Chapter 25 #2
“Let you?” I scoffed. “You have that entire man wrapped around your finger. You tell him what you want to do, and he’ll be the one bending over backward to make it happen. Plus, it adds another level of safety for the times when we’re not around.”
Wrapping both arms around me, she snuggled in close and sighed. “I’m so ready to see GG.” Juno popped up as if a random thought just hit her. “Who takes care of her when you’re both gone?”
A slow smile crept up my lips at her concern for the grumpy cat. “Baylee. She won’t let us pay her either, says she gets her payment in kitty snuggles. GG loves her.”
“I think all animals do. It’s what makes her an amazing vet.” She settled back against me. “Okay, good. I just thought about her being home alone and sad, and that made me sad.”
Chuckling to myself, I kissed the corner of her dramatic frown. “You’re the sweetest to think about GG and—”
“What the hell?” The confusion in Langston’s muttered words cut me off, drawing both Juno’s and my attention to where he stood at the front of the boat.
Slipping my arm from around her shoulders, I slowly stood, using the side of the boat to steady myself. Stance wide for balance, I made my way to Langston’s side at the wheel. Without uttering a word, he pointed to the right of the boat before dropping that hand to the throttle, slowing the engine.
Neither opening my eyes wide nor squinting them helped me see whatever Langston saw.
As far as I was concerned, it was black water everywhere, except for a few slivers of moonlight that shimmered on the surface.
Brow furrowed, I parted my lips, ready to ask him what he thought he’d seen, when our boat shifted with an enormous wave, adjusting our angle.
That was when I saw it—a flicker or shadow of something not too far from us on the water.
Palm to the side of the boat, I pitched forward, watching, but as the moon slipped behind the clouds, the area outside of our running lights went into utter darkness.
“I think I saw something, but no clue what.” I stood straight and twisted to face Langston.
Powerful waves rocked the boat from side to side, the spray misting my face as we idled in the middle of the black water. He nodded, letting me know he heard me, but didn’t take his focus off the area where he’d pointed.
“It looked like the outline of a boat to me, but that makes little sense. It would have running lights like we have to alert other boats and for them to see what they’re doing.”
“True. What if they lost power and are stranded?” I mused.
“Good point. Let’s see if they’re reaching out for help on the radio.” Twisting the knob, Langston clicked through the various channels, his frown growing by the second when there were no calls for help or SOS signals.
“If they were stranded, they would either be on the radio or sending some type of signal to us that they need help. There’s no way someone doesn’t see us with our lights on.
” Never breaking his stare out over the dark water, Langston reached into a side cabinet, withdrew a nine-millimeter, and placed it on the dash.
“Just in case things aren’t on the up-and-up. Something doesn’t feel right.”
I nodded, fully agreeing with him; this felt off.
I studied my friend and sighed. “You want to check it out, see what’s going on, don’t you?
” I glanced over my shoulder at Juno, giving her a tight smile.
“You know, I would normally be all in, but our girl is on board with us. Wouldn’t that be putting her in a potentially dangerous situation? ”
Langston grunted in agreement, twisting around to check on Juno, who was already coming closer. Brows pulled in tight, gaze locked on us, she made her way from the back of the boat to where we stood.
“What’s going on?” she asked, studying us, no doubt sensing our tension. “What is that look?” She pointed to Langston’s face and then mine. “You’d think we were in danger or something.” Her nervous laugh faded when we didn’t respond. “Wait, are we? Is it something to do with the boat?”
“There’s nothing wrong with the boat, but we’re not sure what’s going on,” Langston stated. With a hand on each shoulder, he turned her toward the mystery spot and pointed like he had with me. “Out there. It was there and gone, so I’m not positive, but I thought I saw a boat stranded.”
“We’re assuming stranded,” I mumbled.
“It makes the most sense,” Langston replied, pulling Juno against him, sealing her back to his chest.
