Chapter 37
The ladder went up for-fucking-ever.
Ryder climbed through a maze of maintenance corridors and catwalks not built for a rig slanting multiple degrees off true. Water sheeted down stairwells, every surface a trap. Emergency lights strobed amber along the walls—pulsing light followed by absolute dark.
The sound of the rig dying pressed in from all sides. Metal groaning under impossible stress, distant bangs that might’ve been hatches slamming or supports giving way, and the patchy wail of alarms on failing backup power.
His shoulder burned as if someone had held a flame to it. Every pull sent pain shooting down his arm, vision fogging at the edges.
He climbed anyway.
The air grew hotter, thick with the stink of burning insulation and fuel. He rounded a corner and walked straight into hell.
A control panel hung half off the bulkhead, flames spewing from a cracked valve.
Smoke writhed across the ceiling. Ryder ducked low, arm raised to shield his face.
The air reeked of melted plastic and diesel, the heat baking the wet right out of his clothes in seconds as he hurried underneath.
Sparks rained from severed wiring above, urging him to move faster, half-blind and coughing, until he was through—and back into the cold.
The next shaft’s hatch was jammed. He wedged his knife into the gap, used it as leverage, throwing his full weight behind it. Metal resisted, warped, then gave. He hauled himself through.
His radio crackled. Wyatt’s voice, chopped to fragments: “Ryder—can’t—”
“Say again,” he snapped, hitting transmit.
Nothing. Static.
He clipped the radio back onto his belt. Alone now. Just him, the storm, and however long the Vega had left.
Don’t collapse before I get to her.
The exterior walkway was fastest to the helipad.
He shoved through the access door and straight into the wind’s teeth.
Sleet pummeled his face, and the metal grating shook beneath his boots with each gust, the entire rig see-sawing.
Black water churned sixty feet below, white foam visible even in the dark.
A support cable hung loose on one side of the walkway, frayed and whipping sparks against the rail. On the opposite side, another groaned, straining to hold. The walkway wasn’t built to handle this angle of hell—but there was no other way.
He gripped the frozen rail and stepped on. The wind flayed him sideways, ice slicking the mesh, but he made it across and didn’t let himself think about the return.
The final hatch was at the end of a short passageway. He burst through and into the open air. Hail drove sideways across the walkway.
A ladder to the helipad was straight ahead.
He climbed, fighting to stay upright against brutal squalls that fought to dislodge him. He reached the top of the ladder, panting. The wind whipped over the helipad. The flares still burned at the edge, guttering bright.
“Ryder?”
Her voice.
She was swallowed by borrowed gear—bulky orange life jacket, clumpy men’s boots. A fire hose was knotted around her waist, the line stretched taut between her and Jack.
He boosted up, crossed the pad in four strides and caught her, arms locking around her so tight she made a small sound against his chest.
Ivy.
She was freezing, soaked through, trembling. He buried his face in her damp hair and felt her breathing, her heart thudding against his ribs in a matching rhythm.
Alive.
The storm went quiet in his head. The rig, the pain—gone. None of it mattered. Only her breath, hot against his neck, proof she was still here.
“Christ, Ivy.” The words scraped out of him, rough and broken. Everything else jammed in his throat where it hurt to breathe.
Jack’s voice carried up from behind Ivy. “About damn time.”
He pulled back enough to check Ivy over. Her eyes were bloodshot from wind and smoke, and her hands were torn up and bloody. Tears streaked across her cheeks. She was wrecked but still standing, the fight in her still a bright flame—more alive than anything he’d ever seen.
He cupped her face between his freezing hands, just looking at her.
His Ivy.
Training kicked in.
“You hurt anywhere?” His voice came out gravel as he freed her from the hose.
She shook her head. “I feel like I’ve been locked in a box and left to die.” Her cracked lips twitched, half defiance, half relief. “But I’m okay.”
“Liar.” He ran his thumb along the line of her jaw. “We move. Now.”
She nodded. “Jack first.”
Ryder turned, dropping to a crouch. He removed his knife and cut Jack free of the hose. “Talk to me, Jack. What’ve you got?”
