Chapter 32 Adrift
Now
The engine dies with a sound like a dying animal—a violent shudder that reverberates through the boat’s hull and straight into my bones.
One moment, we’re cutting through the increasingly choppy waters toward Shark Bay Island, spray stinging our faces as we race against the approaching storm.
The next, we’re drifting helplessly as silence engulfs us except for the ominous sound of waves slapping against our hull.
“What the hell?” Max yanks at the ignition, his knuckles white as he tries to coax life back into the engine. The motor turns over with a grinding wheeze before falling silent again. “Come on, come on—”
“Max.” Erik’s voice cuts through our collective panic, sharp with something that makes my blood turn to ice water. “Stop trying to start it.”
I follow Erik’s gaze to where he’s crouched near the engine housing, his hands already dark with what looks like oil. But as he holds his fingers up to the fading afternoon light, I see the truth that makes my stomach lurch.
It’s not oil. It’s gasoline.
“The fuel lines have been cut,” Erik says, his voice deadly calm in the way that means he’s fighting not to lose control. “Clean cuts, deliberate. Someone wanted us stranded out here.”
Luna scrambles toward the radio, her movements sharp with the same desperate efficiency I recognize from our Shark Bay days. Static crackles through the speaker as she adjusts dials and frequencies, searching for any sign of life from the outside world.
“Nothing,” she says after several minutes of trying every channel. “It’s completely dead.” She pulls the radio unit partially apart with practiced ease—when did Luna learn about electronics?—and her face goes pale. “The wiring’s been severed. Same as the engine.”
The implications crash over me like the waves that are growing larger with each passing minute.
Despite this boat bearing their mark, it was purchased from what seemed like a random fisherman desperate for cash, and yet, it was a trap.
Someone wanted us isolated, helpless, miles from shore as a storm builds on the horizon.
“The emergency beacon,” Max says, already moving toward the small orange device mounted near the helm. But I can see from his expression what he’s going to find before his hands confirm it.
“Disabled,” he says, holding up severed wires. “Jesus Christ, they thought of everything.”
The four of us stand in the center of the boat, looking at each other as the full weight of our situation settles around us like a net. We’re twenty miles from shore in a disabled vessel, with no way to call for help and a storm approaching that could turn these already rough seas deadly.
“How long before anyone realizes we’re missing?” Luna asks, but I can see in her eyes that she already knows the answer.
“No one knows we’re out here,” I admit, my voice barely audible over the wind that’s picking up with each passing minute. “We’ve been so careful about avoiding detection, staying off official channels—”
“That no one legitimate is tracking our movements,” Erik finishes grimly. “The ones who wanted us here are only people who know where we are.”
I think about the carved symbol I found on the boat’s railing, the mark I should have shared with the others the moment I discovered it. My silence might’ve doomed us all.
“I saw it,” I say suddenly, the words tumbling out in a rush. “When we first boarded, I found their symbol carved into the railing. I should’ve said something, should have warned you—”
“Belle.” Max’s hand finds mine, steady despite the way the deck pitches beneath our feet. “Even if you had, where else could we have gone? We were out of options.”
He’s right, but the guilt still sits like lead in my chest. How many times have I kept secrets, thinking I was protecting others when I was really just protecting myself from their potential reactions?
The first real wave crashes over our bow, sending icy water cascading across the deck. We scramble for handholds as the boat lurches sickeningly to one side, the horizon tilting at an angle that makes my inner ear scream warnings.
“Life vests,” Erik shouts over the growing wind. “Everyone get a life vest on. Now.”
The orange foam jackets are old but serviceable, with straps that we help each other tighten against the boat’s increasingly violent motion.
The simple act of preparing for potential disaster helps center my panic into something more manageable—not calm, exactly, but functional terror instead of paralyzing dread.
Another wave, larger than the first, crashes over us. This time, the water doesn’t drain away as quickly, pooling in the stern where it sloshes back and forth with each roll of the boat.
“We’re taking on water,” Luna observes with the same clinical detachment she once brought to psychological warfare at Shark Bay. “Not just from the waves—the hull integrity might be compromised.”
Erik is already investigating, running his hands along the boat’s interior surfaces. “Here,” he calls, his voice tight. “Small hole, deliberately drilled. There’s a plug that’s been partially loosened.”
Of course there is. Whoever orchestrated this trap didn’t just want us stranded—they wanted us sinking slowly, fighting for our lives as the storm closed in around us. A death that would look like a tragic accident to anyone who eventually found our bodies.
If they found our bodies.
The sky continues darkening, though whether from approaching night or the storm clouds gathering overhead, I can’t tell anymore. Lightning flickers in the distance, followed by thunder that seems to roll across the water like the voice of something ancient and hungry.
“How long do we have?” Max asks Erik, who’s still working on the hole.
“I’ve tightened the plug as much as I can, but it’s not going to hold indefinitely. Maybe a few hours before we start taking on serious water.” Erik’s hands are bleeding from working with the rough wood and metal, but he doesn’t seem to notice. “Less if the seas get much rougher.”
As if summoned by his words, another wave crashes over us, this one large enough to send us all scrambling for new handholds. When the water drains away, I notice that more has stayed behind, the growing pool in the stern now reaching my ankles.
We’re going to die out here.
The thought arrives with crystalline clarity, cutting through the chaos of wind and water and desperate planning.
We’re twenty miles from shore in a deliberately sabotaged boat, with a storm bearing down on us and no way to call for help.
Even if we somehow survive the night, hypothermia will claim us long before rescue arrives.
This is what The Architect wanted all along. Not a ritual sacrifice or elaborate ceremony, but our deaths by apparent accident. The disappearance of the last four witnesses who could expose the full scope of the network’s crimes.
