“I doubt we’ll get that lucky again. They’re going to figure out that guys go down here and don’t come back.” He turned the rifle around and held it out butt-first to Inga. “Can you use this?”
Inga took it doubtfully. “I’ve had a little practice plinking at cans with a .22. I can probably manage not to shoot my foot off.” She checked the gun’s controls cautiously. “Or yours,” she added.
“Good enough for me.” Luke peered out into the hallway. “Coast is clear. So what I’m thinking we should do is split up. You can shift and swim for help, while I look for?—”
“No,” Inga interrupted him. “No way. I’m not leaving you on this ship while I swim away.”
“Inga, I still don’t think I can shift. Without a boat, I’m not getting off this ship.”
“So we grab the hostages, steal a boat, and head out. Easy.”
Luke stared at her, then shook his head. “I can see already that I’m going to lose every argument with you.”
Inga’s heart lifted. His words implied anafterfor them—as people and as a couple. “I’m not that confident of being able to swim to shore as a bear anyway,” she pointed out. “It’s really rough out there, and it wasn’t easy to make it over to the boat where we met up before. You’d feel bad if you sent me out there and I drowned.”
Luke paused with his hand on the door. “I’d feel a lot more than bad.” He slung the rifle over his shoulder, took her face in his hands, and kissed her hard. His mouth tasted like ocean salt. When he released her lips, he gazed into her eyes for a moment. “So let’s stay together, find the hostages, and everybody goes together.”
“Funny, that plan sounds familiar somehow.”
Luke grinned, cracking his salt-dried lips. “Yeah. Let’s go.”
They went out into the hallway, Luke leading. Inga followed as confidently as she dared, padding behind him in her bare feet. She found herself assessing the narrow spaces for possible shifting. It was her greatest asset, but she didn’t think this hallway could contain her as a bear.
“Luke,” she whispered, leaning forward. “Since this was a civilian research vessel, there should be diagrams of the ship posted everywhere with escape routes. Let’s see if we can find one.”
There turned out to be one next to the stairwell. They studied it for a moment.
“I think the place where I saw them before was in this lab,” Luke said, tapping it with the muzzle of the gun. “It looks like we can get to it without having to go up on deck.”
The door at the top of the stairwell banged open suddenly. “Hey! McGinnis!” someone called down. “Boss wants to see you!”
Luke and Inga drew back against the walls. Luke called up the stairs in a gruff voice, “Busy!”
Inga mouthed “Seriously?” at him.
“McGinnis, what’s going on down there?” The newcomer started down. Suddenly there was one of those ripping sounds, a yell, and he tumbled down the stairs and landed hard with an enormous Newfoundland dog on top of him.
“Oh hey, there you are!” Inga said. She rubbed Rogue’s ears, and discovered he was wet.
“Not that fucking dog again,” the man on the floor mumbled. Luke kicked him in the head, and he slumped into stillness.
“Luke, what do you think he’s been doing?” Inga asked, looking down at Rogue. He looked pleased with himself.
“Apparently running interference for us. Come on, let’s go find your researchers before we get the whole gang down here.”
The hallway took them into the lab area, where Luke seemed to think they would find the researchers. The first door they came to was locked. Inga saw Luke sink into his look of deep concentration, step forward—and there was a loud clatter as the gun contacted the door.
“Huh, my clothes go with me, but I guess I can’t take things I’m carrying. Here.” He unslung the strap from his shoulder and handed it to her.
Inga adjusted the other one she was carrying so she could handle this one too. “Are you sure you want to go in there unarmed?”
“I don’t really have a choice. I’ll have surprise on my side, at least.”
It seemed to take him less effort this time. He vanished through the door, and Rogue, who had plopped down when it seemed like nothing interesting was happening, jumped to his feet and stared at the door with his ears pricked forward as if it had personally betrayed him.
“Wait—!” Inga began, but Rogue was suddenly gone with that ripping sound. This time, Inga caught a glimpse of what actually happened. It looked like a narrow tear in the air that swallowed the dog—not leaping into it so much as being consumed by it.
There was now the sound of a commotion on the other side. Frustrated by her inability to help, Inga jiggled the doorknob, only to have it open so suddenly she almost fell through.
