Page 90 of No One Aboard

“Help me with this,” she ordered, and they struggled to reopen the weighty panel.

Tia stared down at the duffel bag. It definitely wasn’t big enough for a body. Or heavy enough. Alejandro would have had a tougher time if a full-grown woman was zipped up in there. But then where was MJ? It’s not like she got up of her own accord to wander around the ship.

Although...

The water in the hallways leading like a trail to their bedroom.

“What if...?” Rylan whispered.

What if she’s somehow still alive?

“No.” Tia said with force. It was impossible. It was wishful thinking. “Keep your eyes on me, okay? I’m gonna go down there. Do you think you can pull me back out?”

Rylan pressed his hands to either side of his head, as if trying to keep his skull intact. “I don’t know, I don’t know...”

“Rylan.” Tia willed herself to be patient, but now wasn’t the time for his anxiety. They needed to know what was in that bag.

“I’m going down there,” Tia told him. “And you’re going to pull me back out. Okay?”

“Oh God...” Rylan moaned, shutting his eyes. “I’m gonna be sick.”

Tia swallowed down frustration. They didn’t have time for this.

She steeled herself and dropped into the deep, dark belly of the ship. She landed in several inches of water, caught herself on the slimy wall before she slipped more.

“I need light, Ry,” she hissed up at her brother.

No answer. He was still tailspinning.

Tia inhaled and summoned her best radio announcer voice, even putting her hand over her mouth to mimic muffled static. “Ksshh, this is Thimble to Minnow. I repeat, Thimble to Minnow, come in, over.”

She waited. The flashlight popped on overhead, and Rylan’s face appeared above her.

“I’m here. Over,” he managed to say.

Even with the distant light, the bilge remained mostly shrouded, but it was just enough to make out the dark shape in the water. The black duffel bag.

Tia bent down and found the zipper. “Move the light to the left a little,” she called up. The light cast a gentle reflection on the shiny zipper teeth. The bag was brand-new.

“Ready?” she said, more to herself than to Rylan. She set her jaw. No matter what was in the bag, she was not going to scream. Unless it was tarantulas or something. Then maybe she’d let out a modest shriek.

“Ready,” she repeated and slid the zipper open.

She blinked and tried to make sense of what she saw. The bag was full to the brim of cooking oil. Bottle after bottle of cooking oil, some of it uncapped and oozing amber fluid over plastic.

“It’s just oil,” Tia called up to her brother. Did cooking oilexpire? Had Alejandro just been doing his duties as head chef, squirreling away their trash until they could properly dispose of it on land? She felt stupid but mostly relieved.

“Cooking oil?”

Tia rummaged through the bottles. They were almost all full, which was odd, but nothing else was in the bag except for an oily pack of matches buried at the bottom. She wiped her hand on her shorts. “Yeah. Hang on... Shine the light around for me?”

Rylan reached his arm down to light up the rest of the bilge, and Tia looked around in renewed horror as the red light illuminated the small room. This wasn’t the bilge where the dive equipment was kept, yet here she was surrounded by oxygen tanks. Stacks and stacks of metal cylinders filled the space around the duffel bag.

Oxidizer. Fuel. Fire.

Tia was standing inside a bomb.

She zipped the duffel closed, surprised that her finger muscles still functioned. “Rylan, get me out of here,” she said with as much calm as she could muster.