Angry voices echoed up from the vent shaft, distorted but closing in. Metal rang as something slammed against the grate. Fingers appeared through the opening, groping blindly.
Wyatt brought his boot down hard. The crunch was unmistakable.
A raw scream cut through the storm as the fingers vanished and the voices below surged with new urgency.
“We don’t have much time.” Wyatt’s jaw was set.
“Can you walk?”
Wyatt used the railing to pull himself upright. “Yeah.”
She read the lie in the tension snapping across his shoulders. She didn’t call him on it. There would be time for that later—if they got the chance.
“Caro.” She crouched and touched her junior’s shoulder. “We’re moving. You with me?”
Caro lifted her head. Her eyes were unfocused as if she was still back in the vent.
Jen tightened her grip, grounding her. “Almost done. Then you can fall apart all you want.”
That got a ghost of a smile. “Promise?”
“Absolutely.”
They crossed the open deck as fast as they could manage, hunched low against the weather.
Jen kept one hand locked on Caro’s arm, steering her around obstacles. When the wind buffeted hard enough to steal her breath, she hauled the younger woman upright.
Wyatt limped ahead, handgun up, gaze roving over railings, ladders, shadows—reading the space like it was a language he’d been born speaking.
She felt exposed out here, the storm offering no real cover. But on the horizon, through the sleet, she spotted a gray smudge.
The cargo ship?
Her chest tightened.
Stop it. Focus.
Three lifeboats hung at forty-five-degree angles from their davits, noses pointed down toward the black water far below. A short access ladder led up to the nearest capsule’s hatch.
Wyatt reached it first.
“Caro, you’re next,” Jen said.
The hatch was stiff but Wyatt had it unsealed by the time Caro reached the top. He dropped inside first and turned, reaching back to guide her through.
Jen hauled herself up last, muscles burning as she dragged her weight over the lip of the hatch. The moment she was inside, she swung it shut and twisted the manual lock.
The storm vanished—wind and sleet cut off so abruptly it made her ears ring. The lifeboat creaked softly where it hung suspended, cables groaning under strain, the muffled roar of the ocean a distant presence beneath everything.
Jen sucked in a breath of plastic and metal.
For the first time in hours, it felt like there was space to breathe. Not safety—just a pause before the hunt caught up with them.
But through the hull, noise resonated. Distant shouts. Flashlight beams stabbing into the night sky. They were searching. Methodically. It was only a matter of time before someone checked the lifeboats.
Caro slid down into one seat and folded forward, head in her hands. Wyatt was already at the emergency lockers mounted along what passed for the ceiling in the tilted capsule. He glanced toward the porthole as he worked, eyes tracking for threats outside.
Flashlight beams were spreading across the deck below, methodical sweeps between equipment stacks and stairwells.
