Cassie Alexander - Deadshifted

I chose the higher route toward the building that the restaurant occupied—even though climbing down would have been easier, I was too afraid to get any closer to the waves. In a way I couldn’t express but felt, I knew the Maraschino would reach its tipping point soon, where it would be flatly sideways, before it twisted and flashed its belly to the sky.

I reached the building, barely. It swooped in an organic fashion that had probably seemed sexy to the engineers at the time, but now felt like it would be the death of me. My hands couldn’t get traction on its smoothly curved sides, and as the ship leaned my shoes were having less and less luck.

Then doors opened as I reached them. “Edie! Get in!”

I startled and almost lost my grip—and a hand lunged out to catch me. Shivering in the dark, I found myself beside Rory, both of us leaning against a marble counter. As my eyes adjusted to the red-tinted EXIT lights I realized with some irony that we were in the spa, now that the Maraschino ’s deck had eaten off not only the polish from my nails, but several of my actual nails too.

“You’re alive!” Rory gasped.

“You too!” I twisted in his grip and he let me go. “Where’s Asher?”

“Hang on. He thought he might have to fish you out of the sea.” Rory clicked on his radio. “The irdbay has andedlay.” He turned his attention back to me. “You couldn’t imagine what we had to go through. He pretended to be someone else that they were expecting and then turned them on each other, stole a gun, and shot someone—he was like James Bond,” Rory said with reverent awe, and then looked past me, remembering. “We called out to the mainland, so finally someone knows we’re here—we’ll get a real rescue boat. Where are the others?”

I shook my head. “They’re not coming.”

“What happened to them?”

“It’s hard to explain.” I didn’t want to tell him that Hal had died, or that Claire had run back to the sea. His gaze narrowed, but he didn’t fight me; maybe he knew he didn’t want to know.

“Edie.” Asher rose up from behind Rory, rounded him, and reached for me. This time when I went with gravity it felt right. I allowed myself one full breath, one moment of feeling safe with him, before pulling away to talk.

“We weren’t able to stop all the bombs. Just one side’s worth—”

“I figured as much when we started sinking,” he said, and stopped himself. “I thought—I assumed—”

And I realized what he’d thought without him saying it. I’d heard him over the intercom. I’d known he was fine, but he’d thought that I’d died. “I’m alive,” I told him, even though he could see me, just so he could hear it again as he crushed me to his side. I ducked into his shoulder and hid there. “I’m alive.”

I heard his breath catch as he stroked a strand of wet hair behind my ear. “We were supposed to meet on the lifeboat deck. Waiting there for you, not knowing—it was the most awful thing I’ve ever done.”

“I’m alive,” I whispered again.

“I knew it when I heard Nathaniel taunt you over the intercom. But not until then.”

How long ago had that been? It hadn’t seemed long to me; we were so busy running and then getting shot at. But somehow the lighting in here made him look older and more sad. Happy to see me, but haunted.

“I knew you’d manage to make it up here after that,” he went on. “I couldn’t dare let myself think otherwise. It would have wrecked me.”

“If I’d had a way to tell you, I would have.”

He grabbed my shoulders like he was setting me straight. “Can we please go now?”

I hesitated.

“I don’t want to die—but he’s still got people. You heard them, they’re alive.”

And the lines on his face drew grim.

“Didn’t you hear them?” I pressed.

He made a show of looking behind me. “I noticed you’re already missing the three people you left with. What’s a few more?”

“Hal and Claire weren’t like that—”

“Let’s take a vote,” he said, and then gave Rory a look. It was clear he and Rory had already discussed things in my absence.

“You think I’m going to be stopped by a plea for democracy?”

Asher’s eyes narrowed. “Why does he want you—not me?”

I didn’t want to tell him, but he deserved to know. “Because his own daughter died. When we were alone together earlier, before the gunmen, he asked if I was really pregnant, and then said he wanted a child for a child.”

Asher’s expression became emotionless and flat. “That is the exact opposite of everything you needed to say to get me to go help them. We’re going.”

“You know what he’s capable of! How can you just leave them behind?”

“Look around you. Thousands of people have already died here. Who cares about a few more?” He grabbed my arm. “I’m getting you off this boat.”

It truly didn’t matter to him. And maybe he was right, but what kind of life with him would I have if I had to live with the knowledge that for me to be happy, we’d just let people die?

Wasn’t that kind of thinking what had gotten us here in the first place? I pulled back from him.

“The Shadows made you pick this trip. Because they knew they could use us to figure out what was going on—and to punish us for disobeying them. They say some of this is your fault.” Asher looked stunned. I moved closer to him and took his hand back. “We’re different. I love you with all my heart, but I’m not like you. I can’t just leave them behind without at least trying first.”

Rory had been creeping backward, wisely trying to give us space. But then the Maraschino swung and he rocked back as the ship did. I saw him reach out for the marble of the spa’s registration table, and watched his fingers slip off the cold stone.

He fell to the ground and slid like he was on a slip-and-slide, down the hall, to the other door where Asher’d been waiting for me. It swung open as he hit it and he flew out, just barely catching the doorjamb in time. Behind him was open black.

“Don’t leave me!” he howled, holding on to the doorway.

I started up—and so did Asher. I caught his shoulder. “I thought you didn’t care about adding a few more deaths to the pile.”

For a heart-wrenching second I thought he might actually do it, just to prove his point, even if it broke me. And then he shrugged my hand away and anger crossed his face. “God-fucking-dammit, Edie.”

Missing two fingers didn’t hurt his agility. He lowered himself through the tumbled wreckage of the spa and reached out for Rory. Rory grabbed hold, and Asher pulled him up, until he could put him down again safely inside.

“Watch out, I won’t come for you again,” he warned, and Rory nodded wildly.

My stomach reeled watching them climb back up, using the fixtures bolted to the spa’s walls for support. I wanted to pretend it was because I was worried about them, or what we still had left to do, or the fact that this entire fucking boat was dropping into the sea, but I couldn’t. Asher was too busy concentrating on handholds to see me. I ducked behind the counter and pressed a hand to my stomach, hard. “Stay in,” I commanded my stomach contents quietly. I could have sworn I felt an answering thrill to my demand. I knew it was way too early to feel anything from the baby, but I added, “Please be the baby. Don’t be a killer worm.”

Asher pulled himself even with me. “Other than storm in to our deaths, do we have a plan?”

I smiled at him and tried to be encouraging. “We’ll think of something. We always do.”

If the spa’s display table for all their tonics and brochures hadn’t been bolted into the wall, we might not have made it out of the room. But we were able to use it like a ladder, until we reached the door at the top of the store. Rory was shaken by nearly being lost, whatever spell Asher’s competence had had on him broken. The second we emerged from the door he started apologizing.