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“Is that the only hole?” Rix asked.
I shook my head. “I don’t know. It’s the only one I’ve been able to find.”
Jorik stepped out of the bedroom and opened up the small bathroom. “Fuck!”
Dread unfurled in my belly like a poisonous snake getting ready to strike.
“I need towels,” he called out. “NOW!”
I scrambled to grab more for the shelf, grateful that we took everything we could from the cabin, including towels and bedding. If we had to use sheets and blankets to sop up the incoming water, then we would. At least we had them.
“How bad is it?” Rix asked, grabbing a roll of thick silver tape from somewhere and starting to tape a dry towel to the wall over where I was plugging the bullet hole.
“Not terrible,” Jorik said from in the bathroom. “But we’ll need to repair it so it doesn’t get worse.”
A clunk below us shook the boat, causing Rix and I to sway and shoot our hands out to the walls for support.
“What the fuck was that?” he asked, only for any further questions to be cut off by a terrible scraping sound on the bottom of the boat.
“Fuck!” Jorik barked again. “Did we just run aground? Zane, you motherfucker, did you just run the keel into the goddamn rocks?”
“Shut your fucking face, Jorik,” Zane called down from the helm. “I’m doing the best I fucking can in the dark. It was a rock. But this is about as shallow as I can get us.”
I exchanged a worried look with Rix, and without saying anything, we headed through the cabin and climbed the ladder back up to the deck to see what kind of a mess we were in.
“This is as close to shore as I can get us,” Zane said from the stern, where he was dropping an anchor. Tension and fear rolled off all three of them in thick, almost visible waves. It felt like they were just seconds from taking swings at each other just to get their anger out. Maybe they needed that?
It was dark, and the clouds had rolled in, providing us with zero visibility, but even with no moonlight, I could tell that Zane had maneuvered us into a bay where the water was calmer and there seemed to be a rocky beach we could row to if necessary.
Jorik came out of the cabin wearing a pair of the night-vision goggles—smart thinking.
“Thank fuck,” he breathed with what I could only construe as a sigh of relief.
“What?” I asked, laying a hand on his arm.
“There’s another cabin up in the woods. Not as big as the last one, but at least it’s something.”
My shoulders dropped. “Oh good.”
“And right here”—he pointed to the right a bit—“is a dock. If we can get the boat up onto the dock even just slightly, we might be able to patch it from the outside as well as the inside. Assuming we can find something to patch it with.”
“I grabbed a bunch of different tools, compounds and shit from the orgy house,” Rix said, having ducked into the cabin, then returned with the other two pairs of night-vision goggles. He handed one to me and donned the other pair himself, but not before Zane shot us all a scathing glare.
“It’s the best we can do for now,” Zane said, his tone terse. “We can’t risk sleeping in here if it’s gonna sink. And we can’t risk sailing any farther until we get a look at it in daylight. The best thing to do is go check out the cabin, pray there isn’t a shit-ton of Hellcats and super soldiers in there waiting to kill us and tackle things in the morning.”
My mouth opened, and I stared at him, though my expression was probably lost on him, given that I assumingly looked like a giant bug with my goggles on.
“What?” Zane asked with a grate to his bark. “It’s the logical thing to do. Doesn’t mean it’s what weshouldbe doing. But nothing else makes sense. I’m not a fucking idiot.”
Despite the unfortunate situation we found ourselves in, it was impossible for Rix, Jorik and I not to snort at Zane’s self-defense that he wasnot a fucking idiot.
“Whatever,” Zane muttered, tugging the towline in for the rowboat. “Jorik, you’re with me for recon. Rix, stay with Kitten and make sure she doesn’t tip over a saucer of milk.” He smirked at me, knowing full well that I could see his face perfectly with my goggles.
I sneered at him.
Jorik and Zane gathered guns and more ammo, then climbed into the rowboat. I untied them from the sailboat and watched them row toward the dock.
“My guess is that these inlets are all going to be riddled with abandoned cabins. I think there are a few resorts along the way, too. If they’re not under water,” Jorik said, scratching his chest.
