Total pages in book: 62
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 59521 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 298(@200wpm)___ 238(@250wpm)___ 198(@300wpm)
Aggie moves fast, pulling bottles from her bag and uncapping them over the drain. Whatever combination she’s mixing, it hits the air like something chemical and wrong—sharp and eye-watering, somewhere between bleach and burning plastic. I press my sleeve over my nose and mouth and take a few steps back until my shoulders meet the door, Tatiana pressing in beside me.
“I’m going to burn a piece of paper,” Aggie says, ushering us back out into the corridor and pulling the door shut. “The second it hits those chemicals, we have maybe a minute. Maybe less.”
We all take a deep breath.
Here goes nothing, or everything.
She tears a strip from a folded sheet in her bag and soaks it with something from one of the bottles, holding it pinched between two fingers, away from her body. “Can’t let it go out before it gets in there.”
Tatiana and I back up until we hit the far wall. Aggie flicks the lighter. The paper catches instantly, burning fast and orange, curling black at the edges. She doesn’t look at us. She rushes over, placing it on the side of the sink where it will hopefully fall and catch onto the paper she just balled up and threw in there. Then, she turns and rushes towards us.
We just get outside of the kitchen when the bang goes off.
Not a crack but a deep, concussive thud that moves through the floor and up through my legs and into my chest. The corridor shudders. A beat of silence, and then every alarm on the boat goes off at once, overlapping into a single screaming wall of sound. Somewhere beneath us, the engines choke and die. Then it comes to life, filling with shouting and pounding footsteps. The boat lists slightly to one side as it loses its heading.
We run.
Towards the muster point we got shown when we first came on. As we run, people are moving quickly, coming out of their rooms, yelling orders. We act just as shocked and confused as everyone else, rushing up to the deck. The sea is black and infinite. I can smell smoke, but I can’t see fire yet. Rachel and Iris have joined us, their hair a mess, eyes filled with sleep as they glance around. My eyes scan the crowd for Ace, but I can’t see him yet.
No doubt he’s trying to ensure our safety by stopping whatever set off the alarms. It doesn’t take me long to find them, though. Within minutes, Ace, Zeke, and Kellen charge toward us, each of them with an expression on their faces that makes my stomach turn. Ace’s gaze slams onto me with pinpoint precision. He doesn’t look pissed, but he does look concerned and I wonder if we have taken things too far.
“What happened?” I ask, when they reach us.
“Get on the lifeboat. Now. We can’t risk anyone being on this boat if it blows again.” His voice is a feral hiss.
I glance at Aggie and Tatiana and try to ignore how pale their faces are. I know it won’t blow again, at least, I don’t think it will, but I do as he is asking anyway. Zeke’s already lowering the lifeboat, and Aggie grabs my wrist and drags me and Tatiana towards it. I hear someone behind us hurling instructions into the night, and realize it is the captain. Maybe we should have just taken him out.
Rachel and Iris find us, stumbling into the group with matching pyjamas and green facemasks, their expressions confused and darting around as if they still haven’t figured out what’s going on. Zeke throws a confused glance at Rachel, like he is wondering why the hell she looks like that, and then he ushers them towards the lifeboat.
We all get in.
I glance down at the water, which is undulating black silk under the spotlights. The lifeboat looks impossibly small against it.
Just before we go down, Adrian appears, glasses crooked, hair a mess and pyjamas on. He has a backpack slung over his shoulder, and doesn’t even ask if he can get in, he just climbs into our boat. He looks over at me, with somewhat of a chipmunk expression, his front teeth exposed. I want to laugh, but I’m too scared. “Statistically, we’ll likely die out here.”
“Gee, thanks, Adrian,” Aggie mutters, shivering.
“I will be leaving a one-star review for this crew,” he says, like he is actually offended that we are going down instead of being terrified.
“Fuck me,” Ace mutters. “Let’s just lower this boat. Slowly.”
They lower the boat until it hits the water and someone shoves a lifejacket into my chest. I pass them around, my hands moving on their own while my eyes stay fixed on the yacht. Aggie finds my hand in the dark and holds it.
The smoke was supposed to stay smoke. An alarm, a flare of panic, coast guard on the radio—that was the plan. I watch the orange climbing the side of the hull and think... we did that. We had to, right? We had no choice.