I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG I’m asleep when a loud noise startles me awake. I fly out of bed, heart pounding, gasping for breath, and look around in complete shock as alarms start to go off all over the boat.
Jenny hops down from the top bunk and immediately puts her shoes on before throwing my boat shoes at me. “Come on!” she barks before running out of the room.
Come on, what! Where?
I slip the shoes on and open our door, nearly running into Brett dashing down the hall, yelling orders. I hear “fire” and “overboard” multiple times as I run to Chef’s room, but when I get there it’s empty.
She must already be upstairs.
I quickly check the other cabins, making sure everyone else is gone before I realize I’m the only fucking one still down here. Get your ass in gear, Taylor! It’s when I start for the stairs that I begin to smell the smoke.
Fear chokes me, but I shove it down and finally make it to the deck. I hear yelling to my left and see the crew helping a bunch of people into a dinghy and start to run over, but Brett steps in front of me, saying, “This is at capacity. You need to go to the second boat near the bow. The captain will meet you there with the rest of the crew.”
I nod rapidly and turn, running for the front of the boat, but smack into a hard body. I backpedal and grab a hand on instinct, beginning to tow the person with me to safety. “Come on!”
“Where?” a husky voice asks behind me and I turn briefly, getting a glimpse of dark stubble and a strong jaw, but it’s too dark to see anything else.
“There’s one boat left, the other is full. We need to meet the captain.”
“There’s a fire, back there, a fire—” His deep voice rises slightly with panic and I try not to think about it. What it means, what it could mean if we don’t get off this boat fast enough.
We reach the boat and I turn to him. “Get in the boat.”
He shakes his head, or at least I think he does; it’s still too dark to tell for sure. The explosion knocked out the power and I don’t want to think about where the moonlight went. What that meant.
“You first,” he says stubbornly.
Fine. He wants to be chivalrous, maybe a little misogynistic, that’s fine. This is life or death; I’m not about to argue right now. I climb over and turn to him. “Ok, hero, get in.”
He hesitates before gingerly climbing in. He immediately goes for a life jacket and I narrow my eyes a little before turning back and watching the deck for others. Where are they?
“Hello?” I call out, and startle when I hear a loud splash.
“What was that?” the man behind me asks me.
“Probably the other boat hitting the water,” I assume, gnawing anxiously on my bottom lip.
“Should we be doing the same thing?”
“We need to wait for everyone else.” I shake my head.
“I didn’t see anyone else, just you,” he says, and my heart skips a little. No, that’s not true.
“Just give it a min—” I’m cut off by another loud explosion that rocks us hard, and I fall onto the bottom of the boat, smacking my hip roughly against one of the paddles.
“Fuck! Oh, fuck!” he cries out and reaches for me, giving me a hand up.
I right myself and cry out as the Naiad gives a large groan and starts to move…down. It’s fucking sinking. We need to detach. I search for the automatic pulley system and press the button for detachment, but it doesn’t move. I scream in frustration.
“It won’t detach!” I yell over the noise.
I hear him shuffling around before he’s suddenly at my side. “Get a life vest on and hold on.”
“What are you going to do?” I yell, scared we’re going to have to jump into the dark water.
“Just do what I fucking said!” he screams. Suddenly there’s a flash of bright red light and I realize he grabbed two flares from the emergency kit. His face is lit up for the first time from the red light and it makes him look like a demon. A beautiful demon, though, even covered in smoke and sweat, a bruise already swelling his left cheek.
I stop my ogling and do as he says, watching as he brings the flares to each side of the ropes at the same time so they’ll break in tandem and hopefully we’ll land solidly.
I sit on the bottom of the boat, grasping onto the benches for dear life when I hear the snap of the lines holding the boat to the yacht—then suddenly we’re airborne.
There’s a brief weightlessness, my stomach saying a quick hello as I scream, and then the hard smack as we crash into the ocean. I hit my head hard against the side of the boat and cry out in pain, wincing as I sit up. There’s no time to rest; we need to get as far away as possible from this boat before it goes down.
“Hey! Great job, but we have to row away from here,” I call out, reaching for the paddles.
