Triton (26 page)

No flashlight.

In the corners—No, he needed air. Prickles danced across his skin, the blood receding. Time’s up, Cedar.

His body went limp and he allowed himself to drift upward, defeated, the farthest corner under the bunk still unexplored. A single agonizing thought tortured his mind. He wouldn’t be able to see her face before she drowned.

Sorry, Jakey-boy. Guess you couldn’t save all our lives after all—Cedar’s heart gave a lurch . . .
Jake
. What would Jake do? Jake would come back with a flashlight.

Or he wouldn’t come back at all.

Heart thumping with a storm of resolve, Cedar yanked himself back to the bed, wedged his arm back to the farthest corner, and squeezed his fingertips to the edge of their grasp.

And he touched something hard.

The rising tide
cornered Sky in a dwindling six inch pocket of air along the ceiling. She stood on tiptoe, neck stretched, wheezing through a clamped windpipe. The heavy chain tugged at her ankle.

Where
was
he?

No one could hold their breath that long—

Just then, the room blazed with light. Below her, the flashlight’s yellow cone lit up a ghostly scene of floating debris, a crewmember’s home . . . now claimed by the ocean.

Cedar surfaced next to her, gasping for breath. Crazy, stupid lifeguards.

“I meant what I said,” she spat.

“The key—” he filled his lungs again and started to dive.

It took all her strength to stop him. “You have to go!”

He tried to dive past her, but she blocked him again, and his bright blue eyes flashed to hers. His lips dipped in and out of the water, wet and sensual, reminding her how badly she needed to kiss him goodbye. “Sky, let me save you!”

“You can’t, Cedar . . .
please
 . . .” Her tears mixed with the saltwater. The beam darted in their rapidly shrinking air pocket, refracting off the waves. Already, anxiety constricted her throat. “All I want is a goodbye kiss, that’s all. Then go.”

Liquid splashed over her chin, dribbled into her mouth. She coughed.

“But the key . . .” Already, his voice betrayed defeat. Water sloshed over his mouth. He pressed his lips to the ceiling for a last slurp of air. “Deep breath . . .
Now!
”

She shook her head, pressure building in her sinuses, knowing they would both drown if he stayed with her any longer. Using every last ounce of willpower she had, she breathed out all the air in her lungs and let the weight of the chain pull her underwater—giving him no choice.

“Sky,
NO!
”

Then water flooded their air pocket. She opened her eyes and stared at the ceiling through a liquidy haze. The last of the air dissolved in a flurry of bubbles, vanishing into nothingness right before her eyes—leaving only the eerily still glow of her underwater tomb.

She heard the calmness in the liquid around her, the turbulence ebbing now that every last inch was flooded.

Her lungs tugged at her diaphragm, and anxiety crawled through her muscles. She closed her eyes and waited for it to happen.

Abandon Ship

No . . .

Cedar watched the girl of his dreams sink into the depths, weighed down by the chain, drowning herself so he wouldn’t try to save her.

She hadn’t even given him the chance. She hadn’t even taken a breath . . . because she knew he would die trying.

There was no way to get her out. Zé Carlos had taken the key with him.

Zé Carlos, the magician.

The vanishing girl is not an illusion.

How long did
it take to drown? Sky’s head throbbed, her lungs writhed. Painful shockwaves of panic shot through her body. She stared helplessly into the hazy depths, dizzy and frantic. She had
never
been this close before. Still, the anxiety mounted, jolting her veins with electric pulses of adrenaline. Her chest gaped, hollow and hungry.

At last she could bear it no longer. She opened her mouth. Just for a sip.

But then from above, Cedar gripped her arm and pulled her against him, and their lips met underwater.

Her goodbye kiss.

Though she yearned to breathe, to lash out, to tear the ceiling apart, she felt her mouth surrender to his instead, and in his arms, her anxiety melted. She kissed him back, her body focused single-mindedly on his body . . . knowing kissing him would be the last thing she did.

And knowing, with a final sense of accomplishment, that she
could
love.

