For the first time since the hallway and the blood and the empty frame where a girl should be, I feel that thing I only ever feel with them when it matters most: the click. The alignment. The sense that the four of us, ugly and sharp and wrong as we can be, become one long, relentless line when we remember who the hell we are.
And that’s exactly how we’re gonna get our girl back.
7
Phoenix
Wind slapsmy face hard enough to sting. Steel under my knees, salt in my mouth, sky too bright to look at. I give myself seconds to understand it: open ocean. No shoreline. No help.
Shouts crack the air behind me.
I push up, shove the screw I still have clutched in my fist back into my pocket, and I run.
The deck is a city of metal—rows and rows of containers stacked stories high, lanes between them like alleys. I dart into the first gap I see. The ship rolls just enough to make my feet argue with my brain. Somewhere a horn blows. Somewhere else a chain clanks against a hull.
“Port side—go!”
The voices are close. I cut right, then left, then squeeze between two stacks where the space narrows and the wind dies to an almost imperceptible whisper. My breath fogs in front of me and disappears in an instant. I press a hand to my ribs and feel the chip tucked safely under my bra. I shove the screw back into theseam of my pocket, pointed up where my fingers can find it in an instant.
I don’t have a plan. Just the need to create as much distance between me and Danner as I possibly can.
A ladder climbs the side of a stack of containers. I take it two rungs at a time and belly onto a higher catwalk, then lay flat when I hear boots on the deck below. The “boys.” Danner’s men, like they’re a club and not hired fists meant to crush me. One laughs. One spits. I watch as they split up, unaware that I’ve escaped.
I move again when I feel like they won’t notice me.
From the catwalk I catch a flash of orange crane-like things and a rounded shape mounted high—a lifeboat, I think. Movies make them look simple. Up close it looks like a small submarine with a hatch, hanging over an impossible drop and the blue of the water. A fall from here would be like jumping from a building into cement that moves.
If I miss the boat? If the release is locked? I swallow hard and keep going because it’s just not an option. I want to escape, not kill myself trying. That’s an absolute last resort.
A man in blue coveralls rounds a corner ahead of me, a coil of rope over his shoulder. He’s got a radio clipped to his chest, eyes on the crane track overhead. He looks less like hired muscle and more like the ship’s crew.
He walks past me without slowing down, his eyes focused unblinkingly ahead and his lips tight. Does he know who I am? That I’m a prisoner? Is he pretending not to see me? I press into the shadow of a rib in one of the containers and let him go by while I hold my breath and try not to pass out.
Two more men in coveralls work a winch on the far side, talking in a language I don’t know. Another, older, checks a gauge and writes on a clipboard. All of them move like men with jobs to do and no interest in anything that isn’t on their list.
There aren’t any cameras that I can see. If there were, I’d already be face-down with a boot on my neck while Danner does unspeakable things to me. They’re using eyes and radios. That’s something I can work with, something I can plan around.
I need to find a control room. A radio. Then somewhere I can hide.
The stacks break into a corridor that slopes down and turns tight into stairs made of grated metal, the treads open so you can see straight through to more steel below. I take them fast and quiet. Down one deck. Then another. The air is warmer here, less wind, more engine. The ship’s heartbeat is louder, a steady thrum that travels up the bones.
A voice on a radio barks something. Footsteps pound above me, then peel away. Someone else shouts, “Stern!” I go the other direction.
A bulkhead door stands open a few inches, a key still turned in the lock like someone went in a hurry. I listen—nothing. I slide the key free, pocket it, and inch the door wider.
Inside is a long room under low lights with rows of metal bunks stacked three high. A bucket sits against the far wall, accompanied by a smell I recognize—bleach fighting sweat and old fear.
And people.
I count six girls. One boy. He’s maybe fourteen, too thin, hair hacked short like someone got impatient. A woman sits on a lower bunk with her arms around another girl who rocks and hums. Two stare at me like I’m a ghost. One has a collar of bruises fading yellow. The oldest by the door has a split lip that’s scabbing. They all freeze when I step in, heads tipping like deer hearing a twig.
I put my finger to my mouth. “Quiet,” I whisper. “Please.”
“Who are you?” It’s the one with the split lip. Her voice is flat, scraped clean of anything extra.
“Phoenix.” I keep my body angled toward the hall. “I came from the hotel.”
Three of them react to that word. One actually flinches. A girl with a messy bun sits up. “The casino?” Her eyes flick to my throat like she expects to see a necklace. “You worked there?”
