If she had, this would be terrifying. And if she hadn’t, this would be utterly horrifying.
I can’t leave her on her own.
Glancing at the radar, I said, “I’m going to grab something.” Someone. “I’ll be back in ten.” My eyes lingered on the captain’s chair, and the matching bucket seats soldered firmly onto large steel posts. The shoulder and waist straps would keep us from flopping around when the waves struck, but a quick release mechanism meant we could unbuckle and swim if we capsized.
Not that I think we’ll capsize…but you never know.
Yet another reason why I had to get Pim and bring her to safety.
“I wouldn’t leave if I were you.” Jolfer squinted at the egg-sized droplets obscuring the windows. “Especially to cross the deck.”
Admittedly, that was a design flaw. I’d had the boat builders place the bridge towering over the polished deck. They’d insisted there should be some way of internal access from the main floors, but I’d refused an additional lift as I didn’t want to interrupt the space downstairs with yet another ascender.
On nice days, even on rainy days, the quick stroll over the exposed wood was a welcome refresher. Today, I would be drenched.
“I won’t be long.” Pushing off from the control panel where the hand-holds glinted silver amongst the array of glowing buttons and dials, my legs spread for balance as I made my way to the exit.
Blessed with not suffering seasickness, even I didn’t like the uncertainty of when the next swell would hit and how big the yacht would roll.
Clutching the doorframe, I battled the hissing elements as I wrenched it open and traded dry for wet. Instantly, the low howl of the storm behind thick plated glass took off its gag and screamed.
The noise of wind and rain and thunder hammered me as I shot forward, slipping and sliding across the deck.
My clothes became saturated—a heavy hindrance, robbing me of coordination. By the time I made it to the glassed-in foyer where the lift was, I panted and gasped, my hip throbbing from sliding sideways and falling over.
Not trusting the elevator mechanism in this crazy bucking world, I threw myself down the stairs. Each couple of steps, the boat yawed and yawned, throwing me into a wall then forward then back.
My shoulders ached as I stepped onto Pimlico’s level, bruises deep inside from the violence of the squall.
Rather than walk and do my best to balance, I jogged down the corridor, moving with the boat, hitting the walls with a grimace. I wouldn’t drag this out any longer than needed.
We need to get back to the bridge.
Reaching Pimlico’s door, I didn’t knock.
Barging inside, my eyes fell to the messy bed, the coverlet on the floor, but no Pim. Where the fuck is she?
I stumbled toward the bathroom. There was no way she should still be in there with hard tiles and smashable mirrors to hurt her.
A loud crash sounded over the mayhem of the storm. Cream curtains billowed as the French doors to the balcony snapped and snarled.
And there, tied to the guardrail with a dressing gown belt was Pimlico.
I slammed to a stop. My knees locked against the roll and buck.
She had her back to me. Her arms spread wide, her head thrown back, and chocolate hair plastered to her naked white body.
In the dark, she lit up in a fork of lightning. Her spine still stark, her bruises still colourful enough to cast mottled shadows over her flesh.
She didn’t jolt as another fork split the sky like an angry god. She didn’t huddle when thunder answered back with ear-cracking drums.
She merely wedged her feet against the railing and lived.
EXHILARATION.
Life.
Death.
Chances. Choices. Catastrophe.
The storm got worse. I became steadily petrified; huddled in a ball on my bed, clinging to the mattress as I slid this way and that. I thought it couldn’t get any worse. That each soar into the sky and every plummet down, a wave couldn’t possibly get stronger.
I was wrong.
The wind churned the seas, but the thunder churned the skies, and when the first bolt of lightning arched against the monstrous wet clouds, I had to make a decision.
Scream with terror and think I was going to die or…give in.
I couldn’t be afraid anymore.
I’d been afraid for far too long.
I didn’t have the energy to be afraid anymore.
I’m done.
I’d been willing to die at my own hand. I’d been living in hell where my senses had been dulled, my freedom at touching rain and feeling sunshine stolen. All I was allowed to endure was coldness, nakedness, and pain.
But not tonight.
Tonight, the world was alive. The brutality of existing whispered in my ear to let go of everything and breathe with it. To howl with it. To die with it if that was my fate.
Climbing from my bed naked, I relished the bite of chill because I chose it not Alrik. I embraced the fearful scatter of my heartbeat because I was the architect of my panic not Alrik. And when I unlooped the belt from the robe Elder made me wear after he forced me to face his cello, a weight somehow unbuckled from my shoulders and fell like a cape around my feet.