Naomi climbed unsteadily
to her feet on the bridge and gaped at the carnage below. As she watched, the ocean poured over the mangled bow of the
Cypress
and advanced across the deck. The cruise ship tilted forward, sinking bow first.

The part of the Triton sticking out of the water had shrunk. In a few seconds, the whole thing would be underwater, journeying to the bottom of the ocean to fulfill some sinister purpose. Gone.

And with it, answers.

Behind her, Brynn was still trying Cedar and Sky on the radio. “Cedar, come in,” she cried, her voice dissolving into whimpers. “Where the hell are you?”

Jake enfolded her in his arms and gently tugged the walkie-talkie out of her grip. She collapsed, weeping, onto his chest.

He raised the radio to his own mouth and squeezed the talk button. “Cedar, this is Jake,” he said, his voice grim. “I don’t know if you can hear me, but the bottom three decks are flooded. The bow is completely underwater. Get to the stern and start climbing stairs . . . the ship is taking on water everywhere. We’re sinking.”

He set the radio down, his hands trembling slightly, and Brynn gave a quiet sob into his chest.

“Cedar’ll figure it out,” he said, and then to Naomi, “What now?”

“I was going to say board the Triton,” she said, “but I don’t think we have the option anymore.”

“Do you know how to ready a lifeboat?”

She shook her head.

With a final crash of water, the peak of the Triton submerged, and the three of them watched in silence as the glowing pyramid sank into the black depths.

“Just stuck around long enough to sink our asses,” Naomi observed.

It happened in
an instant.

From within Cedar’s embrace, Sky’s body vanished, just popped out of existence.

Taken
.

In her place, the water clapped together, filling the volume of empty space she had left behind. The shockwave slapped his chest, and a slurry of bubbles twisted into the silhouette of a person, still in his arms. The shackles, no longer around anything, sank to the floor with a clang.

She had done it. Despite being chained underwater without air, she had relaxed enough to be taken. Like Houdini.

She was amazing.

Cedar spun away from the desk and swam toward the door, buoyed up with pride. She was safe, when a moment ago he had been watching her drown before his eyes. Safe . . . but where, exactly?

Onboard the
Triton?

Had he sent her to an even worse death? No time to think about that. Right now,
he
had to escape. If he remembered correctly, he had passed a stairway earlier when he was searching for Sky. Toward the bow. Fifty feet, maybe.

Pressure popped his ears; the water deepening above him. How many decks were flooded now? Three?
Ten?

The fifty foot swim—already near his breath-hold limit—would take him to the
bottom
of the stairs. He still had to go up.

He braced himself in the doorway and swiveled the flashlight toward the bow. Water whipped through his hair and jerked at his cheeks, tugging him
backward.
Toward the stern.

Because water was flooding in from the bow. He would have to swim fifty feet into a ripping current.

Fat chance in hell.

He had already used up thirty seconds of air kissing Sky. He had thirty left . . . maybe. Already, his lungs pulled at his chest, writhing for air.

He angled the beam astern, and it vanished into the hazy depths. No sign of stairs. For all he knew, the flooded corridor stretched half the length of the ship before another stairwell.

Anxiety gripped his chest, and his need to breathe sharpened to a sting.
Panic underwater is fatal
. Just relax . . .

He didn’t have a choice.

Cedar flung himself into the hallway, and the current slammed his chest and yanked him downstream. Doors whipped past. But before he could orient himself, the small of his back crunched into a wall-mounted fire extinguisher, and pain jolted his spine, spun his body. The turbulence plowed him into the bulkhead.

Then, amidst his tumbling, the flashlight’s cone swept over an opening in the bulkhead farther astern. The light gleamed off metal. A railing.

Stairs.

But he was on the wrong side of the hallway, he was going to miss it. He whipped around, jerked his arms through the water, and clawed his way into the center of the corridor—before the undercurrent tugged him back to the wrong side.

The staircase loomed thirty feet away. Twenty. Ten. He couldn’t swim across. Just then another fire extinguisher broke through the haze under his feet—his last chance. He planted his feet on the cylinder, sank into a crouch, and leapt into space. For an instant, he hung in free fall, water lashing his eyes, pounding his ears . . . and then his momentum carried him across the hallway.

