Triton (8 page)

“That’s not our room, dufus.” Brynn barged two doors up to room 660, whipped out her own key, and slotted it into the card reader.

“Brynn, don’t let them in!”

The door opened with a click.

That little
idiot.

Fuming, Cedar followed the others into their stateroom.

Their dad still hadn’t returned.

Next, Jake led them down to his stateroom on deck nine—empty. The four of them had to skirt single file around a foldout bed, itself a messy tangle of sheets, board shorts, and squashed pillows.

The queen bed in the center of the room, Cedar noticed, was impeccably made.

“Mom . . . Dad?” Jake yelled. “Anybody?” They waited. No answer.

“When’s the last time you saw them?” Cedar asked, running his hand along the bed’s taut, tucked in blankets.

“They got up this morning before I did,” he said, and—seeing Cedar’s intent focus on the queen—added, “Even made the bed.”

Cedar shook his head. “Anyone with half a brain could tell you your parents didn’t make this bed. The housekeeper did.” He faced the jock. “Your parents have been gone since last night. Same as our dad.”

Jake’s eyebrow nudged upward, and slowly, he nodded. As if on cue, the three of them faced Naomi.

She stared back, eyes wide. “I . . . I figured she had spent the night with someone.”

“So she didn’t come back either?” asked Brynn.

She shook her head.

“Well, now we know,” said Cedar. “Whatever happened to them . . . it happened last night.” He closed his fingers on the remote, which was perched on the bedside table, and raised it to the TV.

He pressed the power button.

Static.

Jake reflected on
their group as Naomi led them through the below water corridors to her cabin.

Cedar
.

He was much sharper than he let on. They needed him on their side.

“It’s spooky down here . . .” said Brynn, throwing a wary glance behind them. The musty passageway stretched on to infinity, groaning and creaking with the movement of the ship. “And
wet.
”

The sound of dripping came from above. Jake sensed the pressure of the ocean on all sides; he could practically see the humidity. Down here, everything vibrated from the ship’s diesel engines.

“We’re almost there,” said Naomi, taking them around another corner, down an even darker, dingier tunnel. The smell of brine stung his nostrils.

He wrinkled his nose. Jesus . . . was there a leak?

“All ship’s smell,” said Naomi, seeing his expression. “Anyway, here’s my mom’s cabin.”

The four of them barely fit in the tiny broom cupboard.

Empty.

“Mom!” Naomi shouted down the empty corridors. “Manny? Can anyone hear me?”

Silence, just the metallic groan of the ship’s hull and the rumble of its engines.

“Where would people go if they all had to gather somewhere?” said Jake.

“One of the theaters,” she said. “The Royal Promenade, the Boardwalk . . . I don’t know. All of that’s on deck five.”

“We haven’t checked deck five,” said Brynn, her eyes lighting up. “Bet they’re all there. We probably just missed an announcement or something.”

They wandered past
the empty shops on the Royal Promenade in morose silence. The stores were closed, abandoned—yet still all lit up.

Naomi was beginning to suspect something was very wrong. Eight thousand people didn’t just disappear. Even if an emergency drill had been called somewhere on the ship, there would still be crewmembers milling about to give instructions. And stragglers. There were
always
stragglers.

Some of the tables they passed had food on them, plates of half-eaten tiramisu and crème brûlée, mugs of cold coffee, glasses of liqueur . . . half empty, some spilled.

“Last night’s dessert,” said Cedar.

“Left behind in a hurry,” she added.

“Selfish pricks.” He kicked over one of the chairs. “They could have told us.”

They left the Royal Promenade and continued toward the bow. Beyond another set of elevators, the lobby outside the Opal Theater extended a floor below them, its marble floor agleam beneath inset blue lights.

“Well, this is the last place big enough for a crowd,” said Naomi, taking a deep breath. She dragged open the double doors.

The air conditioned smells of varnish and new plastic breezed past them.

The theater was empty.

Cedar cupped his hands and yelled into the cavernous space, his voice echoing. “Hello! Hell-ooo! Anyone in here?”

No one.

He yawned. “I’m going back to my room to take a nap,” he said. “When I wake up, they’ll all be back. You watch.”

“We have to find Dad,” said Brynn.

“He can find himself—”

Just then the intercom clicked above them, cutting him off with a hiss of static.

An amplified voice boomed through the theater. Naomi winced and clutched her ears.

“This is Sky Wilkinson calling on the emergency channel,” said a girl’s voice, breathless. “Is there anyone else on this ship? I repeat—is there anyone else on board this ship? I’m in the security office on deck two, just up the hall from the medical facility. I have reason to suspect we’ve been attacked.”

