the door slam shut, and the turning of a lock, but I don’t care.

Everything fades away, like a photograph that’s been left near the sun too long. It would be restful if my head hurt less. Sometimes the pain stops, but then, time stops too. Although I am here, I’m not here. I wonder if this is the place between life and death. It doesn’t matter to me if it is.

Nothing matters to me at all—until the moment cold water touches my hand.

Chapter 25

APRIL 15, 1912

The frigid touch of water wakes me from my stupor. Groggily, I shove myself up on my elbows, forcing myself to remember what just happened as I scoot back from the cold damp. My head is thick with dull, deafening hurt. Only when I really see what’s happening do I return to myself.

Dark, freezing-cold water is rushing into the squash court. Already it stretches the entire length of the room and nearly halfway to the door; on the far wall, where it began flooding first, it’s already more than two feet deep.

Once again I remember the terrible sound that shook the entire
Titanic
. Though it seems impossible that anything could go wrong on a ship this new and splendid, there’s no denying the evidence in front of my eyes. I can’t imagine what could happen to a transatlantic steamer this far out in the ocean—we couldn’t run aground, not out here. But whatever it is, it’s happened, and it’s bad. This room looks like it might be worst of all.

Bruised head swimming, I run to the door, but it’s locked. Mikhail made sure of that before he left. And he was frightened enough of whatever happened to the ship to forget all about me, Alec, and the Initiation Blade. That’s almost as scary as the dark water rising behind me—but not quite.

I throw my weight against the door once, twice, again. My shoulder aches, but the door doesn’t budge. “Can anyone hear me?” I shout. My throat is sore from screaming, and yelling makes my head hurt worse. “Someone, anyone! Help!”

There’s no telling if anyone answers me or not. It’s getting hard to hear over the gurgling of the water, which is becoming louder as the water gets deeper. If anything, it’s rushing in faster now.

My stomach drops as I realize that this entire room with its high ceilings could fill with water, and soon—and if I’m still locked inside, I’ll drown in the squash court.

I need something to break open the door. Floating atop the water are a few pieces of abandoned athletic equipment—squash racquets, obviously. They’re better than nothing. I hoist up my dark red skirts and wade into the water —

—and scream.

My God, the cold. It feels like being on fire. My flesh seems to freeze instantly, and my bones ache; the water is chilling my marrow. I leap back and try to fish one of the racquets out with my hand, and I snag the net, but the water hurts my fingers just as much. My hands are nearly numb by the time I get the racquet, and it’s hard to hold on to the handle. But I smash it against the door as hard as I can, as many times as I can, because the water’s nearly covering the floor now. I don’t want to feel that terrible cold again, but within moments it will have me.

I slam the racquet against the door one more time, and it swings open. In that first instant, I stupidly think I’ve knocked it loose from the hinges—but there’s a steward standing there, one of a small group. Though they look surprised to see me, nobody asks what I’m doing in the squash court; they’re too horrified at seeing the water.

“Bloody hell,” says one of them.

“What’s happened?” I ask.

“We hit a berg,” another man says, and I realize he must mean an iceberg. “Tell the captain she’s taking on water fast!”

I push my way into the hallway, and the stewards and I are instantly running from the seeping water. My numb feet make me clumsy, and I nearly tumble before catching myself against the wall. Something shimmers on the ground: Alec’s mother’s locket. With trembling fingers I grab it, then begin running again. At first I hardly know where I’m going—just away from there—but then I make myself think.

The stewards knew about the accident with the iceberg.

They were inspecting the ship for damage.

They were very alarmed by the damage they found, enough to run back to the captain.

No matter how bad I thought this was before, it’s worse.

I need answers, but who can tell me? My first thought is of kindly Mr. Andrews, but no doubt he’s busy now, and unlikely to accept a call from the third-class girl who showed up in the middle of the night with a crisis about a dog. My second thought is better: George. If Myriam can find him, she can get more information about what’s really going on. That means I have to find Myriam.

Though I feel weak from the cold and dizzy from the blow to my head, I dash into the third-class area, back toward my cabin. The hallways are more crowded than I’d expect around midnight; several people are up and around, no doubt roused by the sound of the ship hitting the iceberg. But nobody seems to understand the danger—they mostly seem annoyed, muttering in half a dozen languages about being jarred awake so late. Is it possible that this isn’t as serious as it looked to me before?