The railing whooshed toward him. He lunged, gave a desperate kick, and slapped his palm around cold steel. With superhuman effort, he hauled himself hand over hand into the protected hollow of the staircase.

Bubbles burst from his mouth. In his adrenaline rush, he hadn’t felt the gnawing hole in his lungs; he’d used up all his air.

Frantic, he kicked up the stairs, but his lungs convulsed in his chest, his heart pulsated. His diaphragm threatened to cave in. He ascended the first flight—only to find the next deck completely flooded. Terror squeezed his lungs.

He kept going up.

Two flights. Just water, unbroken in all directions. His vision swarmed with black spots . . . the entire cruise ship was underwater.

Three flights. He couldn’t hold his breath any longer, his lungs collapsed, expelling the rest of his air in a surge of bubbles.

He thrashed, and his mouth opened to gulp down air, water . . .
anything
to fill his empty lungs—

Halfway up the fourth flight, his head broke the surface, and he sucked down oxygen. Relief prickled along his skin.

Still gasping, he dragged himself the rest of the way up the stairs and stood up in the dark, carpeted hallway. Below him, water still churned and foamed in the stairwell.

The deck sloped noticeably toward the bow, and his flashlight illuminated water creeping up the hallway toward him.

The others
.

With a jolt of panic, he bolted up the stairs, taking two at a time. Eight or nine flights up, his flashlight blazed over the number twelve, and he burst into the deck twelve lobby and sprinted toward the bow.

The yellow beam bobbed over dark stateroom doors. His eyes probed the endless hallway, and his breath came in ragged gasps. At last, he reached the forward elevator lobby—

His feet splashed in water.

Flooded
. The forward part of deck twelve was flooded, which meant . . .
No
—he shone the light forward, confirming that the hallway dropped into the rippling depths. The entire front of the ship was underwater, including the bridge. Even as he stood there, waves washed over his ankles, then his shins.

Then his knees.

Cedar sloshed back
through the forward elevator lobby and climbed the stairs again, thinking hard. Where would Jake take Brynn and Naomi?

To the lifeboats.

The ship was sinking bow first, which meant the lifeboats toward the stern—accessed through deck five—might still be above water.

He reached deck fifteen and sprinted to the starboard side of the ship, scanning the deck for a good vantage point, then spotted one: the whirlpool. The glassed-in hot tub jutted out over the water.

He squeezed around the side of the tub and peered forward at the sinking ship. The bow’s ghostly hulk floated beneath the surface. Waves crashed over the observation deck railings on level fourteen, swallowing the cruise ship whole. The sight of their once majestic ship, now brought to its knees, formed a lump to his throat. He swiveled away from the bow and looked astern . . . endless rows of dark balconies plunging one by one into the water.

He saw a flash.

At the lifeboat farthest astern, three figures darted in front of a tiny cone of light—Brynn, Naomi, and Jake.

Relief flooded through him. He clicked on his own flashlight to signal them, but the sound of someone coughing yanked his gaze back inside the ship. He scanned the Solarium Bistro, the shadowy hallways, heart racing.

Who had coughed? There were only four people on this ship. Him and the three he saw out the window.

He stood perfectly still and strained to make out sounds beneath the ship’s agonized creaking. Then he heard it again. Someone coughing.

A
girl
coughing.

Sky.

His heart pounded in his throat, and he ran back into the ship. “Sky, is that you?”

“Cedar?” she called back, and her footsteps dashed closer.

They collided in the dark lobby. She melted into his arms, all sobs and hot tears. “I can’t believe that worked—I thought I was toast. I thought
you
were toast.”

He stared at her, a strange thought occurring to him. “It didn’t put you back underwater. It moved you up here.”

“I know. It’s smart,” she said.

“Not just that,” he said, pointing to her leg. “It was the same with your cut. It’s protecting you.”

A twinkle toward
the bow of the
Cypress
caught Brynn’s attention, and her teary-eyed gaze zeroed in on the overhanging whirlpool. Hope surged up inside her.

Cedar
.