Chapter 84
The distinctive whump-whump of the helicopter blades are no doubt going to be heard by those on the ship, but I’m too far gone to care. Nervous energy zaps beneath my skin, the anxiety-sweats making my clothes near suffocating as they stick to me.
This is the most insane thing I’ve ever done, and I stepped into a firefight to pull off my takeover of Bleakcrest.
The lights of The Tenebris shine through the encroaching mist settling over the water as night creeps in. There’s no city pollution out here, the ocean’s vast, barren, and unsettling.
“She’s moving at about twenty-one knots, Rip. I’ll come up on her rear, then keep pace as you descend.”
“Got it.”
The belt unlatches with a click, snagging on a pocket of my tactical vest. It’s less cumbersome than a bulletproof one, with some light armour to protect my vital organs from sharp-force trauma.
Carefully, I move around the cramped space, anchoring the rope ladder to mounts Kyle installed himself.
I’d much prefer to slide down a singular rope, moving this whole process along faster.
But without another person here, Kyle won’t be able to swap out the rope for the ladder in the event I need extraction with Rose. So this is it, one rung at a time.
His gaze is cutting when it catches mine. “You’re really not going to tell me what’s going on?”
I swing open the door, and the ladder unfurls from my grip. “Nope,” I say, curt and final, pulling the neck gaiter up and over my nose.
“Rip…” Kyle lets my name hang in a threatening tone, but I’m not scared of the fucker. However, he doesn’t need to know my bat-shit crazy idea hinges on hope that a dream-turned-nightmare was somehow real.
I shut him out as I maneuver my body slowly out of the helicopter, securing my foothold and grip before lifting my eyes to his terrified ones. “Is Maximus on that boat?” he asks, trying to remain calm.
I shrug, lip pulling up into a smirk beneath the mask.
“Rip!” Kyle bellows, as I start my nerve-racking downward climb. “Is he on that fucking ship?” My best friend’s voice echoes out into the evening sky, and I pick up my pace before he changes his mind, and turns us toward home before I reach my destination.
I tense as thunder booms in the distance, the threat of a tropical storm looming.
The sound may aid my wish of being undetected, but as I approach the rear deck, a flank of masked men dressed as tourists await my arrival.
They may have thought their boss was dropping by unannounced, but one look at my form would wipe that from their minds.
There’s only four of them, so the odds are in my favour as long as no one raises an alarm.
The light in the Captain’s perch shines brightly, and I send a silent prayer to whoever could be listening that the glare on the glass obstructs what’s about to happen.
My boots touch down, and a man to my right lunges forward.
Not even going to bother with pleasantries?
Rude.
His moves are sloppy in his haste to apprehend me, giving me ample opportunity to sidestep and take hold of his wrist as I drive my knee into his gut.
The man doubles over, and I waste no time flipping his heaving body over the guardrail at my back. His terrified scream is quickly drowned out by the low-frequency hum of the ship.
The other three move as a unit, corralling me. The centre one unclips a sheath at his side, pulling free a machete with an audible metallic rasp. The steel glints in the twilight, as the other two men step forward, ready to grab me.
Is this supposed to be intimidating?
I’ve faced worse for less.
Nothing and no one will block my path to Rose.
Twitching the fingers of my left hand draws all their gaze as my other hand reaches for a kunai throwing knife in the holder strapped to my thigh.
Faster than any of them can register the movement, I send a blade slicing through the air.
It hits its mark, securely buried in the jugular of the threat to my right.
His hand shoots up, pulling the projectile free.
Well, that’s going to make a mess.
He drops to the deck, quickly leaking a river of viscous crimson. The centre one finally speaks, “You’re going to regret that.”
“Doubtful,” I reply.
“What do you want?”
I shake my head. They don’t need to know my business, and won’t live long enough to relay it to anyone. Adjusting my stance, I raise my hand, extending it palm up. I curl my fingers, beckoning him to bring it on.
He cracks his neck from side to side, distracting me as the other man plows into my side. The athletic fuck knocks me off balance, and I grab onto the railing to steady myself. His shoulder connects with my face, driving into me repeatedly in an attempt to dislodge my grip and daze me.
The machete-wielding lunatic lets loose a war cry, flying at me, blade swinging. I can’t move. The fucker banded around me drops his grip to my middle. Like an anaconda, he keeps me constricted, immobile and rooted in place.
I shove my body against him, getting as close as possible in hopes the knife stabs him instead.
At the last second, the machete’s trajectory changes. It slices through the pocket of my vest, sharpened steel imbedding into the armour plate beneath the fabric. The blade sticks momentarily, and I grip the assailant tight to my chest with my free hand.