“Or,” I drawled, “the boat is fine, and whatever they’re doing, they don’t want anyone to know about it. What if we just interrupted something illegal, Lang? They would no doubt have more guns than your single nine-millimeter. It’s not smart to—”
“But what if they are in trouble and need our help?” Juno interrupted, placing a hand on my forearm. “We have a weapon just in case, right?”
Langston inclined his head to the gun on the dash, and of course, he had his knife stashed somewhere too.
She nodded. “Then I think we should check it out, make sure they’re okay.
If they are doing something illegal….” She paused, chewing on her lip as she stared at her feet.
“I mean, like, it’s already happening. So on the super-odd chance they are, then we can figure out what to do from there.
But again, I highly doubt it.” She gestured around us.
“We’re in Alaska, in the middle of the water, at night. Who would it be, the Russians?”
I huffed out a laugh while Langston smiled and shook his head.
“Russians,” he joked. “This isn’t a Bond or Mission Impossible movie.”
Juno slapped his bicep. “See, you are into action films, not just cheesy romance.”
“I agree that it’s a long shot that they’re a danger to us, but you’re here with us. I don’t want to potentially put you in harm’s way,” I stated, extracting her from Langston’s hold and pulling her into my arms.
“And we have more than one gun.” He reached into the cabinet again and pulled out another nine-millimeter. He looked between it and my bandaged hand. “How good of a shot are you with your nondominant hand?”
“Guess we’ll find out,” I said with a resigned sigh. After taking it from him, I cursed under my breath and handed it back to him. “I can’t rack the slide. Can you put one in the chamber for me?”
His responding cocky grin proved he was the ultimate jackass for reveling in my current limitations. Asshole.
The click of the slide slamming into place cut through the night, making Juno jump.
Taking her hand, Langston guided her to his seat, made sure she was secure, and shot me a glance over his shoulder.
At my reluctant but confirming nod, he gripped the throttle and pushed, making the engines roar to life.
The boat quickly picked up speed, gliding over the water in the direction of our unknown fate.
“I don’t want to run into the fucking thing,” Langston grumbled under his breath before hitching his chin toward the back of the boat. “Grab the spotlight from one of the storage compartments. That will help us see farther.”
With a clipped nod, I went in search of the light.
There were only life jackets and spare ropes in the first hold, but I found it in the second with other miscellaneous equipment.
Careful not to move too fast so I didn’t lose my balance and fly overboard, I stumbled up to Langston’s side and plugged in the power cord.
A blinding stream of light cut through the dark, highlighting just how far away from land—hell, anyone—we were out in the middle of the large bay.
Sweeping the light from side to side, my frown deepened.
Nothing but water, more water, and wavy water.
I shared a confused look with Langston, who shrugged.
“Maybe we were seeing things?” I suggested, though the doubt was clear in my tone.
“Keep searching, widen the scope. If the engines are off, it would have drifted with these choppy waves,” Langston stated.
On my third, much wider scan over the water, the light glinted off metal. There it was—a ship, not a boat like ours, utterly dark and quiet as if abandoned.
“Even with it drifting, there’s no way it made it all the way over there unless….” He trailed off, sounding bewildered as he slowed the boat, maintaining a comfortable distance between us and the ship. “Why would they try to evade us if they need help?”
“Maybe you just have a shitty sense of direction,” I joked, knowing it was a lie, but hoping it would help lighten the tense situation we’d found ourselves in. My stomach tightened with nerves as we all watched the dark ship. “I don’t have a good feeling about this, Langston.”
“Same.” Flexing his fingers, he adjusted his white-knuckled grip on the wheel as we idled, the waves pushing us closer.
Too fucking close. “It’s too late to turn around and hope they didn’t see us, though, not with that spotlight.
” Grabbing the end of the light, he adjusted the angle, sweeping it along the hull.
“I’m trying to tell what kind of ship it is.
It looks to be a midsize commercial fishing boat, but it’s old.
