Chapter 61
CHAPTER SIXTY-ONE
For a moment, Nigel clung to the Faraday cloth in a darkness broken only by the ghostly blaze aboard the ship far below.
Rain pounded against his skin, and the wind shoved at him as if it wanted to tear his precarious grasp free and send him falling to his death.
He didn’t know what had happened to the lantern, if Oscar was all right, if any of them could possibly survive this—
A beam of light cut through the night. Lawson’s head lamp. “Nigel! Come on, climb, damn it!”
Montague let out a keening wail. If Nigel did as Dr. Lawson asked, all hope for her was lost. She could only hold on for so much longer, and no doubt her strength was already beginning to fail.
Every instinct screamed at Nigel to abandon her. To claw his way up the Faraday cloth, grab Lawson’s hand, and let her and Chris pull him to safety. Montague had concealed her family’s crimes, lied to them, put their lives in danger. Used them, because she had money and they didn’t.
“Fuck,” he said aloud. Because Montague might be an awful person, but he didn’t have to be one, too. “Can you grab my boot?”
A ring of white surrounded her irises. “N-No, I don’t think so.”
Damn it. Gritting his teeth and praying he wasn’t making the worst mistake of his life, he began to edge down the cloth toward her.
“I swear to god, Patricia, if you get him killed I’ll raise you from the dead so I can murder you myself,” Lawson yelled down. “Grab his fucking boot!”
His boot was almost touching the rail she held onto. “One hand at a time,” he said, trying to sound calm even though adrenaline coursed through his veins like molten metal. “You can do it.”
Montague fixed her eyes on the boot, her form backlit by the flaming ship below. Visibly shaking, she didn’t make a move to let go of the steel rail for what felt like forever, but was probably seconds. Then, with a wild cry, she released one hand and clamped her fingers around his ankle.
“There you go!” he shouted. “Now the other—”
The Faraday cloth began to tear.