CHAPTER 21
MARGARITA
I woke up to a world painted in shades of charcoal and ash, completely pinned beneath a three-hundred-pound wall of muscle and scar tissue.
The harsh gray morning light was bleeding through a salt-crusted porthole across the room, illuminating the dancing dust motes and the thick layer of grime coating the steel walls.
My body was stiff, radiating a deep, bone-aching cold from the metal floor, but I couldn't actually move. Damon’s heavy, solid arm was thrown over my chest, trapping me against his side.
The smell of this room was going to be permanently etched into my nasal cavity—a suffocating cocktail of old diesel, oxidized iron, and the raw, heavy musk of our bodies after whatever the hell happened last night.
It anchored me entirely to the reality of the abandoned freighter.
I stared at the peeling paint on the ceiling, experiencing a jarring, aggressive moment of cognitive dissonance.
Because for a split second, waking up against him actually felt safe.
It was a terrifying realization. The absolute state of my life right now is that my brain has warped my definition of safety.
Trauma and forced proximity had rewired my survival instincts, making me feel protected by the very man who dragged me into this apocalyptic nightmare in the first place.
I gingerly tried to lift his heavy wrist off my sternum, sliding my fingers underneath his arm.
My fingertips lingered right on the thick pulse point at his inner forearm.
I couldn't help it. The doctor in me took over, pressing down slightly to count the steady, rhythmic thrum of his heart against my skin. Sixty beats per minute. Slow. Even.
"Still alive," I muttered under my breath, staring at the ceiling. "The world didn't end while I was asleep."
I tasted stale adrenaline and copper in my mouth.
The hull of the ship groaned against the dock, a low-frequency creak that vibrated straight up through the floorboards.
I untangled myself with the precision of a thief, sliding out from under him inch by inch so the tarp wouldn't rustle.
Damon didn't wake, but as soon as my body heat left his side, he let out a low, guttural huff in his sleep, his hand instinctively grasping at the empty space where I had just been.
He was like a massive, territorial guard dog that didn't even know he was on duty.
I leaned over him, kneeling on the cold floor.
The back of my hand hovered just above his skin for a second before I finally pressed it flat against his forehead to check his temperature.
The clinical detachment I usually relied on in the trauma bay was completely failing me.
Touching him wasn't just a medical necessity anymore.
It felt like an admission of a deeper, far more visceral connection that I wasn't entirely ready to unpack.
I wiped a bead of cold, leftover fever-sweat from his temple with the cuff of my thumb.
"Cool. Finally," I whispered, the words barely making it past my lips. "You’re too mean to die from a little infection, aren't you?"
His stubble scraped roughly against my knuckles.
I could feel the heat still radiating from his massive chest, watching the slow rise and fall of his breathing.
The harsh morning light caught the jagged burn scars branching across his ribs, turning them into a brutal landscape of silver and pink.
He had these insanely heavy, dark lashes resting against his sharp cheekbones, making him look completely vulnerable in a way that was objectively hilarious considering the body count this man was responsible for.
I pulled back the edge of the blue tarp to inspect the wound on his side.
The stitches were holding firm. The crimson fishing line I’d violently pulled through his skin yesterday was seated perfectly.
There was no fresh seepage, no pus, and the angry, inflamed redness of the infection had receded into a dull, manageable pink.
I traced the perimeter of the scar with my index finger, my medical mind automatically calculating his healing timeline while my eyes took in the sheer scale of the man.
I felt a surge of professional pride looking at my handiwork, instantly poisoned by the logic of the situation.
I was literally healing an apex predator so he could go back out and hunt.
I picked a tiny, microscopic piece of blue tarp lint off the edge of his bandage with obsessive focus, flicking it away.
"Good as new. Almost," I said to myself, rocking back on my heels. "I'm getting too good at sewing you back together."
I stood up, my knees and ankles cracking loudly in the silence.
The cabin was tiny, a rusted steel box that felt less like a tactical safehouse and more like a floating coffin.
I began a systematic sweep of the shadows, my bare feet freezing against the gritty floor.
