Falling Light (Game of Shadows #2)(31)

She jerked as two large hands gripped her.

Michael said in a hoarse voice, “It’s just me.”

She uncurled and tried to push herself up on one trembling arm. Rain poured into her face. She scrubbed at her eyes. Michael slid his arms under her knees and shoulders and picked her up.

Vehicles crowned with the screaming flash of sirens pulled into the far side of the parking lot. Michael sprinted down the long, slippery pier. Black water boiled and foamed around the planks. Her head bounced as he ran. She hooked an arm around his neck.

“Jesus Christ, how bad is it?” he demanded. “Are you bleeding?”

“No,” she stuttered, quaking from cold and shock. “I’m just shaky.”

He stopped running and tipped her carefully over a rail, onto the deck of a boat.

“Try to get below,” he shouted in her ear. He unsheathed his knife, slashed at the moorings, then vaulted onto the deck. He lunged to a small, enclosed cabin. There was a sound of splintering glass. Moments later he disappeared inside.

Disoriented, bewildered, she forced her chilled muscles to work. She didn’t trust her shaky balance on the streaming wet deck. She crawled past the cabin Michael had entered until she reached some kind of flattened door.

Think nautical. Maybe that was the hatch. She tried the latch. It was locked. She stumbled toward the cabin again as the boat’s powerful engine growled to life.

She managed to grab hold of the edge of the narrow doorway as Michael slammed the boat into reverse and gunned the engine. It roared out of the slip. The water was so rough the boat bucked violently as they pulled out. It slammed against the neighboring boat and dragged along the side with a long, earsplitting screech.

“Is the hatch locked?” Michael asked without looking at her. As soon as the boat was clear of the slip, he spun the wheel hard and changed gears, and the boat’s engine labored to comply.

“Yes,” she gasped. She looked through the rain-smeared glass back toward shore. Fire trucks ringed the bombed vehicles, which were still blazing in spite of the storm’s deluge. Silhouettes of armed men raced toward the dock.

“Get down,” he told her.

She got down.

More gunfire. Some of the bullets may have struck their boat. She wasn’t sure. With her head so close to the deck, the roar of the engine filled her ears. The boat creaked in complaint as Michael threw the throttle wide open. He returned fire in short, sharp bursts. Then the gunfire ceased.

She couldn’t see anything so she closed her eyes and waited. It felt like a long time. Nothing was stable, nothing. They rose and fell, shuddering with each wave they hit. With the small cabin door broken, they were exposed to the storm. Frigid, filthy water swirled around her.

She thought of sliding out the open doorway with the next toss of the waves, and she groped until she found something that was bolted to the deck. She wrapped an arm around it, anchoring herself in place.

At last, Michael said, “Okay. We’re out of gunshot range. Mary. You can get up now.”

She nodded in the dark. It sounded good in theory.

A hand connected with her shoulder, groped down her arm and tightened in a grip just above her elbow. “Come on,” he coaxed.

With his help, she forced her cramped and trembling body upright. He pulled her back against him with one arm and held her tight, while he maintained a strong grip on the steering wheel with the other. The control dials provided a slight illumination. Beyond the tiny cabin she could see the Lake swelling into waves that had to be as high as fifteen feet.

Michael put his mouth by her ear. “How bad off are you?”

She said through numb lips, “I’m pretty depleted.”

“I want you to do one last thing if you can,” he told her. “We need to try to get farther out into the bay. Take the wheel and hold us on our course while I break into the galley. It’ll be just for a few minutes. Can you do that?”

She nodded. He pulled her in front of the steering wheel. Her cold hands and feet were about as wieldy as blocks of wood, and she had lost most of the strength in her grip, so she wedged her forearms in between the spokes of the wheel. She felt the power of the storm vibrating through the tension in the structure.

Michael disappeared. She kept her hold on the wheel by leaning her body against it. She held on through a dark, swirling space of time, while the engine strained and the boat rose and plummeted again and again.

Then he was back, shouldering through the narrow doorway. He came up behind her and enveloped her in a dry blanket.

“Waste of a g-good blanket,” she stuttered. Her clothes were as sodden as if she’d tripped and fallen in the water.

“There’s more down below.”

He reached over to turn off the engine and pulled her away from the wheel.

“What are you doing?” she gasped.

It was terrifying to hear the sound of the engine die away, to be replaced by the wild sounds of wind and rain and the interminable roar of the Lake.

“There’s nothing more we can do,” he said. “The boat’s engine is too small—we’re not making any headway against the storm. We have to trust Astra now, and the entities that are allied with her. Come on.”

He clamped an arm tight around her and supported her drunken progress along the treacherous slippery deck. Then he transferred his grip to around her waist. He half-carried her down the narrow steps to the galley, twisting to slam the hatch shut behind them.