Page 50 of The Final Storm
“Luke?” All I can manage is one-word questions, but the message comes across.
“He’s awake,” Lori beams. “Well, he’s asleep right now, but awake when he’s not asleep.”
“He’s doing better,” Caleb tells me. “He’ll make it.”
Luke’s turn for the better is the best news we’ve gotten since we stepped aboard this nightmare, but it’s impossible to be thankful when my child is missing on a foreign ship.
I try to sit up again, and Caleb pushes me back down. “Here, let me raise the bed so you stop trying to get up. Take it slow.” He fiddles with something on the side and as the bed lifts, I try to remove the wires attached to my arms.
“Stop that,” Lori chastises me. “You scared me so much, and you’re going to do it again.”
“What h-happened?” I ask.
“Do you remember what I told you? Some passengers saw someone go into your room,” Lori says.
“You,” I point to her. “To you?”
“Oh,” she shakes her head. “I don’t know. Someone snuck up on me. I’m not sure who… or why. All I remember is a fuzzy picture of someone when I turned around. I didn’t get a good look at their face.”
“I wasn’t-” I press my fingers on the back of my hair. It almost crunches from my touch, and I frown. “Shot?”
“No,” Lori answers.
“Head wounds bleed a lot,” Luke chimes in. His voice is weak and raspy but music to my ears.
I turn to him, sending a pinch of pain through my skull. I suck in a breath but smile at the sound of his voice. “Hey.”
He grins back, lifting himself. “Sorry, I couldn’t stitch you up this time. Your hairline’s going to be a shit show, but your vagina — that shit is perfection.”
“Priorities and all,” Lori jeers.
Caleb clears his throat and steps back. “Okay, well, if you’re all good, I’ll let Sam know. I’ll help him with the search party.”
Search party.
The words form a brick in my stomach. “How many?” I ask.
“As many as we can spare,” Caleb replies and opens the door to leave.
“Wait,” I stop him. He stops and turns. “Who?” I point to my head. “Who?” I repeat.
“We aren’t sure,” Caleb says. “Someone with knowledge of security on these ships. They took out the camera systems.”
My heart constricts, and Lori grabs my hand, holding it too hard. That doesn’t sound like Cecilia, but who else has this kind of grudge against us?
I look down and see the scar on my finger from when I cut it on the Thalassa. After Dean took Sam from me, hiding me in his room for a month, I pressed it into the sharp edge of a knife to feel something, anything. Now I feel everything. That moment seems like a lifetime ago.
“I know what you’re thinking,” Lori sighs. “You want to chase after Cecilia and go look for Morgan, but you aren’t better yet. You need to rest and let us worry about all that. And it doesn’t seem like she…” Lori sucks on one side of her cheek and looks to the side.
“Like she’s-” I pause to cough and take another sip of water. My words hurt, but I’m determined to push past the pain and talk to my friend. “-capable of knocking out two badass women?”
“Or orchestrating it,” she admits. “I’m certain it was a man that attacked me. I didn’t see him, but the feel of it was brutish.”
“Women can be brutes. We fight - kill,” I argue.
“I don’t know,” she shakes her head. “Believe it or not, we have bigger problems.”
“Storms,” I say.
