Page 20 of Rescued

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CAIMBRIE

“I know you’re in there! Come on out before we come in after you!”

There was a pounding on the door, and howling. The ruckus woke me, and I sat up, heart racing. Who would be pounding on the door of our ship in the middle of the night?

I waited a moment, expecting Herod to deal with it. Whoever was out there, they were obviously looking for him. Nobody even knew I was here. The pounding continued and the howling broke into raucous laughter that sent chills down my spine. They sounded like lunatics.

“Herod?” I hissed, thinking incredulously that he was sleeping through all of this somehow. “Herod! Aren’t you going to do something?”

There was no answer, and my blood ran cold. Closing my eyes and taking a deep breath, I crawled out of my bunk and over to Herod’s place, feeling around for the hard lump of his body. All I found was his abandoned blanket, wadded up and tossed aside.

My mind raced with a million possibilities. He might be up in the cockpit. He might be out there with those men, and this was all some kind of cruel joke. He might be… gone.

Creeping along the hall, I made my way toward the front of the ship, staying low so I couldn’t be seen through any of the port openings along the sides of the ship, nor the front windows of the cockpit.

“Herod!” I whispered harshly again, anxious for a response, sure that he would hush me at any second and send me back to my bunk.

I paused, listening for his voice beneath the pounding that shook the whole ship and made the floor shudder beneath my feet. He wasn’t here. I didn’t know where he was, but he wasn’t here, and he couldn’t save me. And if those crazy men managed to get that door open, I could only imagine what they would do with me.

These men didn’t seem like the type to ignore a helpless woman all alone. They sounded like rabid dogs. I needed to find a place to hide and quick.

Scrambling on my hands and knees, I headed back to the narrow sleeping quarters. Trying not to make a noise, I pulled open cabinets and drawers, desperate to find somewhere to hide. But in this cramped space, nothing felt good enough. It would only take a few minutes for those men to tear open every visible cabinet in the entire ship. I needed to make myself invisible.

My knee bumped something on the ground, and I felt around with my palms, seeking some kind of latch. Finally, my fingers curled into a ring and I shifted my weight, giving myself just enough room to lift the floor panel and shove it aside. When I peered down through the darkness, I couldn’t tell what was below me.

There was another round of pounding on the door and the howling erupted once more, growing wilder by the second. I didn’t know if those men had the tools to break in or not, but I wasn’t going to stick around and find out. If they were desperate enough, surely they would find some way to smash a window or pry the door open.

I dropped down into the space, my feet hitting the ground much sooner than I anticipated. Apparently, this was not access to the cargo bay. Instead, I found myself in a cavity barely a foot and a half deep and a couple feet wide. I had to slide my legs along until I could sit and stretch out. Carefully, I pulled the floor panel back up over my head and laid down in the coffin-like enclosure to wait.

From in here, the pounding was muffled, but I could feel the reverberations through my spine. On either side of me, I could feel pipes and wires running in loose bundles. Some kind of maintenance area, then.

I closed my eyes and tried to steady my breathing. There were long stretches of silence with no pounding or yowling from outside, but each time I tentatively thought of sitting up and peeking out, the men would come back. Eventually, I gave up, hoping that morning was not too far off, and that the waking of the port would encourage them to leave if Herod wasn’t back by then.

But where was he? Why had he left me all alone? Did he know there were people here looking for him?

The more questions popped into my mind, the more agitated I felt. How dare he risk my life like this again?

But then a new possibility presented itself to me. What if he was hurt…or worse? What if those men already had him, and now they really were coming for me?

The thought that someone might be holding Herod captive, torturing him, made me sick to my stomach. Silent tears coursed down my cheeks and I was too wedged into the space to even wipe them away. I felt them running down into my ears and my hair, and I wished I could stop, but they just kept coming. Who would want Herod killed? Plenty of people, probably.

Alone with only my tears and my thoughts, I was beginning to realize that no matter how combative our relationship was, I did not wish any harm to come to Herod. In fact, right now I wished he was here beside me, reassuring me like he had the other day, with his hand in mine. My mind lingered on the memory of him lifting my wrist to his nose, taking in the perfume he’d bought me, and my mouth went dry. Something special happened in that moment, and I was just now realizing that it meant more to me than all the arguments I’d ever had with him. I needed Herod to come back. I needed to see his face again and listen to him grumble about his work. I needed all of the wild, reckless, frustrating aspects of him so I could roll my eyes and hide my exasperated smiles. That was just how things were meant to be between us, I was convinced.

Sometime during my wistful thoughts of Herod, the pounding at the door ceased. I had no reference for time, and I couldn’t be sure that the men had left, but at least for now, all was quiet. Despite my discomfort, I felt myself trailing off to sleep, dozing only to jolt awake abruptly when I remembered where I was. But time was ticking by so slowly, and Herod still hadn’t returned. I was determined to stay put until he did.

I felt along the walls of the maintenance cavity, tracing pipes and wires and trying to remember the schematic from the control panel in my mind. If I was thinking correctly, I was currently sitting just above the auxiliary power unit. In the darkness, it was impossible to identify what was what, but as my hand moved along, I felt something cool and wet. I rubbed my fingers together, letting the oily substance seep into my skin. It was too oily to be fuel, but too thin to be any of the various hydraulic fluids that flowed through the ship’s underbelly. I lifted one hip and rolled sideways enough to bring my hand up to my face, smelling the substance.

It was fuel, but there was something else in it. It was contaminated. There must be a leak in here somewhere, and that explained why I was seeing a hot spot before. I needed a flashlight, but I had no idea where to look, and I still wasn’t sure it was safe to get out of my hiding spot.

I decided to stay put, but I kept feeling for additional leaks, puzzling over the source of the problem. As soon as Herod was back, he could help me sort it out.

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