Page 168 of In the Pursuit of Haven
Screaming, I grabbed what I could. My aching fingers scraped uselessly past coins that dropped into the black chasm below me. I found something hard and smooth—the legs of a statue. It moved backwards with me and then stuck. My body jolted at the impact. The statue was wedged against something above me. I didn’t know how long it would stay that way. The sounds of the ocean tortured me. Somehow it was all I could hear. What torments lurking in these depths below had swept up Hunter’s men?
“Jessie!” I cried out. Kicking, I used every bit of my muscle to pull back up. My bleeding fingers stung and slipped against the statue’s carved brass legs as I struggled upward, fighting to stay alive.
“Roxy!” Jessie’s blessedly husky voice brushed past my ear, seconds after his hands found my waist.
He let out a grunt of pain.
Luther stood behind him. Jessie let out another “oof,” his whole body shaking against my forearms as Luther kicked him in the side again. My husband wasn’t letting me go. He was fully prepared to go down with me.
I didn’t want him to die too. “Jessie!” I cried. “Don’t… don’t…”
“Don’t what?” His eyes met mine through the pain. “I’m never going to let you go, Roxy. I thought you figured that out by now.”
He let out another grunt of pain.
“What are you doing?” I shouted up at Luther. Tears stung my eyes. My husband was going to die with me. “Get your treasure! Why are you bothering with us?”
But Luther was in a blood rage. Seeing his treasure consumed by this fire, he was beyond reason. “You let this happen!” he screamed. “We’ve lost everything because of you.”
“Because ofyou!” Robert was behind him. He swung a jeweled scepter against his face.
Luther fell limply over Jessie. His body, heavy like a sack of grain, rammed against my husband’s arms. The veins stood out against Jessie’s neck as he held onto me with everything in him. I tightened my grip, feeling like the whole world was moving.
Luther’s shoulder knocked with mine before he fell head over feet into the strange, howling abyss below.
My screams joined with his as I held onto Jessie for dear life.
Zak threw himself down next to us on the deck, his arms joining his friend’s. No words passed between them. Robert dropped down on Jessie’s other side. His fingers bunched into the soft material of my shirt. “C’mon, baby,” he whispered. “Let’s get you out of this.”
Something strange was happening. Was the ship lifting? The fire hadn’t consumed it… I couldn’t see what the blaze had done, but somehow, whatever had confined the main deck in place had released and we were moving up to meet those who were already above us. The masts lowered, folding flat as the ship shot for the cavern’s ceiling.
Wind rushed through my ears as the ground disappeared even further below my feet.
“I’ve got her,” Robert said. He lifted me up with Jessie, who still refused to let me go. Together with Zak, they pulled me up and onto the deck.
“I knew all those pushups in prison weren’t for nothing.” Robert’s grumbled laugh ran through me as he held me close.
I swallowed hard, feeling the strength of my grandfather’s arms—not perfect, definitely, like the lines of people in my ancestry who’d struggled and sinned and struggled some more, and yet, there was comfort that he was mine. Our bloodlines connected us. These hands were worn and weathered, but good enough to keep me from falling.
Why hadn’t Felicity stayed with him through the storm like Jessie had stayed with me, and I guess… how I had with him? My grandfather released me from our hug, so that Jessie could press me to him next. My husband’s hands ran down my back and I knew I was home to stay.
Zak let out a breath of relief as one by one, our friends dropped from the rigging onto the deck that rose to greet them with its mounds of riches.
Luther had missed getting to his treasure by mere seconds.
Chapter Forty-Four
Hunter approached us, his face grim. He reached over Jessie to pat my shoulder. “I’m sorry about all this,” he said.
I nodded, though Jessie didn’t look as eager to forgive. He stayed silent as he inspected my bleeding fingers. A vicious cut ran down my palm down to my forearm, narrowly missing any major arteries, fortunately, but it had been a close one. “We need to get a bandage on this,” he said.
Before I could stop him, Jessie was tearing off strips from his shirt to dress my injury.
His sister let out a cry and ran across the deck, her arms going around us both. “I was wrong,” she said. “I know that now. Please… I was desperate, and I just wanted…”
…what she thought a treasure could give her.
We all wanted that thing to make us happy. I didn’t know the universal answer exactly, but Luther’s greed had shown me that happiness didn’t lie in… what moth and rust did corrupt.