“No,” I say aloud, my voice cutting through the wind with surprising strength. “No, we’re not dying out here.”
Luna looks at me with raised eyebrows. “Belle, I appreciate the optimism, but we’re kind of fucked here.”
“We’re fucked if we give up.” I move toward the boat’s limited supplies, checking what we have that might help us survive. “But we’re not helpless. We’ve made it this far by thinking, by adapting. We can figure this out.”
Another massive wave crashes over us, and the boat shudders ominously. Water pours through gaps in the hull that weren’t there an hour ago, and despite Erik’s efforts with the plug, we’re fighting a losing battle against the sea.
We fall into a desperate rhythm—bailing water with whatever containers we can find, checking the horizon for any sign of rescue, huddling together for warmth as night falls and the temperature drops.
The storm hits with full force around midnight, turning our small vessel into a cork bobbing in a washing machine.
Waves crash over us with terrifying regularity now, each one threatening to swamp the boat entirely. We take turns at the makeshift bilge pump Erik rigged, fighting to keep ahead of the water pouring through the loosened plug and over the sides.
“I can’t feel my hands,” Luna says during one of her bailing shifts, her lips blue with cold despite the life jacket and rain gear.
“Keep moving them,” Max instructs, taking the container from her numb fingers. “Circulation is everything right now.”
I find myself pressed against Erik in the limited shelter of the boat’s small cabin, both of us shivering uncontrollably as we share what little body heat we can generate. Outside, lightning splits the sky with increasing frequency, the thunder following so closely that I can feel it in my bones.
“We need to stay awake,” Erik says, his voice barely audible over the storm. “All of us. Hypothermia can make you want to sleep, but that’s how people die.”
“Tell us something,” I say, desperate for distraction from the cold seeping into my bones. “Anything. A memory, a story. Keep us talking.”
“Remember that professor at Shark Bay who always wore those ridiculous bow ties?” Luna offers, her teeth chattering so hard I can barely understand her. “Dr. Liderton. He used to lecture about Renaissance art while looking like he’d stepped out of a Victorian novel.”
“And he had that stupid little dog,” Max adds, wrapping his arms tighter around me. “What was its name?”
“Duchess,” Erik supplies. “She used to sleep through his lectures in that basket by his desk.”
We trade memories of our shared time at the university, clinging to normalcy as the storm rages around us. Stories of professors and classmates, of parties and pranks and moments of genuine happiness that feel like they belong to different people’s lives.
But gradually, our voices grow weaker, our responses slower. The cold is winning despite our efforts to fight it off. I can feel my consciousness starting to drift, my body’s desperate attempt to conserve energy in the face of hypothermia.
That’s when I see the lights.
At first, I think it’s lightning reflecting off the water, or maybe hallucinations brought on by exposure and exhaustion. But the lights are steady, purposeful, cutting through the storm toward us with mechanical precision.
“There,” I breathe, pointing toward what could be stars or could be salvation. “Do you see that?”
The others turn, following my gaze toward pinpricks of light that seem to be growing brighter, closer. For a long moment, no one speaks, afraid that voicing hope might make it disappear.
“It’s a boat,” Max says finally, wonder and relief warring in his voice. “Jesus Christ, it’s actually a boat.”
The rescue vessel cuts through the storm toward us with the purposeful movement of someone who knows exactly where they’re going. As it draws closer, I can make out its sleek lines, the professional efficiency of its crew, the powerful searchlights that pin us in their beam like actors on a stage.
We wave frantically, shouting over the wind even though we know they’ve already seen us. The relief is so overwhelming that I feel tears mixing with the salt spray on my face.
But as the rescue boat pulls alongside us, as professional hands help us aboard and wrap us in thermal blankets, something nags at the back of my consciousness. How did they find us? We’ve been drifting for hours in a storm that would make normal search and rescue operations impossible.
“Thank God we found you,” a familiar voice says as I’m helped onto the larger vessel’s deck. “I’ve been searching for hours.”
I look up through the rain and spray to see Selena Harpsons, Shark Bay’s director, her usually perfect hair plastered to her head, but her expression radiating genuine relief and concern.
“Mrs. Harpsons?” I manage through chattering teeth. “How did you—”
“Later,” she says firmly, guiding me toward the warm interior of her boat. “First, we get you all warmed up and safe. Then, we’ll talk about what brought you out here in the middle of a storm.”
As warmth begins returning to my numb extremities, as the crew of what I now see is named Selena’s Grace works with professional efficiency to stabilize our condition, a small voice in the back of my mind whispers warnings I’m too exhausted to fully process.
How did she know to look for us? How did she find us in the middle of a storm with no functioning radio or beacon? And why does this rescue feel less like salvation and more like another carefully orchestrated move in a game we still don’t understand?
But for now, wrapped in thermal blankets and slowly feeling sensation return to my fingers and toes, I allow myself to simply be grateful that we’re alive. Whatever questions need answering can wait until we’re back on solid ground.
The storm continues raging around us, but inside Selena’s Grace, we’re safe, warm, and heading back to the island we thought we’d never see again.
Selena moves between us with genuine maternal concern, checking our temperatures, making sure we’re drinking the hot soup her crew prepared. “You gave us quite a scare,” she says softly, tucking another blanket around Luna’s shivering form.
“One of the night security guards spotted flashes of light out on the water—probably lightning reflecting off your boat. When the weather got worse, I knew someone might be in trouble out there.” I want to ask more questions, but exhaustion is winning over curiosity.
My eyelids grow heavy as warmth finally begins to chase away the bone-deep cold, and I allow myself to simply be grateful that someone cared enough to look for us.