Page 22 of Finding Elodie
“He came from up there,” Elodie told him woodenly, looking at the stairs and the level above them.
“Shit, all right. He must’ve looped around and we missed him in our search,” Scott said.
“He was going to shoot you,” Elodie said.
“I know.”
“He was waiting for you.”
“You saved our lives. Thank you,” Scott said.
Elodie realized she was still gripping the rifle tightly. She wanted to be badass and indifferent about what she’d just done, but she couldn’t find it in her.
“Come on, we need to get you out of here,” Scott said, grabbing her elbow and pulling her to a standing position. “We found a group of the engineers. They’re ready to turn the electricity back on when we give them the go-ahead. But we need to wait until we’ve got backup, so we can protect the crew when they go to their stations to get the ship functional again.”
Elodie barely heard the words.
“Rachel? Are you listening?”
“Uh-huh.”
“She’s in shock,” Midas said from nearby.
“I know,” Scott told his friend. “I should’ve left her upstairs.”
Elodie focused on him then. “But then you would’ve gotten shot.”
“Maybe,” Scott said. “Come on, the engineers pointed out an emergency stairwell in the back of the room that we can use to get up to the front of the ship and then to the bridge.”
Something else occurred to Elodie. “If I wasn’t here, you wouldn’t have had to come back for me…and you wouldn’t have been in danger.”
Scott leaned down and framed her face with his gloved hands. He tilted her head up so she had no choice but to look at him. His face gleamed with sweat and she could more clearly see his beard and mustache. The beard touched his upper chest but wasn’t scraggly or unkempt.
She had the sudden urge to run her fingers over the hair to see if it was fine or coarse. She’d never been this close to anyone with a beard like he had. There was a deep wrinkle between Scott’s eyes as he frowned down at her.
Frankly, the man was gorgeous. It was a shock to realize that now, after she’d been talking to him all day and then following him around in the dark.
“You were right. The safest place for you was with us. The fact that this guy got behind us somehow and was lying in wait proves it. You might’ve run into him at some point on your way up to the bridge. I know shooting him was hard, but you saved us, and we’re forever in your debt. All right?”
She nodded. What else could she do?
“We gotta get going,” Midas warned.
Without another word, Scott grabbed ahold of Elodie’s hand and pulled her behind him as he stepped around the dead man on the floor and headed back into the bowels of the engine room.
Elodie held on to his hand tightly, conscious of the fact that he hadn’t directed her to hold his belt loop. She was now between Scott and his teammate, and they moved quickly, weaving around the pumps and pipes. They arrived at a door, half the size of the normal doors around the ship. She’d have to get down on her knees to go through it. She saw not a stairwell on the other side, but metal rungs, like a ladder.
Movement to her right scared her so badly, she jumped and reached for the rifle she’d let fall against her back once more. But Midas grabbed hold of her arm, preventing her from arming herself.
“It’s okay, they’re the good guys.”
Elodie focused on the dark shapes and realized they were Troy, Ari, and Pablo.
She couldn’t stop her reaction; she lunged for them and gave each man a fierce hug. “Thank God you’re okay!” she told them.
“We’re glad to see you too,” Troy said.
“What about everyone else?” she asked.
