AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Quiet. In the darkness.
He closed his eyes. No. Not like this. Not after everything.
“Let’s deploy the life raft.”
“It’s probably got holes—”
“I don’t know what else to do!”
He’d scared her maybe, because she loosened her hold. Pulled back. Aw, but— “I’m sorry, Shae. I’m so sorry. I thought…I thought I could get you out of this. Us out of this. But really, we’re just going to die here in the middle of—”
She kissed him. And not a gentle kiss but something hard and purposeful and clearly to shut him up.
Fine. He kissed her back. Because frankly, it might be their last kiss, and if he was going to die—okay, he’d do it right there. In her arms. So he kissed her well and with everything inside him.
When the water sloshed over the benches, he broke away.
“Let’s deploy the life raft. At least then we might have a chance.”
She said nothing. Probably a good thing they had no lights.
Here went nothing. He unlatched the door. It swung open, the sea tossing them, filling their compartment as it splashed.
He stepped out onto the back and found the suitcase-sized raft attached to the back. Not a huge case, so that didn’t bode well for room in the boat, but it was just the two of them.
“It’ll float away!” Shae said.
“It’s attached with a painter line. It connects the container to the lifeboat. As soon as the boat sinks, it will detach from the life raft and free it.”
In theory.
He unlatched the unit from the boat, and it splashed into the darkness.
C’mon,c’mon.
Shae leaned out with him. That woman was going to go right into the sea. “Is it going to—”
With a pop, not unlike bread dough popping from a can, the life raft deployed, self-inflating into a small floating tent, the doors open.
He hauled it toward the boat, hanging on to the painter line as the sea pitched him. “Get a life jacket on!”
Shae appeared at the door a moment later, strapped in a massive life jacket, her hood up, mittens on her hands. She shoved a life jacket into his hands. “You too.”
“Get on the boat.”
“Not until you have your life jacket on.”
He took it, shoved it over his head. “Get on!”
She stepped up beside him. In the darkness, he could barely make out the raft, despite its now-activated LED lights, and with the waves and the sea spitting at them—
He tied the line to the door, then lay, straddling the boat, reaching out for the life raft. Found the opening, the sea turning his hands to ice.
“Follow my arms. I’ve got the door!”
“You’re right behind me, right?”
“Yes! I’m right behind you! Get in the raft, Shae!”
