Revenge (18 page)

Cal almost tripped as we walked along.

‘Feeling all right?' I asked.

‘Yep,' he nodded. ‘We just need to find this guy already. We're running out of time.'

There was no sign of the crew decks or the engine room, or the control room … I just hoped we were heading for the right place. There would be no time for backtracking if the bomb wasn't where we were expecting it to be.

‘Here we are,' announced the steward as we turned a corner. He stopped and twisted with a flourish on his shiny shoes.

The sound of thousands of people dancing, laughing, talking and clinking glasses hit us like a tsunami.

‘The Archipelago Arena!' gasped Winter, recalling Repro's description of the incredible room. We faced a glass wall of water—the oval aquarium—through which we could just make
out, beyond it, crowds of people enjoying what looked like an underwater dance party.

‘Wow, check out that stingray!' said Ryan.

As we ran along the curved length of the coral reef aquarium, trying to find the entrance, I couldn't help but stare up in awe. The
stingray
Ryan had pointed out was a blue-spotted ribbontail ray, gliding high through the water. Shuffling across the sand was a pair of blue dragon nudibranches, and above them swam a school of blue damselfish. Cobalt blue sea stars hugged the reef, and further along, bluefin
trevally
, with their iridescent electric blue fins, darted away as a royal blue painted crayfish emerged from a rocky cave.

Only nature could create such mind-blowing colour. And only a human could destroy it all.

‘Hurry, guys,' called out Cal. He ran ahead of us. His white shirt clung wet to his back, and his blond hair flicked water around as he searched for the way in. We ran on, leaving the steward behind with an armful of wet towels.

Time was ticking down.

We pushed our way past crowds of people and finally ran through the glistening undersea entrance to the arena.

Inside, the atmosphere was electric. The place was crammed with people dancing and
partying
. Delicate strings of glass balls hung from the ceiling at different heights, sending rainbows of light across the blue room. Cal looked frantically for Mrs O and Gabbi, but we had no time to spare. We wormed our way through the crowds to the back of the dancefloor towards a stage area.

From the high peak above, within the strings of glass, hung a massive, sapphire-encrusted globe.

I realised Cal was staring at the same thing.

I squinted at it, noticing the edge of something on the top of the sphere. It was hard to tell, in the bright blue hue of light, but I was almost positive the object looked mustard-coloured. Like the plastic explosives I found in the sculpture at City Hall.

Cal looked at me and nodded. That was where we needed to go.

‘How do we get up there?' I asked.

The four of us blinked in the lights and scanned the walls.

‘Over there!' said Winter, pointing to a discreet service ladder, leading up the wall of the
aquarium
, near the entrance. ‘It will take us way up there,' she moved her pointed finger above us and squinted, ‘to that catwalk!'

Sure enough, far above us, a thin maintenance catwalk stretched across the dome and right past the sapphire globe. Winter started snaking her way over to the ladder.

‘We can't just start climbing a ladder in the
middle
of a party,' said Ryan. ‘Everyone will see us!'

‘We don't have a choice, we don't have any time to waste!' Winter yelled back.

People looked up and pointed as we scaled the wall, but they soon returned to drinking and dancing and having fun. I noticed Cal glancing down and searching the crowds for a glimpse of his mum or Gab.

When we reached the steely catwalk, high above the gala, a small, hunched figure over by the top of the blue globe turned and looked our way. An open laptop sat in front of him.

‘Elijah?' called out Cal as we hesitated.

The figure stood up. He was only a kid but his big dark eyes were intense. Familiar, somehow. I shuddered.

He reached over to the laptop and swiftly tapped at the keys. Graphics flashed over the screen, beeping rapidly. I glanced at the blue globe that hung just below where we were on the catwalk. On top, strapped to it with grey
electrical tape, was the rectangular mustard package, beneath the twisted wires and the blinking green digits of a timer.

Cal stepped forward.

The kid closed the laptop and turned to us again. This was the bomber behind the
menacing
notes? A kid? He smiled, nodding insolently, clutching a mobile phone by his side. ‘Don't come any closer!' he warned. ‘Or I'll detonate the bomb with this.' He held up the phone.

‘Why are you doing this?' demanded Cal. ‘You want
revenge
? You want to blow up this ship and kill my family, along with thousands of innocent people?
Why
? I don't even know you!'

We were all frozen under the unflinching gaze of Elijah's penetrating eyes. He raised one dark eyebrow.

