Page 47 of A Princess, Stolen
I no longer knew which way was up or down. I slipped around, hit something, and suddenly felt a weight on me, heavy and wet from the rain. “Stay down!” Nathan shouted as a torrent of water poured through the broken window and washed over us. He pushed my head to the floor and pressed his next to it as the next giant wave broke over the Agamemnon.
“Stay down. Everyone,” Nathan commanded the room and jumped up himself. “Pan, stay with her!”
I had no idea what he was doing when another blow struck, and suddenly, Pan was half on top of me, pressing me to the floor with his massive body.
I was so dizzy with fear that it didn’t even bother me. Buckets and tools slid across the floor as if we were listing. No one spoke. No one shouted. I tried to grab hold of something, but I couldn’t find anything, only Pan held me in place.
The engine stopped roaring with the next crash and the lights went out.
The sudden darkness sent me into panic overload, and although the sea was still raging and the rain clattering, it seemed to me as if it was uncannily quiet.
“The engines have failed!” I heard Delphi shout from somewhere, sounding terribly loud to me.
Trembling, I raised my head to search for Nathan but didn’t find him. Instead, I saw Sparta at the helm next to the part of the crane that had shattered the window. “That miserable fool!” he shouted angrily. “He has to play the hero.”
Pan rose to his knees over me but swayed threateningly. “Nathan hanging on ropes over bow! Without vest!”
“What?” Shocked, my heart skipped a beat.
Taurus, who was kneeling next to us, spat blood into the water that was washing over the floor. “He’ll kill himself. And then we all will be screwed. Shit!”
I propped myself up on my arms, trying to rise, but Pan pushed me down. “Stay down. I watch!”
“What about Nathan?” I screamed. The bow sank and a load of spray hissed through the window followed by a deafening crash. Wood splintered somewhere and Pan threw himself on top of me. His weight squeezed the air out of my lungs, and for an instant, the darkness seemed to be the belly of a whale that had swallowed us.
Please, don’t let anything happen to Nathan!I thought, and as if my prayer had been answered, the door flew open and Nathan was catapulted onto the bridge as if the ocean had spat him out.
Water flowed from his jet-black hair and soaked clothes. He must have hurt himself too because a stream of blood ran from his hairline down his temple. “The lifeboat was completely demolished by the crane,” he said grimly, but still, I wanted to throw my arms around him simply because he was back.
“You should put on a life jacket if you’re going out there again,” I heard Sparta spit out angrily. Pan rose halfway above me so that I could at least see something. Nathan staggered to the helm that Sparta was holding. “We’re all out,” he replied tersely.
Sparta handed him the helm. “Where’s yours?”
“Willa’s wearing it. Hers went overboard.”
Sparta gave me a withering look but spared me the comments as he took off his life jacket. “Take mine.”
“No.” Nathan checked something on a desk.
“Come on! You know…”
“No!” Nathan looked up and eyed Sparta darkly. “You know I don’t want to hear it. Put it back on! Just put that goddamn thing back on, got it?”
“But…”
“No buts. We’re one short now, but I’m in charge and I say put yours back on!”
Sparta blanched, his dreadlocks hanging around his head like waterlogged wool, but he put the jacket back on, cursing.
Shivering, I rubbed my arms. The new memory buzzed through my head.
Where are the life jackets? Where’s the fire extinguisher?
I can’t swim! And neither can Willa.
The wind was now whistling through the broken windshield as loudly as a teakettle. I clung to the railing I had crawled to again. Mom had been crying. I pushed the images back, there was no time for them now, but one thing had become clear to me: There was a reason I had forgotten everything. It sounded heroic when Dad said that Mom had sacrificed herself for me and that she had wanted it that way. But had it really been that way or did he simply say it to calm me down? Maybe Mom would only have decided that if she had been able to think about itin peace, like someone had asked her that morning. She was so afraid. Panicking and desperate. She knew she was going to die.
And I—I screamed for Dad!
