The Ocean Dark

64

Tori had a great many reasons to scream, but one overwhelming reason not to — her head ached fiercely, like someone had clamped a vise on the back of her skull. The Coast Guard ship — the Kodiak—had a doctor on board, and the man seemed to have stepped out of an old movie. Fiftyish, with a Jack Lemmon sort of everyman quality, Dr. Paul Dolan had a gentle smile and kind blue eyes, and made her feel like maybe her head hadn’t actually cracked open. In the time he had spent with her, Dr. Dolan had also made her feel like she was not a prisoner.

But when Dr. Dolan left, the FBI agent in the hall had glanced in at her and then nodded to the two Coast Guard officers, who had shut the door and locked it behind them, leaving her alone with her splitting headache, her blood-matted hair, stitches in her scalp, and a couple of lovely Percocets.

The painkillers had allowed her to sleep for a while, but they had worn off too quickly, and now the sunlight streaming through the window made her cringe. The doctor had told her she had a minor concussion, but it did not feel minor. There were scratches and bruises all over her body, but none of that hurt her. The pain in her skull overrode any other stimuli.

But she had other reasons to scream. Memories, to begin with. Kevonne, Bone, Pang, Pucillo, and so many others were dead. As much as she had come to despise Dwyer and Miguel, no one deserved to die like that. Despite how close she had come to death — or perhaps because of it — the images in Tori’s head were jumbled. She remembered white flesh and black eyes and the way the creatures stuck to the sides of the derelict ships and slithered up onto the Antoinette. She remembered blood and thrashing and shrieks of agony. Yet somehow she could not form a real picture of one of the sirens in her mind. If she had a pencil and paper, she could not have drawn one.

Perhaps that was a mercy.

Yet even with her head splitting and the horrors fresh in her mind, her number-one reason to scream actually put a smile on her face. For as Tori stood at the window, squinting against the daylight, and stared out at the Antoinette and the island beyond it, she felt a sublime sense of bliss, a mad elation that soothed her even better than Percocet.

I’m alive, she thought. The FBI guy, Turcotte — the one so obviously in charge — had called her a survivor, and her heart had soared. Damn straight, she had survived. What the FBI did not know was that death had come for Tori twice in her life, and both times she had managed to elude its grasp by moments.

This morning, despite the splintering pain in her skull, she had found a new clarity of thought, epiphanies exploding like fireworks in her head. The first time she had narrowly avoided death, she had been so startled at her good fortune that she had been content to simply survive. Ted had presumed her dead and she wanted to stay that way, hidden, almost lurking on the periphery of her own life, afraid to really live just in case somebody noticed. Now, though, Tori felt as if she had woken from some kind of trance. She would have smiled, but she had found that it made her head hurt even more.

The irony was not lost on her. Here she was in FBI custody, certainly going to end up in court and possibly in prison, yet she felt more free, awake, and alive than she had at any time since the age of nine or ten.

It made no sense, really — especially since prison seemed so far away. Right now, it ought to have been the least of her concerns. She stood at the window and watched as a small boat skipped across the span of ocean that separated the Coast Guard ship from the Antoinette. On board were Coast Guard officers in uniform and what had to be FBI agents clothed like it was dress-down Friday at the office, except they also wore navy blue vests with FBI stenciled on the back. There were other ships around — Coast Guard cutters and a couple of smaller boats, including one that looked like a trust-fund baby’s toy. But Tori could tell that the small craft that zipped toward the Antoinette had come from the ship she was on, the command vessel.

She had told them what had happened on the island and on board the container ship, and she had to imagine that Gabe and Angie and Josh had done the same. But still they were sending people to check it out. Tori supposed they were just following procedure, doing their jobs. And why not? They hadn’t been with her last night, hadn’t seen the things that she’d seen.

They’ll learn, she thought.

Despite the proximity of the Antoinette, she felt only a queer uneasiness, and she wondered at her lack of fear. Perhaps it was a result of her concussion, or the exultation that flooded her in the wake of her survival, but Tori felt certain she had not escaped death twice only to have it catch up to her while in FBI custody.

She had studied the derelict ships surrounding the island. Everyone who had died there had died essentially alone, but Turcotte and his team had satellite communications with their home bases, and plenty of backup to call upon should they need it. This was the U.S. Coast Guard and the Federal Bureau of Investigation. They might not be prepared for what they were about to encounter, but that would change. The cavalry had come. The monsters would be destroyed.

Someone knocked on the door. Wincing at the sound, Tori turned, surprised that anyone would bother to knock.

“Come in.”