When there’s no response, I look up and choke back a scream when I don’t see him in the boat. Scrambling to the side, I try to spot him and realize I can’t see shit without a light. I feel around for the emergency kit, nearly crying in relief when I find the crank flashlight inside.
I crank it as fast as I can, my sore shoulders protesting the rotating movement, but sob in relief when light suddenly explodes in front of me. I scramble to the front of the boat, screaming, “Hey! Buddy!” I scan the water for him, heart in my throat, when I see him bobbing in the water about five feet from me. “Hey!”
His chin rests against his chest, clearly unconscious…or dead. No. No! He’s unconscious, Taylor. You didn’t just go through all of that for him to be dead. No fucking way. I grab one of the paddles and stand, bending my knees a little to maintain my balance before swinging the paddle down to splash him. “Wake up!”
I try to paddle a little closer, but I can’t do it by myself so I try to splash him one more time. “Come on, asshole! Wake. The fuck. Up!” I slam the paddle as hard as I can against the water and let out a shriek when I see his head move.
I hear him groan and cry out in relief, “Yes, yes! Come on!”
He blinks his eyes and squints at me. “Could you shine that somewhere else?”
“Oh, sorry!” I shine the light to the left of him and reach the paddle forward. “Grab this, I’ll tow you in.”
He does, clearly weak as I do most of the work to drag him in, my muscles groaning loudly. When he’s up against the side of the boat I brace myself, realizing this part is going to be the hardest, and lean forward to grab the back of his pants.
He latches onto the side and I count us off, “On the count of three: one, two, three…”
He heaves himself up and I yank as hard as I can, groaning loudly, then fall backward as his weight is suddenly over the side and on top of me. I gasp shallowly, shocked by how cold, wet, and heavy he is. “Move!”
“Sorry, sorry!” he wheezes and rolls off of me.
We lie there exhausted, unable to do more, but we’re safe for the moment. Tears burn my eyes as shock starts to set in, but we’re not done. Not yet.
Sucking in a deep breath and shoving the overwhelming need to scream down, I grab a paddle and hand it to him. “Come on, we need to put some distance between us and the yacht.”
We paddle for a little bit before I grab the flashlight again and begin panning the water for the others, calling out, “Hello!”
“They probably did the same thing, but in the other direction,” my fellow survivor says dully, exhaustion and pain echoing loudly in his voice.
“Probably, but we’re the only ones out here. They have to hear us.” I continue to call out when the first sound of thunder hits.
I blink rapidly and shake my head in frustration. Haven’t we already been through enough!
“Come on, I need your help,” I tell him, nearly tripping over his legs as I head back to the end of the eight-foot boat. It’s wooden and feels solid beneath my feet, but if I’m right, not solid enough to withstand the storm we didn’t move out of the way of fast enough.
“Hey!” I lean over him when there’s no response and shake his massive shoulder. I tap his cheek. “Come on, man. You can’t fall asleep. You could have a concussion. You probably do have a concussion.”
“East,” he mumbles and blinks his eyes open. I realize, being this close to him for the first time, they’re a startling green. They remind me of home.
“I don’t know where east is right now.” I panic slightly, worried that he’s already incoherent.
He smiles weakly and says, “Easton VanHouten.”
Oh! His name! Smiling at my confusion, I reply, “I’m Taylor McKay. I need you to stay awake, Mr. VanHauten.”
“East,” he corrects and moves to get up. “Was that thunder?”
I bite my lip and debate telling him the truth, but curb that thought. There’s no point in lying or playing down our situation. “I have a feeling we didn’t make it far enough out of the way from the storm’s path before—before whatever happened to the boat. I’m almost positive there’s a canvas cover that snaps over the top of the boat. Help me get it on?”
“Hurricane,” he says softly before grabbing my hand. “A hurricane.”
I nearly give in to the terror that wants me to curl up into a ball and cry, but I nod solemnly at him. “We are probably on the outskirts of the worst of it. I’m not going to give up yet, East. Help me.”
“Just live, squirrel. That’s all I ever wanted for you. To live.”
My dad’s voice rings in my head as I lift open the emergency kit holding the large tarp. Closing my eyes, I send up a quick prayer to him if he’s listening.
Please, Daddy. Help us.