Using his momentum against the both of them, I throw my weight backward, sending the three of us off the back of the ship.
The centre man falls to the churning waters when I release him, machete dislodging and spiralling down to follow its owner.
The final menace holds tight to my waist with everything he’s got. My grip threatens to slip as I absorb our combined weight on one hand.
His fearful eyes meet mine, dark as the bitterest chocolate. “Pull us up, man. I’ll let you do whatever you want.”
“Fuck off,” I growl, trying to shake him off as I swing my body in order to grasp the rail with my other hand.
“Stop!” he begs, the cry ringing through the near-silent night.
Finally, my reaching hand clamps around a bar of the railing, and I rally my strength to inch my way up.
Perspiration accumulates on my furrowed brow.
A drip dislodges at my temple. Making a slow descent along my hairline, it itches something fierce.
Something as small as this shouldn’t send me into a tailspin, but it’s the straw that breaks the camel’s back.
My body drops, not strong enough to carry the weight of another with my energy depleted.
Burning pain rips through my thigh, and a bellow of agony tears from my chest. “If I’m dying, I’m taking you with me,” he snarls, pulling the mask from his face.
My brother glares up at me, hate-filled eyes leaking malice into the air around us.
His fist curled around the kunai blade twists the steel, and my grip loosens, fingers threatening to slip from the damn metal.
The asshole used my own weapon against me.
“Brad, stop!”
His name on my lips has him pausing.
But I know how this plays out. If the reality between sleep and wakefulness was true, Brad’s doomed to die.
If I let him live, what’s the point of trying to prevent the wrongs waged against my flower?
“How do you know my name?” he roars, ripping the blade free while curled around my leg like a spider monkey, fingers constricting the belt I shouldn’t have worn.
I gnash my teeth through the pain. “Because I’m your brother.” My reply is sorrowful as I adjust my grip, securing my hold, before my left hand releases the bar, moving down to undo the buckle of my belt.
Hanging there, I wonder…if I just let go, would I get another chance to make things right? Would I wake up, tangled in my sheets, with the opportunity to save my brother this time. Is he the reason for this second chance?
Deep down, I know he isn’t. It’s Rose that believes with a passion voracious enough to make the unexplainable a reality.
“What? Wait! W-w-wait!” Brad begs, but I’ve turned it off. Forced myself to feel nothing as the clasp comes loose, the thwapping of the leather ripping through the belt loops an ominous melody to my kin’s demise.
“I’m sorry.” The sound is as choked as it is monotonous, feelings warring through my voice as I watch Brad cling to the tether.
The buckle snags on a loop, granting me a few precious seconds of re-evaluation.
I could pull him up.
The decision is ripped from me as the belt slips through Bradley’s fingers, and I watch him crash into the churning water near the rudder.
My head hangs, guilt and emotional agony woven so intricately, I’ll never find my way out of it.
With aching arms, I pull myself up, leg throbbing and leaking a steady flow as I swing it over the white, metal railing.
Collapsing into a heap on the deck, I pull the last throwing knife from its sheath. Placing it between my teeth, I undo the button of my black pants, shimmying them down to dress the wound on my thigh.
The quick sutures barely hold, and the bandage isn’t sticking properly. My patience is quickly fraying.
Next to me, a corpse lies. I crawl to it, careful to avoid painting any more of my skin in gore.
The blade slices through the man’s shirt with ease, and I use the material to secure the bandage on my thigh in place. Wrapping it twice and knotting it tight.
Slowly, I get to my feet, placing the throwing knife back in the sheath strapped to my uninjured thigh. Shifting my weight, and testing my limits, my leg aches and burns, a deep throb ricocheting down the muscle, but I’ll live.
I retrieve the blade from the dead man’s neck, sliding it into the holster next to the other one.
I could replace the knife that sunk to the briny deep alongside my brother, but the missing piece is better served as a reminder as to why he’s there, and everything I gave up to have Rose back at my side.
He’s the missing piece I’ll never get back.
Dragging the man’s corpse to the edge of the deck, I kick it over the side. His dead weight splashes into the ocean below, disappearing beneath the waves, and I move across the deck to a map posted on the wall.
Rose told me Sam approached her during dinner, but he and Brad apprehended her and Chelsea sometime after that. They left a dance party…or something?
The details are fuzzy, but there. Not floating away like blood in the water as most dreams often do.
If Sam and Brad’s recounting in the grocery store parking lot is to be believed, then I should be able to intercept Sam before he gets his hands on my flower again.
Pulling off my mask, I take off in the direction of the dining hall to do just that.