10. Lilah
10
LILAH
At first, it had been disorienting to find myself in the hall. I’d been unconscious when I’d been put in the room, had been drifting in a contextless sea.
Now I heard shooting somewhere above me and ran for the stairs I could see at one end of the hall.
I’d had no idea how big the boat was when I’d been locked in my room, but I could see now that it was huge. The same one I’d been driven to by the German woman? I couldn’t be sure.
My legs felt heavy, like they had when I’d been running through the snow the night I’d been chased by the snowmobiles. My heart wasn’t working right. I needed my meds.
I was running out of time.
Move, dammit .
I braced myself against the wall as I made my way to the stairs, then started up them. I was surprised when I reached a landing, another hall leading in one direction, the staircase continuing upward in another.
The boat had at least two levels.
A muffled thump sounded from right above me. The deck?
I had no idea what was happening. It sounded like some kind of gunfight, which wasn’t hard to believe considering I’d been abducted by human traffickers. Not a great scenario. Any way I sliced it, I was on my own.
Better to let the fight play out and try to find a way off the boat without getting in the middle of it.
I decided to take the hall since it was quiet. Maybe there was another way to the deck, one that would let me avoid the firefight just above me.
I was gasping, holding on to the walls as I started down the second hall, moving toward what seemed to be the bow of the yacht.
The hall was lined with rooms, some of the doors closed, some open to reveal bedrooms, the furnishings tidy, beds neatly made. Twice I saw men in black lying on the floor, blood seeping from under their bodies.
I’d almost reached the end of the hall when I came to an open door. Except this wasn’t a bedroom. It was some kind of control room with two screens on a metal work desk showing grainy images of what I assumed was the boat’s exterior. A closed laptop sat at one end of the desk, a hard drive plugged into it.
I hesitated, then ducked inside. Maybe the security cameras would give me an idea of what was going on, help me find the best way off the boat.
There were two images on the screen: the back of the boat, the ocean dark beyond the deck, and the front of the boat. There was a shadow on the bow, and I used the trackpad to expand the image, then saw that it was a person.
One of the guards, unconscious or dead.
My breath was shallow and a wave of lightheadedness hit me as adrenaline flooded my body. Was the enemy of my enemy — the person or persons who’d killed the guard — my friend? Or was this some kind of rival situation where I was about to be kidnapped by a different group of criminals?
Shit.
I turned my attention to the laptop and opened it without thinking. It was locked, the prompt for the password staring back at me like a challenge.
I heard a sound behind me — a barely there rush of air — and spun to face the door. A hulking figure in a wetsuit was blocking the exit, pointing a huge gun at my face.
This was it. I was going to die on this boat in the middle of the ocean, or worse, be taken even farther away from the only people in the world who might — just maybe — care enough to tell someone I was missing.
“Jesus fuck.” The man lowered the gun.
The voice broke through my fear. I knew that voice, knew this man.
“Rafe?”
Maybe the lack of blood flow to my brain from my slowing heart was causing me to hallucinate.
Gunfire sounded below us and Rafe rushed into the room. “Are you hurt?”
I wondered if I was imagining the undercurrent of fear in his clinical question.
“I’m okay,” I said. “I need… I need my meds.”
He hesitated — just for a split second — and for one crazy moment I thought he was going to hug me.
Then he moved toward the door. “Stay behind me, no matter what.”
I glanced back at the laptop. I wanted it, wanted to know what was on it, if it would lead us to the missing girls.
I hurried to unplug the hard drive.
“What the fuck are you doing?” Rafe asked, turning back to look at me.
“There might be something on here,” I said. “Something we can use.”
I stuffed the hard drive into the pocket of my hoodie and met him at the door.
“No more delays,” Rafe growled. “I mean it. Let’s go.”