Page 23 of Anchor
My eyes strain to the bench that opens to storage where I know Gabe lies in wait. I send mental signals I know he can’t hear for him not to jump out yet.
I nearly let the threatening laughter spill over my lips, but manage to hold it back as I hear the gun cock startlingly close to my head. A person shouldn’t be this comfortable with death so close, but the constant adrenaline rush has overwhelmed my common sense—along with any other emotions.
Jones grabs my arm with a bruising grip and the gun presses intimately underneath my jaw, a lethal kiss. He shoves me again, pushing me toward the stairs. Pale faces shine up at me, blurring together as he knocks me forward. I stumble and take hold of the railing before I take the plunge down the stairs, momentarily forgetting my injured arm. A scream threatens to rip from my throat, but I suck it back.
“Pick one,” he says. “Since you got rid of the girl, it’ll be up to you who dies tonight.”
It would be easier if he’d just shoot me.
Picking up my feet is almost impossible. I have the sudden, irrational fear if I were to fall overboard they would turn into concrete blocks and sink me down to the bottom of the ocean. My thighs strain with the effort it takes to pick up one foot and place it on the next step.
It’s a different world on the first floor. The resentful looks and anger are ravaged by fear. All around me I see the whites of terrified eyes. For each move I make toward them, they take a collective step backward, like I’m the personification of death and they know it’s catching.
Sweat drips down my forehead despite the cold that wracks my body. I wipe it away with an impatient hand and stare at the faces of the people I’m supposed to sacrifice, but all I can see is the face of Gabe’s little girl.
“Time’s up,” Jones says.
I turn back to face him and climb back up the stairs before I have time to change my mind.
Jones stares at me with a half-smile pulling on his monstrous lips. “Well?”
“Me.”
He stares, then jerks his gun at me. “Playing the martyr again are we?”
“You can’t make me choose,” I say. “If you want to kill someone, you’re going to have to kill me.”
Jones looks at me, then at the boat full of cops and before I can read his actions, he pivots, strides to the stairs, and shoots a young woman, who can’t be more than nineteen, in the center of her forehead. She goes down, her face frozen in a gasp of eternal fear. The only evidence of her demise is a small dark circle and a thin trail of blood on her brow.
When time speeds back up, I find myself cowering on the floor, my hands covering my head in an instinctual response. Disoriented, I shake my head to clear it of the echo from the gunshot and reach out for something, anything to hold onto. I grip a rail and only realize I used my strained arm when it starts throbbing. Cradling it, I take automatic steps away from the sight of the dead woman and nearly trip over Gabe as he storms down the stairs behind me.
“Rossi.” If it weren’t for the twinge of movement at his brows and the microcosm of a frown around his lips, I wouldn’t have caught Jones’ surprise at Gabe’s appearance.
Gabe moves in front of me, his broad shoulders blocking the horrific sight from view. Without thinking, I inch closer and burrow my face into the space between his shoulder blades. For a fleeting second, his left hand finds mine. He clasps it, squeezes, and steps forward.
“I’ll talk to you under one condition.”
Jones lips twitch for a second. “It doesn’t seem like you’re in the position for negotiations.”
Gabe climbs out of the bench, his hands still raised in front of him. “You’re the one who wanted to talk so badly. If you want to talk, then let’s do it. Let these people go and we can gab as long as you fuckin’ please.”
“And get rid of my only bargaining chip?” Jones questions.
“I’ll stay,” I blurt out.
Both men turn and the expressions on their faces couldn’t be more different. Jones looks…happy and if that isn’t frightening enough, Gabe’s entire body is trembling, probably with the effort it takes to restrain him from murdering me himself.
“Let them go,” I say, my voice surprisingly steady, “and I’ll stay. You’ll have two hostages and a ferry to bargain with. You’ve already got the entire state of Florida’s attention, if not the whole country’s.”
Gabe controls himself long enough to add, “Those are my conditions. Let everyone else go and we’ll talk.”
Jones considers it for a second. “Get on your knees,” he tells Gabe, who shakes his head.
“I’m not doing shit until those people are safe.”
“So we have two martyrs on board,” Jones says. In a flash faster than I’d expect from an older man, he pummels Gabe over the head with the butt of the gun and then he turns. “Get on your knees and don’t move.”
I drop next to Gabe until Jones disappears down the stairs. His chest is lifting, barely, and when I shake him he groans.