Page 31 of Totally Wrecked
I pull my bandanna over my nose and move, with Killian hot on my heels. The metal walls are red-hot, and when I stupidly reach out a hand to steady myself against one, my skin is scorched immediately. The inside of the steel-hulled boat is turning into an oven.
Moving further into the engine room, the heat is even more intense, and there is the overpowering smell of diesel. But there, just a few feet away, is Gray. I put my arms under his arms and Killian grabs his legs. The mother-fucker ways a ton and I am going to pass out if I don’t get some air in the next minute, so we have to act fast.
When we get to the steps, it is with sheer adrenaline that Killian and I get him up and onto the deck, like those moms who lift cars off their crushed children. As I collapse out onto the open deck, I begin to cough uncontrollably. Killian is still there, and I can’t understand what he is shouting, but he takes Gray under the shoulders and drags him to the back of the boat where the life raft is. That’s good.
A series of booms, then a massive plume of flame jets out into the late afternoon sky. I feel hands on my back, under my arms dragging me, then a hard shove as someone shouts ‘jump’.
“NO!”
Not yet…Keyara.
The water is a shock. Seawater is pouring down my throat and I still can't breathe. It’s hard to know even which way is up.
“Help!” a voice screams.
When I can finally draw a breath, my vision clears and I see the Irish dude bobbing up and down, he has Gray in the rescue position in his arms. A few feet away from us is Harvey, and beyond him the inflated life raft drifting away on the waves.
“The raft!” Harvey screams.
My brain is like molasses.
Right, the raft.Yes, gotta move. Fuck, things must be bad if we are abandoning ship.
The wind picks up and another wave pushes the raft further away. I begin to swim, but after several minutes I know it’s useless. The breeze has caught the life raft and it is flipping away, over and over the surface of the water at rapid speed. There is no way in hell I'll catch up with it.
So I stop chasing and try to clear my mind. What the fuck just happened?
The boat blew up.
Where is Keyara? Panic unfurls in every part of my body.
Fuck, she must be in the water, or in the second life raft. I spin three-sixty, but all I see is the flaming hull of the boat, and the small blobs that are Harvey, Killian and Gray. They are hundreds of yards from me now.
What I don’t see is Keyara, Leander, or Brooke. Terrified, I swim back to where Killian is holding Gray in the water.
“Keyara?” I pant as soon as I get there. I claw at his arm. “Keyara?” The panic I feel is like a tidal wave crashing over my body.
Killian shakes his head. “I don’t know. I didn’t see.”
Don’t say that.
We both turn to the wrecked boat that is now beginning to sink. The boat must be half a mile from us by now.
“KEYARA!” I start hollering as loud as I can. “LEANDER!”
I scream until my throat burns. It should be me. A captain goes down with the ship. I should have stayed aboard and scoured the place until I’d found them. But no, I’m here safe in the water while half my team perishes.
Screams, cries for help, an inferno .
“Rex, help me with Gray…Rex, I need your help here!” Killian is shouting at me.
Focus, Gray. Focus on what you can actually do.
I swim next to my dearest friend. “Gray?” I can see his chest rise and fall, so that’s something. Moving my hand across his skull, I feel a massive lump.
“Looks like he smashed his head,” I say. “Nothing we can do but wait for him to come around.”
Killian meets my eyes. “Did you get an SOS off?” he asks me.