But when I reach my cabin, I realize it must be that serious or worse. Because I haven’t got to convince Myriam to find George—he’s already here.

“Tess, thank God you’ve come.” Myriam clutches at my arm. “George says we must go on deck and get into the lifeboats.”

“Lifeboats? Are we—we couldn’t be—” The word almost won’t come out. “Are we sinking?”

“I don’t know,” George says. He looks pale and drawn. “We’re still assessing the damage. But Captain Smith has said we should get people on deck and put ladies and children into the boats as a precautionary measure. He’s no alarmist—the most solid captain on the White Star Line. If he says you should board the lifeboats then you should go.” His eyes are locked on Myriam’s. “Just to be on the safe side, my darling.”

“We’ll go.” Myriam turns toward our open cabin door and says to the elderly Norwegian ladies, “Come on! We have to go to the lifeboats!” They stare at her in incomprehension. “Lifeboats!” Myriam yells louder, as though this will suddenly make them able to understand English.

Maybe the ship is sinking, George says. It’s a possibility. Not a certainty. That’s what he told us, and what I think he sincerely believes—honesty shines from his blue eyes. But even though he is an officer on the ship, I know something he doesn’t. I’ve seen that room filling with water. I heard the curses from the seamen who saw the damage and rushed to tell the captain.

All of that tells me—the
Titanic
is sinking. Not maybe. Def-initely. Now.

Chapter 26

“WHAT ON EARTH HAPPENED TO YOU?” GEORGE takes a hard look at me, and I realize I must be a sight—hair mussed, dress ripped and water-spotted, shoes squelching and creating a puddle on the floor.

“I’m all right.” That’s as much as I plan to get into it. My mind is racing. Will Alec know of the danger? Will he and his father be safe?

Then a white life jacket hits me in the side, and I catch it by reflex. “Put it on!” Myriam says. Hers is already around her neck. “If we must take to the ocean in those tiny lifeboats, I want this with me. Come, grandmothers, put yours on as well.” Then she says something in Lebanese, probably the exact same thing, but they know no more of her language than they do English. She pats the white life jacket, trying to encourage the Norwegian ladies, but they just pull the blankets up tighter around them. Surely they understand what a life jacket means?

But they don’t believe the ship is sinking. What could sink the mighty
Titanic
? I wouldn’t believe it myself if I hadn’t seen the water. Even the third-class passengers who understand English aren’t paying George’s suggestion much mind. They think it’s no more than a drill.

As I put my life jacket on, George says, “If they actually want you to get into the lifeboat, to lower it into the water, promise me you’ll go. I know it’s scary—”

“I will be happy to go,” Myriam says. “I haven’t been comfortable on this ship since learning about the werewolves.”

George frowns. “Beg pardon?” Then he shakes it off, no doubt assuming he misheard. “I must return to duty. I’ll try to find you again.” Quickly he kisses Myriam, then hurries back above decks.

Once he’s gone, Myriam says, “What really happened to you?”

“Mikhail.” No more explanation is necessary. “Myriam, I’ve seen the water in the squash court. It’s rising fast.”

She sucks in a sharp breath but remains calm. “Then let’s get to the lifeboats.” Quickly she glances over her shoulder at our roommates, who refuse to budge. “The others will follow shortly, when they realize the truth. Won’t they?”

“Surely.” It can’t be long before water spills free of the squash court and other rooms on F deck; soon it will be running through this hallway as though it were a river. But above decks, it will take them longer to accept the truth. No doubt the stewards are taking better care of the first-class passengers—but the stubborn will still be slow to see. “Myriam, go up on deck without me. I’ll be right behind you.”

“What are you doing?” Myriam frowns.

“Alec,” I say. “I can’t go until I know he’s safe.”

I run back up the many flights of stairs to first class. (The lifts might still be working, but I’ll be damned if I run the chance of getting trapped in one while on a sinking ship.) Alec has to get off the ship too; he has to be safe. I trust his judgment, and his father’s. They would heed the warnings and move promptly. But I have to know he’s been warned.