‘That's right, you don't know me. Even though we share the same blood, we're complete strangers.'

Cal glanced across at me, confused and
furious
.
The same blood?

‘My mum always told me my dad died a hero,' said Elijah, ‘trying to save a school girl who'd fallen onto the train tracks.'

‘So?' said Cal, agitated.

‘We don't have time for this,' Winter whispered.

‘But when my mum got sick a couple of years
ago, she finally told me the truth,' Elijah said. ‘That my dad was alive and living in Dolphin Point.'

‘Dolphin Point?' Winter and Cal repeated.

‘Spare us the life story,' I spat. I checked my watch. We were running out of time.

Winter was seething. ‘So you have
abandonment
issues,' she added. ‘See a shrink.'

‘Why are you telling us all this?' Cal asked, frustrated. ‘What's this got to do with me?'

Elijah gritted his teeth and shook with rage as he spoke. ‘Turns out my father was willing to do whatever it took to make it in life. My mother was afraid of him, and when she found out she was pregnant, she packed her bags and ran, and never told anyone where she'd gone. After months of searching, I tracked him down. He was still in Dolphin Point, but his name wasn't the same as my own. He wasn't a Smith. Mum had made that up.'

‘So?' said Cal. ‘What was he?'

Elijah laughed wickedly. ‘He was an Ormond,' he said.

Winter looked up at Cal, searching his eyes for understanding. Ryan looked at me, confused. I felt dizzy, the ringing in my ears had returned.

‘You're the one who killed my father, Cal,' said Elijah. ‘You're the one who killed Rafe.'

We all stared at each other in shock.

‘But Rafe never had a kid!' shouted Cal. ‘Aunty Klara died years ago!'

‘My mother,' said Elijah, ‘didn't die until
last year
. She left Rafe over fourteen years ago. In spite of their many differences, it seems my parents shared something after all—they were both liars.'

The sound of Millicent's raspy voice scratched into my head.
There's another one.

Another one? Another
Rafe
? Is that what my nightmares had really been telling me?

The evil glint in Elijah's dark, terrifying,
familiar
eyes suddenly started making sense. Rafe Ormond's legacy of terror lived on.

Furtively looking around for some kind of weapon, I spotted a heavy wrench lying beside Cal's feet. Without moving, I looked at Cal then directed my eyes towards it. Cal glanced down. In one quick movement, he snatched up the wrench and flung it hard at Elijah's hand.

Elijah shrieked in pain and released his grip on the mobile phone. It flew out over the
dance-floor
and fell into the fish tank with a splash. He watched it as it sank, then he turned back to Cal, scowling.

A surge of fury welled up in me, and I lunged
at him, fists high, when someone suddenly dropped down from above, landing in between us protectively.

The bulky figure stood up and turned to face us.

‘You have
got
to be kidding me!' I exclaimed.

It couldn't be. But it was.

Sligo stood before us once more. His pasty skin was a sickly yellow, his body looked
lopsided
and rotting. His bulging eye was bloodshot and weeping. He was wearing a nurse's uniform, a hospital bracelet wrapped around his wrist.

Elijah smiled from behind him.

‘I knew it!' Winter screamed. ‘You took the other chopper! But the coma? How? How did you escape the secure ward?'

‘I have my ways,' he snarled. He looked sick. Seriously sick. ‘Seems not everyone has
forgotten
about me,' he added venomously.

Anger and fear surged through all of us. We had to stop the bomb. We were losing too much time.

I took a running jump and leapt over the catwalk railing, launching myself on top of the globe. I sprawled my body over it as it swung.

‘Boges!' Winter shrieked.

The heat radiating from the globe was intense. I hung on, wincing at the pain in my hands.

Cal, Winter and Ryan ran at Sligo, knocking
him to the catwalk floor. Cal and Ryan pinned Sligo down while Winter leapt over them and chased after the fleeing Elijah. She caught him just before he reached the other end of the
catwalk
, and grabbed his arms from behind.

I reached for the bomb, trying to work out a way to disarm it.

Ryan pulled out his phone.

‘Don't even bother,' said Elijah, squirming under Winter's grip. ‘I've scrambled the signal.'

‘It's only four digits!' I called out, still swinging on the sapphire globe. ‘We only need four digits to disarm the bomb!'

‘Tell us the code!' Cal shouted at Sligo.

‘Never,' he moaned.