Page 112 of No One Aboard
“Power and potential, Dad,” he said. “You were right.”
He sat back in the life raft, hair slicked back against the nape of his neck, and looked away as the storm finished its work.
Beside him, Lila reached out and locked a hand around his wrist. Was this her way of saying she agreed with his decision?
After everything he’s done to you, she’d said. Like she knew.
Rylan looked at his mother, really looked at her with her silk-soft skin and her pale, wet hair. She’d always been ghostlike. Had she known about the tests this whole time, hovering at the edges but not revealing herself because she agreed with them? And now she’d let it slip in order to get him to leave Francis behind?
If so, it had worked.
Rylan broke her grip on his wrist with a strength that surprised even him. He pulled away and focused back on the water.
There would be time later to interrogate his mom.
But he only had minutes to save his twin.
If Francis had ended up close to the life raft, so should Tia have, right? Rylan unbuckled his life jacket and hurled it into the sea in the opposite direction of his father. Maybe Tia could find it and hold on. She had to be out there. She had to be alive.
“Tia!”
The Old Eileenhad drifted far from them, driven away by the storm. Pirate was alone on that ship, mewling in the dark at being abandoned. Rylan couldn’t take any more heartache. He stood, ignoring Lila’s yelp as their raft rocked from his movement. He cupped his hands over his mouth and screamed until his voice couldn’t scream anymore. The waves might as well have been mountains, their troughs valleys. Soon he couldn’t even see his life jacket floating in the water.
Rylan didn’t know how long he yelled before his knees gave out. In the corner, Lila curled like a white tulip under the weight of too much dew.
Rylan sat in the puddle of water that had collected in the bottom of the raft. He zipped up the tent with tremblingfingers to keep them from flooding. His heart had left his body, making him almost miss the tempo of its beating. The emptiness was somehow worse.
He sat like that until the storm collapsed in on itself and dissipated. He sat until dawn made its appearance, faint and lovely. And only when the sun scattered itself over the placid waves did Rylan accept that who he’d sacrificed to the night would never make up for those that he’d lost.
Chapter 54
Lila Logan Cameron
Call sign: Cassiopeia
Day 11 at Sea
Dawn fringed the horizon, the morning of her children’s birthday. Lila hadn’t spoken since the storm, and neither had her son. They huddled by one another, reliving it all. When the rain stopped hours ago, they had unzipped the orange tent over their heads to let in fresh air, and now the endless expanse of where they were floating became evident. Lila couldn’t bear to think of the storm, yet she couldn’t tear herself away from the memory of last night. When was the last time she had spoken to her daughter? In the hallway. What was the last thing Tia had said to her?
She didn’t know.
And the ship... Rylan and Lila had watched helplessly asThe Old Eileenhad been swept farther and farther away, without the fire Lila had envisioned for days. It was salt in the wound: knowing when midnight came and the bomb didn’t go off that Alejandro’s confession of loyalty to Francis hadn’t been faked. He must have put the bag in the bilge so Lila would believe he’d go through with it. Then maybe he’d have found some way around it, convinced her it was too dangerousto get on a raft in a storm. He would play both sides as best he could until he was forced to choose.
And in the end he chose Francis.
Quietly, Lila celebrated his death.
But not half as much as she celebrated Francis’s.
Once Lila realized Francis wasn’t bringing her home, she had decided she would get there herself. She asked Alejandro to make plans to blow a hole in the ship, something big enough to sink it fast. He had planted a makeshift bomb in the bilges, and Lila’s job was to get everyone off of the ship before midnight, before the bomb even went off. She planned for them to be rescued and sensationalized by the media.
Celebrity Shipwreck! Lila Logan Survives Peril at Sea!
With renewed attention on her, her career would resume. They might even make a movie about the sinking. They would arrest Francis for whatever it was he was so desperate to run from, and she could even blame him forThe Old Eileen’s apparent failing.
She hadn’t planned on the storm. Or Alejandro’s disloyalty. Or losing her daughter to the sea.
But Rylan was alive. He was gentle and good. He still looked to her for guidance and let her hold him in her arms. He would need her now more than ever, with his father and sister gone.
