Page 100 of No One Aboard
She stepped onto the floor, and her feet sent delicate ripples out, like rose petals falling on the surface of a lake. She walked into her bedroom and opened wide the door to the hallway.
A blast of lightning outlined the space and everything in it with a purple glow.
She had been walking this hallway almost nightly after her bath. Francis must have noticed, he must have stepped in the trail of water, but he hadn’t said a word about it. She wondered if he kept quiet out of kindness or discretion. Perhaps both.
But it didn’t matter. By morning, if Alejandro had kept to his word, she’d be back on land, her children safe, her career secure. Her family’s faces would be splashed across every tabloid in the country as survivors of the merciless sea and its terrible storm. She’d be famous again. Free. And fueled with enough aesthetic nightmares to last a lifetime of acting.
Lila walked the halls ofThe Old Eileen, drenched and ghostly. There was something feminine about the walk, she decided. She was a widow pacing the shore for her wayward sailor-love’s return. She was a sea witch enchanting a curse with the pattern of her footfalls. She was a goddess built of sea-foam, a huntress tracking enemies through snow.
The water overflowing from her bathtub raced over the teak wood floor and poured into the small holes in the bilge panels. Filling up the sailboat one inch at a time. Lila’s robe trailed in dripping tentacles around her as though she were some ocean beast with only one thought to drive her forward.
I’m about to sink this ship.
Chapter 49
Rylan Cameron
Call sign: Minnow
Day 10 at Sea
Rylan flew out of bed asThe Old Eileentipped to one side. His water bottle and sketchbook slid off the bedside table, and he scrambled to his feet, tripping over the sheets tangled around his body. The dull thud ofThe Old Eileenslapping against another wave sounded around him, and Rylan, along with anything loose in his cabin, toppled to the other side. He managed to grab the edge of his bed and steady himself, fingers trembling.
Rylan looked to Tia’s bed in the dark for comfort.
Empty.
Rylan buried his head in his hands. He had thought, stupidly, telling his parents Tia’s secret would keep her in the family. Instead, he was now sure that even if they stayed together, she would be oceans apart from him. He felt tricked and tired, and more than anything, guilty.
He was so sick of feeling guilty.
Something warm trickled past his bare feet. Rylan dropped his hands. Water ran across the floor of his bedroom. He followed it with his eyes, frozen in terror, and looked up at the dark corner of his bedroom.
Someone else was inside.
A monster with a head like a translucent veil and elastic tentacles as delicate as strands of hair loomed from the shadows. The tentacles stretched out, reaching for him. Then she smiled.
Rylan screamed and jerked awake. He was still in bed. He grabbed a fistful of blanket to shield him from the creature that lurked in the corner. There was nothing there. He almost relaxed, but the sheen of the wet floor caught his attention.
The flooding was real.
“Tia!” Rylan called, not bothering to keep his voice low. He struggled to stay calm. No answer. He looked over at her bed, tearing his gaze away from the corner just for a second. She still wasn’t there.
He stood, hands shaking out of control. He smoothed them over his sheets and made his bed, counting to ten.
He picked his way across the wet room, making the mistake of glancing through the porthole. He’d never seen the ocean like this, mountainous and sinister. It was an ocean that had sired the monster stories in Rylan’s books. IfThe Old Eileenfound herself under the hand of even one of those waves, she might spiral into oblivion.
The shaking had become unbearable, throwing Rylan off-balance to the point that he slipped and fell to his knees. Where the hell was his sister? He considered going out into the hall to find her. Maybe up on deck?
On deck where the waves could pluck him from the boat and devour him without a second thought? No one would even find his body.
Rylan clambered to the bathroom and splashed water on his face.
One, two, three, four...
Tia had probably gone on deck to help handle the sails against the storm.
Thirteen, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen...
