AllFreeNovel
Share Us
“We have a long trip ahead. I’ve brought enough fuel for the trip and for the journey back. But we’ll have to maintain full speed if we are to reach the Triangle before Cordelia does. We might be lucky to have the extra hands aboard if the seas get rough.”
I regretted that Noah and McKenzie had become unwilling participants in this voyage, but there was no room for choice now. Between the four of us, I hoped maybe we might just stand a chance. I glanced through the cabin doorway at the stern, where Noah sat bundled in his heavy dark green jacket with his back to the deck. We had almost been friends until this morning. Just when I’d started to settle, I was already ruining my chances at this new life. Perhaps I didn’t belong here after all.
“I’ll see if I can win them over,” Katrina muttered. “But for now, they need their space. Seems like I’ll have plenty of time to try.”
“We should be there January 10th, and depending on if we find the trident the same day, we can be back in Constantine by the 16th.”
“Classes start the 15th.” Katrina’s eyes widened as she groaned. “But I guess if we don’t do this, there won’t be a class to go to before long.”
“No,” I sighed. “There won’t be.”
She pulled away from our blanket and kissed me on the cheek with lips that felt tired. As I watched her walk back down the steps of the ship, I prayed to feel the warmth between us once again before the world ended.
Our time on the ship was lonely. My space became the helm cabin, not by choice. With a crew of only four, it was easy to stay separated on a boat of this size. Katrina came to check on me from time to time, and sometimes she would take charge of the wheel, but I was never gone from the helm for long. I made a few attempts to talk to Noah, but he refused to acknowledge me. I kept a watchful eye on him, though, because I didn’t trust him not to sabotage the engine. He knew just enough to be dangerous.
Even McKenzie was quiet around me, but she was an excellent cook for all of us, being more resourceful with our food supplies than I ever would have expected. I managed without sleep. I’d had centuries of practice. But when my eyes grew heavier than I could handle, Katrina would station herself at the helm while I slept in the hammock I’d hung for myself in the cabin.
On the morning of the 10th, I stretched with a weary yawn as I studied the horizon and the stars still visible in the twilight above. According to my coordinates, we were almost there. The twinkling markers in the sky gave me their reassurance that the Devil’s Triangle lay just ahead.
I nudged Katrina, who had fallen asleep in my hammock this particular evening. She sat up with a weary groan and looked ahead, pulling her blanket around herself to fight off the chill of dawn at sea.
“There it is,” I said.
“How do you know?” She yawned again.
I pulled out my compass and aligned my fingers with the sky. “We’re, 25 degrees north and 71 degrees west. Right where we need to be. Or at least we will be by the time the sun’s fully risen.”
Katrina slid out from the sling and stepped closer to the cabin window, becoming more alert as she spoke. “Do you see any sign of her boat?”
“No.” I frowned. “I haven’t seen the Belladonna once. But maybe that means we’re ahead of it.”
“Or that we’re too late.” She pushed her hair back behind her ears in a way that made heat rush to my core. “We’re screwed if she got there first.”
“Don’t worry,” I said softly. “Even if she made it there first, she can’t dive down that far to look for it. She lost her tail, remember?”
“I just hope th—” her voice caught in the air, as though a ghost had clasped a hand over her mouth mid-sentence. “Milo?”
At the utterance of my name and her eyes growing wide, I turned to see what she saw. The light of dawn had vanished in an impossible instant, obscured completely by some black storm cloud growing more threatening by the second. They puffed up like giants, swallowing the line between the sky and sea whole.
“That came from nowhere,” I uttered. I studied the clouds with suspicion and noticed the waves rising in the distance. I’d spent a great portion of my life weathering storms at the mercy of the ocean. But this storm looked unlike any other I’d ever encountered. It looked like the legends every sailor had heard but had yet to ever lay eyes upon.
It can’t be…
A strike of white lightning sent me rushing to the deck shouting. Noah and McKenzie were already out, watching the surreal scene before us from the bow.
“Don’t just stand there! All hands on deck! I need to get the sails down as quickly as possible!”
I rushed to the mast as Katrina hurried to grab the lines in the control cabin. If this monster storm hit us, we stood little chance.
“Lifejackets!” Katrina cried, fetching the vests from the hatch and tossing them down to our two passengers. I hadn’t even thought about them. We didn’t have such a salvation back in the 1700s. As the cold sea air battered my skin, I fought the wind to the sails, which were already getting mangled in the gusts. The storm had darkened every inch of the sky. I strained to see. With trembling hands, I worked as quickly as possible, but every sail had been raised. I at least had to get the mainsail down. I had to…
I pulled the sail as Katrina fed the line, but the water below had already begun to toss the ship. I stumbled but held my ground with gritted teeth. No matter what I did, I couldn’t win the wrestling match with the canvas sails. The storm had come too quickly. Desperate, I reached for my knife. I’d cut the damn thing.
Just as my blade touched the rope, a steady arm reached forward and pulled the flailing sail away from me. Noah.
“Don’t think this changes anything, Sandy.” He shouted over the wind. “I’m just trying not to die!”
With his added strength, we could fold the sail down as it lowered and keep it from coming undone in the wall of wind threatening to carry it—and us—away.