Jack squinted up at him, pale and blood-smeared but with a crooked grin. “Maybe a couple of busted ribs. Head’s ringing like a church bell but I’ve had worse hangovers.”
He huffed. “That’s not the brag you think it is.”
The head wound above her ear had crusted, her breathing shallow and guarded. He checked her pupils, watching for dilation. Not great, but not dying. He’d take it.
“Possible concussion,” he muttered. “No arterial bleed. Stay conscious, we can work with that.”
Jack arched an eyebrow. “You always this charming on a first date?”
He winked. “Only with the ones bleeding internally.”
Ivy let out a shaky laugh.
Ryder flicked his gaze to her—just long enough to see that spark still burning—then back to Jack.
He gave her shoulder a gentle squeeze. “Can you walk?”
Jack winced but nodded. “I can do whatever I have to.”
He slid an arm under her shoulders, careful of her ribs, and lifted. Her weight leaned heavy against him.
“Easy, one step at a time,” he said, voice barely audible over the wind.
Matching her pace, he helped Jack toward the hatch.
He climbed down first, careful on the treacherous rungs, then reached up to support Jack down. She hissed with pain as she climbed, her breath a ragged saw.
How much longer could she hold on?
And his radio was still dead.
Don’t think. Keep moving.
He got her onto the next deck and hustled them both toward the exterior walkway. The floor angled steeply now, and every gap between the metal plates looked bottomless in the flickering red light.
The rig had sunk farther in the few minutes since he’d crossed it—the angle steeper now, pulling everything toward the water. Support cables screeched, slicing through the wind.
Fuck.
He stopped at the walkway’s edge. More strands had snapped loose, whipping sparks into the night air. The cable on one side was twisted tight as piano wire.
He tested the first panel—metal flexed under his weight, a deep, groaning protest that vibrated through his soles.
“Ryder?”
He looked back. Ivy stood behind him, pale in the storm, her eyes pure trust.
He wrenched his gaze back to the walkway. It wasn’t going to last long. But it was the only path off the Vega that didn’t end in a sixty-foot drop into black water.
“One at a time. Jack, you first.”
“No. You young things—”
“No arguments.” He locked his arm around Jack, the pain in his shoulder just another sound to ignore. “Stay with me.”
The walkway moaned, wind shoving at his balance. He pushed on.
Thirty feet.
Twenty.
A cable snapped overhead—sharp as a gunshot.
Jack flinched. “I—”
“Stay with me. Keep walking.”
Jack limped another step, a small animal sound breaking from her throat.
Ten feet.
Finally, solid deck under his boots.
Jack sagged against the far railing, gasping. She waved him off with a trembling hand. “Go. Get her.”
Ivy waited on the far side—small, alone, wrapped in her own arms. Snow whipped around her, the emergency lights dousing everything bloody.
Another cable ruptured—closer this time, a metallic firecracker that hurt his teeth.
The walkway was on its last seconds.
“Ivy!” He raised his voice above the clamor—calm, commanding. Every ounce of control he had left. “Eyes on me. Nothing else.”
She nodded once and slid one boot onto the walkway.
His heart stopped. Started again when she didn’t fall.
He kept his gaze locked on hers as she advanced, one hand on the rail, the other reaching toward her. He needed to see her feet to judge the sway.
To catch her if she fell.
And he would catch her. He hadn’t fought through fire and ice and a failing rig to lose her now.
“That’s it. You’re doing great. Keep coming.”
“Ryder—”
“Walk to me, Ivy.”
Ten feet. Eight.
Her eyes were huge in the orange light, but she kept moving, trusting him to guide her back.
Six.
“Almost there, Ivy.”
Four.
Her lips were blue, her breath ghosting between them.
Close enough to grab her if—
Don’t think. Get her across.
A metallic shriek punctured the air.
Ivy froze, gaze dropping. The deck sagged under her feet.
“Ryder—”
The walkway gave a long, aching sigh as bolts sheared free.
No, not when she was almost safe—
The panel buckled.
Her hand shot out toward him, grasping for something—anything.
Time fractured.
For one impossible heartbeat, her eyes held his.
No—
The world let go.
Ivy fell.