She grabbed the nearest rung with a shaky arm and hung on, pressing her forehead to freezing steel.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
The ladder jerked beneath her.
“Jen?”
She didn’t look up—too busy trying not to die.“I’m good.”
She wasn’t. But she was ten feet from the hatch, and that was close enough to keep going.
Then voices—above them, on the gantry they’d just left.
“Shit.” Wyatt’s voice. “Hurry.”
A flashlight beam cut through the rain, sweeping across the superstructure.
Across the ladder.
Across her.
12
Gunfire sparkedoff the metal above Jen’s head, bright and violent in the rain-dark. She ducked, flattening herself against the rungs, as if she could disappear into steel and shadow. The lip of the hatch above gave her a sliver of cover—barely enough to matter.
Wyatt returned fire, controlled shots snapping into the darkness above.
He was climbing up.
Backuptoward the men, the rungs shuddering with every upward surge.
One hand on the ladder, the other firing upward into the storm, rising with the same relentless focus he’d shown all night.
No.
Figures were climbing out of the hatch—men spilling onto the ladder, boots and bodies crowding the narrow space, coming fast.
“Wyatt—”
A shadow broke free from above, plummeted toward them.
A man dropped, safety line whipping behind him like a tail.
He smashed into Wyatt.
Both men ripped free of the ladder.
Tumbled.
Their safety lines snapped taut with a brutal thwack, slamming them into the rig’s steel frame. The impact jolted the metal under her fingertips. Below them there was nothing—just a black void and a furious ocean.
The man locked his legs around Wyatt’s waist, dead weight and fury combined. Wyatt twisted, his fists and elbows striking with vicious efficiency, fighting to break free. A handgun spun past Jen, vanishing into the darkness.
“Jen—keep going!”
“I’m not leaving you?—”
“GO!” Wyatt took several blows, his head whipping back from the force.