I don’t see any fishing gear stacked on the deck, which is odd. And where the hell is the IMO number?”
He continued to direct the light where he needed it as he scanned for the number that identified the boat.
Breathing in deeply through my nose and slowly out through pursed lips, I worked to slow my racing pulse.
Blood pounded in my ears as my brain and body sounded every damn alarm, telling me something was wrong, and that we were, in fact, sitting fucking ducks.
But Langston was right; it was too late to act like we didn’t see anything, not with our light shining on a ship that they obviously wanted to remain hidden in the darkness.
Swallowing hard, I peered around Langston’s wide frame. With a stilted smile and rigid posture, Juno shot me two thumbs-up. I snorted at her attempt to act nonchalant about this increasingly terrible situation we’d put ourselves in.
“Lang,” I started, my voice trembling with nerves. We had to leave, no matter if they saw us. We were a smaller boat, so surely we would be faster and could make a clean getaway. But I never had time to finish my plea.
From somewhere near the boat, a masculine, garbled yell cut through the lapping waves, making all of us jump at the sound. Was that fucking Russian or some other Eastern European language, or was it just too far away to sound like English?
Before I could process that, a terrified feminine scream sliced through the air, followed by a splash, as if someone or something had fallen overboard.
Still in shock, trying to figure out what the hell we just “witnessed,” Langston’s hand wrapped around my wrist, guiding the light a few feet to the side.
“Is that another fucking boat tied to the fishing ship?” he murmured more to himself than to me or Juno. “And did anyone else hear that guy yelling in fucking Russian?”
I didn’t respond because I didn’t have a fucking clue.
“Maybe we are in a Bond movie after all,” Juno chuckled. “Does that mean I’m a Bond—”
A flash caught my eye first before the resulting boom of the shot, followed by the tearing of metal as the bullet ripped through some part of the boat. Langston yelled a warlike battle cry for us all to get down just as another shot rang out, then another, and another.
Under heavy gunfire from high-powered weapons, Langston and I shared a distressed look, crouched behind the steering column. Juno was down, curled in a little ball, making herself as small as possible.
“They can’t hit something they can’t see,” I shouted.
Langston didn’t bother responding; instead, he reached up and started flicking off the running lights while I yanked the power cord out, instantly killing the spotlight.
Chest heaving with my rapid breaths, I palmed the gun’s grip, sweat already slicking my skin and making it slide in my hand. Langston had been in dangerous situations before, but not me. I was the fucking mechanic, not part of the infantry.
The roar of massive engines had us both stilling.
I started to speak, but Langston held up a finger, stopping me, and tapped his ear.
Straining to hear whatever he did, I shifted to angle my ear in that direction.
It was there in the background: a second, smaller, high-pitched engine that was almost drowned out by the ship’s larger ones.
Lights flickered to life, giving us our first decent look at the commercial fishing ship as it trudged forward. More shots rang out, making both Langston and me duck with a curse, but this time, none of the shots hit their mark.
Peering around the corner, I searched for the smaller boat, but it was already gone, or making its getaway with no lights, while the ship moved farther and farther away.
For several minutes, we were frozen, all of us trying to piece together what the hell had just happened.
“I don’t know what the fuck that was,” I rasped, “but we survived it. You all right, Juno?”
Silence. My heart stopped at the quiet.
Langston flipped on the lights, the small bulbs blinking awake. He rushed forward and knelt beside her, hand hovering over her still form as if afraid to touch her.
“Juno,” he called out. “You okay, shortcake?”
Still no answer.
Heart slamming in my chest, I yelled her name, the desperation clear in my voice.
“Answer us, Juno,” I pleaded. “Please be okay. Please be okay.”
If she was hurt, or worse….
I shook my head.
No, I couldn’t think that way, not only for myself, but especially for Langston. He’d just accepted her role in his life, allowed her past his defenses, and if something happened to her, we were all in trouble. He would burn the world down in his grief and rage.
No one would be safe, especially him.