The door opened and Josh stepped into the room, his left arm in a sling. His face was badly bruised, his lips split, and still a bit swollen in places, thanks to the beating Hank Boggs had given him, but he looked alert, and had obviously showered, shaved, and put on clean clothes. Tori herself wore the same jeans she’d had on the day before, but after her own shower this morning she had been given a clean gray T-shirt and a package of new underwear. Dr. Dolan had explained that every Coast Guard vessel carried such essentials in the event of an ocean rescue. The underpants had been a little small, but Tori didn’t complain. At least they were clean.

“Good morning,” Josh said, tentative and unsmiling.

Tori hated how happy it made her, seeing him. He had made love to her under false pretenses, but the memory of it still gave her a delicious shiver. She wondered if he regretted it, now. She wondered if she did.

“Not my best morning, actually,” she replied.

Josh indicated his left shoulder. “Mine, either. But the doc says I’ll be right as rain. Nothing broken. Just a hole where there shouldn’t be one, and a whole lot of bruises from the tune-up Boggs gave me.”

Tori hesitated, then nodded. “I’m glad.”

Josh did smile, now, but it was self-deprecating. “I wasn’t sure you would be.”

“Neither was I.” She glanced away, back out the window, saw figures moving on the deck of the Antoinette. “So what now?”

“It’s complicated.”

Tori gave a bitter laugh, then winced at the fresh spike of pain in her head.

“If you’re in that much pain, I’m sure the doc will give you something for it. He’s got me flying on Vicodin.”

“That’d be good. But as far as ‘complicated’ goes, I’m talking about me. What happens to me, Josh?”

He pulled the door closed behind him and walked toward her. Tori stared at the door, aware of the significance. With the door closed, he wasn’t Special Agent Josh Hart. At least, she didn’t think so. But how could she really know, now, who she was talking to? How did she know the truth of anything where Josh was concerned?

Part of her hated him, but the rest of her was just too tired to think about it.

“In my report, I’m going to make it very clear that without both you and Angie, I would not have survived last night. If you cooperate with the investigation and testify against Viscaya and Gabe, you’ll be all right. With the right lawyer, and as long as no terrorist connections can be made to the guns Viscaya’s been smuggling, it’s possible you won’t ever see the inside of a cell.”

Tori let out a long breath. She had resigned herself to fate, but now the idea that she might not have to spend any time in prison sparked a rush of hope. Though, oddly, that made her feel worse instead of better. Having hope gave her something to lose. And it made her feel grateful to someone for whom she harbored a great deal of anger.

Brows knitted, she studied him. “You lost a lot of blood last night. I wasn’t sure you would make it.”

“Neither was I,” Josh replied.

“Maybe you don’t remember, but you said something to me, right before we got into that lifeboat.” Her throat felt dry and tight and she couldn’t meet his eyes. “You said—”

“I said, ‘It wasn’t all pretend.’”

Tori stared at him. She wouldn’t ask the question that hung between them. After a moment, Josh answered without her asking.

“I can’t stop you from hating me, and I have no excuse for what I did, except that it wasn’t something I planned. It never should have happened, but I can’t say I regret it. I only regret that I hurt you.” Josh shook his head, pushed the fingers of his good hand through his hair. “I screwed up pretty badly. I’ll be investigated and I’ll tell the truth. At the very least, I’ll be forced on unpaid leave. But if they felt like it, they could fire me—”

“You expect me to feel sorry for you?”

“What?” He stared at her. “No. I’m just telling you that, even with all of this, I can’t make myself regret it. What I said is true. It wasn’t all pretend.” With that, he turned and opened the door. “I’ll ask the doctor to look in on you.”

“Josh …”

Halfway out of the room, he paused and glanced back.

“You’re staying on board, right? I mean, you’re not going over to the Antoinette, are you?”

Josh gave a small shrug. “We’re still waiting for official orders, but I’m not in a rush to get back on that ship, no.”

Tori nodded, letting out a breath. “Good. I may want to kill you myself later on, and I don’t want you getting killed before I get around to it.”

For a second, he seemed unsure whether or not she was joking.

“I’ll do my best,” he said. Then he paused, a frown creasing his brow. “Wait, why would you think I was going back to the Antoinette?”

Tori half-turned toward the window. “Well, you’ve got FBI guys boarding her now. I just wanted to make sure you weren’t going to be that stupid. I hope you all know what you’re doing.”

Josh’s face went pale and he shook his head. “Fucking idiots.”

Then he was gone, rushing into the corridor, leaving the door half-open behind him. Tori stared into the hall until one of the Coast Guard men shut the door.

“Shit,” Tori whispered, turning to look out the window again.