“We need our life jackets,” I tell her.
“Oh, right.”
She follows me into our cabin, illuminating the small space with her phone while I grab our PDFs and sling them over each of our heads.
“I’m coming up too,” Gigi calls from her stateroom while Beth and I move through the dinette.
When Adam opens the door, wind rushes into the interior cabin with a fierce, howling roar. The door flies out of his hand and flaps against the wall until he manages to lock it in place. The floor shifts when Beth and I move past the galley. Water spills through the hatch when I mount the stairs behind Emma.
Adam swears and heads out to tether himself. I stand on the lowest step and grip the handle on the wall. More water spills over my feet. The shock of cold causes me to suck in a breath of salty air. My heart leaps to my throat as wind slaps at my cheeks. Emma presses her hand against the wall to steady herself while Adam hooks a tether line to her vest.
“Everyone, make sure you’re tetheredbeforestepping on deck,” Adam shouts over the wind.
Emma turns to me as Adam unsteadily heads toward the helm. “Stay here. I’ll get your tether line,” she says.
After she hooks a line to my life vest, I step onto the wet cockpit floor and tell Beth to wait. “I need your phone light,” I add.
She hands me her phone, and I reach for a tether from the pile of ropes Emma is sorting through on the cockpit floor.
“Emma,” Adam calls from one of the steering wheels. “Hold this flashlight for me while I see if I can get the navigation electronics back on.”
Emma drops the lines to help Adam. Hand trembling, it takes me two tries to get the hook around the loop on Beth’s life vest. As soon as I secure the tether to her vest, a wave pounds the starboard side. I fall backward onto the wet cockpit floor as salt water sprays over the boat.
“Palmer!” Beth shouts. She crawls toward me on her hands and knees. “Are you okay?”
I sit up as the floor rocks beneath us. “I’m fine.” I hand Beth her phone. “Help Gigi get a tether on, and then we’ll make sure there are no lines in the water.”
I know Adam said he already checked them all, but what if he missed one? My throat clenches around my trachea as I imagine Nojan getting dragged underwater behind the boat.
For a split second, a streak of lightning illuminates the sky. Despite the cockpit cover, cold rain lashes my face, stinging like needles in the wind. I grab onto the bench beside me for support as we roll to the side. Fear rises to the back of my throat.How the hell are we going to survive this without a captain?
I get to my knees and turn toward the helm, where rain beats on Emma as she shines the flashlight on the side of the navigation displays while Adam looks to be trying to remove a panel.
“Are you sure you looked everywhere on deck for Nojan?” I ask him.
“I’m sure,” Adam calls.
I hear a click behind me as Beth secures a tether to Gigi’s life vest.
“What about the engine room?” Beth asks. “Adam, did you check there?”
Adam shakes his head. “No, you can check it.”
I feel a spark of hope, thinking of the small room beneath the companionway stairs, right below us. We’d all watched Nojan lift the stairs and check the engine room during our first dinner on our voyage.
Beth grabs my arm and swings her phone light between me and Gigi. “What if Nojan went down there to try and fix the power outage and got knocked unconscious?”
“I’ll go check.” Gigi starts down the steps. “Beth, shine your light down here while I pull down these stairs.”
I kneel beside Beth and hold my breath as Gigi pulls the stairs out.
Above us, thunderclaps.
“Well.” Beth leans her head through the companionway door, shining her light into the engine room. “Do you see him?”
Gigi leans forward. “No. He’s not here,” she shouts up.
I sit back and settle my gaze on the pile of tether lines, straining my eyes to adjust to the dark. I can’t fathom Nojan not wearing a tether, especially in this storm. I look up at the sound of the mainsail flapping violently in the wind above the cockpit.
