39. Jasper
THIRTY-NINE
JASPER
Travis and I stood to the side watching as these two masked men bagged up whatever they could find and carry from the equipment room. The rain hammered outside, and the boat swayed, the waves getting more violent as a storm rolled in. I didn’t think about the changing weather or how much danger we were in, because all I could think about was Finn.
“He can’t swim,” I whispered. “He’ll be so scared. I promised to look after him.”
A tear rolled down my cheek, but Travis turned to me, his face hard.
“Please, Jas. Don’t fall apart. Not yet. I need you thinking. I need you focused.”
His voice was barely audible as he leant in close to my ear.
“Shut up. No talking,” the man with the gun yelled, pulling it out from his waistband as if to prove he still had it and was still willing to use it on us.
“This one’s too heavy to lift,” the other man muttered as he tried to lift a robot from its housing.
“Of course it is. These things go down hundreds of meters where the pressure is so high they’d be crushed in seconds,” I spat, my pain and fear morphing into rage.
The man looked at me before pulling the gun from the other one, pointing and firing it. I wasn’t sure it would even leave a dent, but the man seemed satisfied, saying to his friend, “I guess breaking it is as good as stealing it. Either way, you can’t use it anymore.”
I turned to Travis, who was watching them with a murderous expression on his face, but he didn’t say a word. Instead, wrapping his hand in mine, he squeezed. It wouldn’t change our situation, but it was enough to ground me in the moment, so I could think. This was my boat, my equipment. I had planned and organised everything on here and I refused to let some fucking pirates get away with taking anything from us.
The image of Finn’s smiling face popped into my head, making tears build behind my eyes, but I refused to let these arseholes see me fall apart.
“Here, there’s some pretty valuable stuff at the back, there,” I said, stepping forward, but Travis’s hand tightened in mine as he tried to pull me back. “The sooner we give them everything, the sooner they’re out of here.” I gave him an imploring look that said, trust me, and please work out what I’m doing here. I was putting all my trust in the fact that I was braver than I felt and that my best friend, the man who loved me, would be able to catch on to my plan, so it actually had a chance of working.
Who was I kidding? It was half-baked at best, and I wasn’t sure if adrenaline was clouding my judgement, but I could almost hear Finn telling me to be brave and get on with it.
“This better not be a fucking trick?” the gunman grumbled as I walked past.
“No trick. I just don’t want to get hurt, so if I help you, you have to promise to get the fuck off my boat in the next five minutes.”
As if the ocean was listening, the boat listed dramatically, and we all stumbled sideways. I braced my arm on the metal shelves as the man laughed to his friend. “Better make it three minutes. Storm’s coming in fast.”
Sucking in a breath to calm my racing heart, I reached to the back of the unit until my hand landed on what I wanted, easing it out slowly. I made sure I could see the gunman out of the corner of my eye, then I pulled my hand back and, with all the force I could muster, I swung, slamming the heavy diving weight against the side of his head. The man was huge, and while his head snapped to the side, it was enough to disorientate him, but not much else.
Travis had obviously got the message, jumping onto the man’s back and grabbing his arms as they battled over the gun. The crack of a bullet being fired made my ears explode, ringing so loudly that I couldn’t hear anything else.
The other masked man dropped to the floor, gripping his thigh, his mouth open in a silent scream from the gunshot wound that punctured his thigh. Travis said something, but it sounded like we were underwater, so instead he pointed to the rope on the side, and I lunged for it, helping him tie up the one man and then the other as blood poured from his open wound.
As the ringing subsided and my hearing returned, Travis’ muffled voice came back. “… get out of here before the storm gets worse.”
My eyes flicked to him. “What?”
“We need to get out of here.”
I nodded, both of us moving to the bridge, reassured that our two unwelcome guests weren’t going anywhere and didn’t have anything on them that could help us get out of this fucked up situation.
“Finn?” I mumbled as I stared at the controls, unable to comprehend anything that was happening. Just then, Travis cursed under his breath, his audible breath catching my attention.
Looking over, I watched as he flicked switches back and forth before pressing buttons again and again.
“What?” I asked, my voice still sounding weird to my sensitive hearing.
“The fuckers have cut the lot.”
“What?”
“No power, no comms, no anchor. I have no idea where we are, how long we’ve been floating, and no way of getting us to safety.” The rain came down so hard that it obscured the view from the window, Mother Nature throwing us around as if trying to remind us of her power. I had wanted to take a torch and search for Finn, but I knew he wouldn’t have been able to survive out there. The thought made my heart break.
“Shit,” I muttered.
Travis strode back into the equipment room. “What have you done?” he screamed as he ripped the masks off the two blond men.
The guy without the gunshot wound spoke, “What we were paid to do. And as soon as I get these ropes off, you’re going to wish we’d killed you as soon as we snuck on board.” He glared at us before he spoke again, “Oh, and by the way, you don’t have a lifeboat to help you either, although if this boat can’t handle the storm that’s coming, there’s no way that little blowup thing would have.”
Travis recoiled as if he couldn’t believe any of this. “And how were you going to get off?” The timbre of his voice was as violent as the dark skies that carried the storm that was getting closer by the second.
“Your little floating tin can.” He looked towards the submersible.
“There’s no power. It’s not going anywhere,” I told him, amazed by his stupidity. “And even if you had managed to get it in the water, do you have any idea how to get inside her or get her to move?”
The man’s eyes widened as if he’d just realised that he wasn’t ever going anywhere.
“Idiots,” Travis muttered, then he turned to me. “This is going to be fucking horrible. Put a life jacket on and start praying.”