Page 34 of Anchor (First to Fight)
“It wasn’t your fault,” she says anyway.
The stairs are empty and they end in a square of flooring with yellow light pooling in the center. Smears of blood streak across from the woman Jones shot. The only thing in our line of sight is the woman’s red heel poised drunkenly on its side.
“Stay behind me and for God’s sake don’t shoot me on accident,” I tell her.
I ignore her muttered, “I might just shoot you on purpose,” and focus on each step down. When I reach the bottom, I scan the shadowed main floor and find it empty.
“As if this whole night weren’t creepy enough,” Chloe says.
“Be quiet,” I hiss.
But she’s right. Ancient sconces adorn every other pole and the light is so weak it only illuminates the area directly underneath it, leaving large spaces consumed by shadows.
Jones could be in any of them. Watching, waiting. Like a malignant tumor just biding time until it steals up on you when you least expect it.
Part of my job, though, has always been to expect the unexpected. Adapt. Overcome. I don’t know how I’ll live with the bombshell Jones dropped, but I’ll worry about the implications later. The most important thing is getting Chloe off this boat alive. She’s innocent in this.
My head aches, my side is on fire, and there’s still a slight ringing in my ears, but I set all of that aside. To my right, there’s another door that leads down into the engine access area, but I doubt he’d go down there. He’d be cornered, no way to escape. All the same, I put my back to the water so I can limit the points of attack.
The crash of water against the side of the ferry doesn’t help. I’m down nearly two senses with the lack of light and the ringing so I move toward the back of the boat on pure instinct. Chloe moves behind me, silent as a breeze.
And then I hear it. It’s barely higher than a whisper, but the sound of low voices is unmistakable.
“You go now,” a man says. It’s too low for me to discern if it’s Jones or the captain.
“No,” comes another voice.
I stop in my tracks and hold up a hand, signaling Chloe to wait. She nods in return and grips her gun a little tighter. The voices are coming from the back of the boat and grow louder as we near.
“Now,” the first voice says.
“I’m not—”
A garbled yell cuts off his words and then even his hoarse cries are swallowed by the resulting crash of his body against the water. Chloe and I share a look.
“Jones must have pushed the captain overboard,” she says. “Why would he do that?”
“Desperation,” I guess. “He may be running out of ammo. We have his other weapons. Maybe he’s trying to lure us out of hiding. It could be any one of a million things.”
Silence presses in around us as I strain to hear any sign of movement. Then, the crack of a gun sounds through the night.
Chloe
At first, I think the gunshot went wild and a rush of relief streaks through me. I slump against Gabe’s back, my forehead lolling between his broad shoulders. His warmth and his closeness are immeasurably reassuring.
It takes a few seconds for me to register the liquid on my hands isn’t spray from the ocean. Absently, I bring my hands up under a near spray of light and find them covered in red.
My eyes widen and I duck around Gabe to find his face awash with anguish. I thought I could handle traumatic. Apparently, I’ve got a hidden talent for it. Guns, bombs, murder. But my kickass girl-power persona melts away when he goes limp against me.
I catch him, his weight listing heavily against the metal railing beside us. “Gabe?” I whisper.
His heart thunders beneath my hands and his chest heaves in an effort to catch his breath. He opens his mouth like he wants to talk, but a hiss of pain escapes instead and his knees buckle.
My own breath hitches in my throat and tears prickle the back of my eyes. “Gabe?”
His weight takes us both down to the cold, wet floor and I do my best to control our descent but he’s six-foot-two of pure male muscle and I’m one hundred twenty pounds soaking wet. His head bumps against the rail and he makes a pained sound in the back of his throat.
He can barely keep his head up and his lips are pulled too tight to talk. It’s pitch black and I can’t even see a foot in front of my face, so I can’t see where he’s injured.