My eyes darted between the battered metal lockers and the deep shadows under the low-slung pipes, scanning for anything we could actually use or consume.
The quiet in this place was my enemy. Without the immediate distraction of Damon practically dying of a fever, or a direct firefight to keep my adrenaline spiking, the crushing gravity of my situation was caving my chest in.
I was a fugitive. A criminal surgeon for a syndicate boss with a target painted directly on my back.
I caught my reflection in a piece of cracked glass bolted to the bulkhead.
I stopped and stared. I barely recognized the hollow-eyed, grime-streaked woman looking back at me.
My dark hair was a feral, tangled mess. There were dark purple bags under my eyes, and my scrub shirt was stained with dried blood and engine grease.
My aesthetic had officially crossed the line from 'exhausted medical professional' to 'unhinged survivalist.'
"Think, Margarita. Water first," I told the glass. "Then food."
The smell of wet dog and stagnant water was starting to give me a migraine.
I moved toward the back of the cabin and found a rusted footlocker tucked into a corner, half-hidden by a disgusting pile of rotting orange life vests.
I kicked the vests aside, gripping the heavy iron latch of the locker.
My knuckles turned white as I heaved upward.
The metal screamed. It was a high-pitched, rusted protest that vibrated straight through my teeth and echoed far too loudly in the hollow cabin.
I instantly froze, my heart launching into my throat. My eyes darted to the heavy iron door of the cabin, totally convinced that the sound was a homing beacon for every single mercenary currently tearing the shipyard apart looking for us.
"Shit. Be quiet, be quiet," I hissed at the box.
I stripped off my oversized jacket and wrapped the fabric tightly around the metal latch to muffle the next attempt.
I braced my boots against the floor and pulled with my entire body weight, gritting my teeth.
Flakes of orange rust fell like toxic snow onto my hands as the lid finally popped open with a dull, reluctant groan.
Inside was a stash of ancient survival rations.
My hands were actually shaking as I reached in, pulling out a dusty, plastic-wrapped case of bottled water and four dented, label-less tin cans.
I wiped a thick layer of dust off one of the water bottles, my pulse hammering in my ears.
It was a pathetic, garbage treasure, but standing in this freezing room, it felt like I had just cracked open a bank vault.
I shook the water bottle in my hand, watching the air bubbles rise to the top just to verify it was real liquid and not totally solidified.
"Water. Thank God," I breathed out, grabbing two of the heavy cans. "Beans or stew. It doesn't matter."
I let the locker lid drop shut and sank onto the floor right there, my back against the freezing metal wall.
The cold seeped directly through my thin scrub shirt, but I didn't care.
I held the water bottle against my chest, not opening it yet, just staring at my small pile of stolen supplies.
I wasn't spiraling. I was actually sharpening.
The panic was receding, replaced by a cold, calculating logic.
I was already doing the math in my head on our hydration levels and the caloric intake required to keep Damon from passing out when we inevitably had to run again.
This was the exact moment the shift happened.
I was officially done being a victim. I wasn't waiting to be rescued by Briggs or the cops or anyone else.
The 'civilized' Margarita died on the floor of my clinic, and I didn't even miss her. I was preparing to endure this.
I absentmindedly scratched at a massive, dried bloodstain on the thigh of my scrub pants, my gaze locked on a peeling patch of paint on the opposite wall.
"I can survive this," I whispered to the empty room. "We're not dead yet."
My brain immediately went to work mapping out an exit strategy.
We could not stay on the water. A stationary ship in a shipyard with a single access point was a tactical nightmare.
We were a literal fish in a barrel. We needed to get off this boat, circle back toward the industrial district, and find a vehicle that wasn't flagged on a syndicate registry so we could vanish into the city grid.
I stopped scratching my leg, realizing with a heavy dose of irony that I was literally thinking exactly like Damon.
My brain was assessing tactical advantages, sightlines, and escape routes.
I reached out and used my index finger to draw a rough map in the thick layer of dust on the floor, tracing the grid lines of the shipyard docks we had ran through yesterday.
"This ship is a dead end," I mumbled, drawing a sharp X where we were currently sitting. "We need a car. Something fast and unremarkable."