The four of
them burst into the security office at a sprint. Cedar saw the girl on the floor, a wall-mounted microphone dangling on a cord behind her. She cowered against the wall, shivering, most of her face concealed behind a curtain of waist length chestnut hair.

The sound of his approach made her flinch. She stood up and brushed the hair from her eyes—which shimmered down her shoulders—and took in each of them as they filed into the office behind him.

“That’s it?” she said. “You guys are all there is?”

Cedar’s heart had gone still. He stared at the girl, mesmerized by her golden-green eyes, unable to peel his gaze from her heartbreakingly perfect face. She was tall, almost his height . . . her slim physique just hinted at under a loose-fitting T-shirt, which was stained down the front.

She tugged the shirt down to mid-thigh, as far as it would go, and Cedar realized that except for a thin pair of cotton panties it was the only thing covering her.

“We searched the ship,” said Jake, keeping his eyes high. “There’s no one else.”

“Did it happen to you guys too?” she said, glancing between them.

“Did what happen?” said Cedar.

“Where are your clothes?” said Brynn, assessing the new girl with a curled lip.

“I didn’t do this on purpose,” she snapped. “I was taken.”

“What do you mean
taken?
” said Cedar.

The new girl nailed him with her golden eyes, and he felt his jaw go slack. “Abducted, stolen,
teleported
 . . . whatever you guys are calling it.” She waited for a response, but got none. “Obviously, seeing as you’re all clearly dressed in your Sunday best, you have no idea what I’m talking about.”

“Nope,” said Brynn.

“It happened right after I went to bed last night,” she said. “I woke up in a dark room somewhere with a feeding tube shoved down my throat. Then all of a sudden I was back here on the ship in a random hallway. I didn’t have my key, though, so I couldn’t get back into my room to change my clothes.”

“Good thing you don’t sleep naked,” Jake said with a chuckle.

Cedar glared at him. “You pervert. How can you be thinking about that right now?”

Jake sighed and ran his hands through his hair. “Not now, Cedar. Not now.”

“You can borrow some of my clothes, if you want. Sky, right?” said Naomi.

“Thanks. Yeah.”

“Sky, it was probably just a bad dream,” said Jake. “What did you have to drink last night?”

She scowled at him. “Nothing.”

“Is that from puke?” Brynn pointed to the stain on her shirt.

“Brynn, shut your
face,” said Cedar. “Naomi, go get her some clothes.”

“Stop ordering us around,” said Naomi.

He ignored her and addressed the new girl. “It wasn’t a bad dream . . . you were
taken
. Just like everyone else on this ship.”

Though Brynn couldn’t
help but feel a little sorry for Sky, she still didn’t like her one bit. Not her rude personality, not her filthy appearance, not her obvious attempt to flaunt herself in front of Cedar and Jake.

Please, she didn’t even
try
to cover up.

Even after Naomi put them all out of their misery and fetched her a pair of cutoff shorts, sandals, and a fresh T-shirt, Brynn could still see right through her.

For all they knew, she was the one responsible for the vanishing crew.

After they all went around and said their names for Sky’s benefit, Jake seated them around a conference table in the security office and stood at the head.

“Okay,” he said. “Let’s go over what we know about the situation. Just the facts, no opinions—”

“Why do you get to stand?” said Cedar. “You think you’re better than us?”

Jake sat down. “There. Happy?”

“You still think you’re better than us,” he muttered.

“I’ll start,” said Naomi, shooting a glare at Cedar. “Since yesterday at midnight we haven’t seen anyone else on board, there’s evidence that the crew left in a hurry, and Sky reports that she was taken somewhere.”

Jake nodded, massaging his chin. “Has anyone checked the lifeboats?”

“Still there,” she said. “I saw them this morning.”

“They didn’t leave on
lifeboats
,” said Cedar. “They were taken . . . like Sky said.”

“Sky had a bad dream,” Brynn spat.

Cedar spun his chair to face her. “Sky woke up outside a stateroom that was locked from the inside. How do you suppose she accomplished that feat?”

Brynn rolled her eyes. “That doesn’t even mean anything. The doors lock whenever you close them. She probably stumbled into the hall when she was drunk thinking it was the bathroom and got locked out . . . in fact, she probably invented this whole story because she was so embarrassed.”

Brynn glanced at Sky and—with a burst of cruel satisfaction—saw wounded disbelief flare in her eyes, if only for an instant. Served her right, the exhibitionist.

Jake leaned forward on his elbows and pressed the tips of his fingers together. “So what is your theory, Cedar? How were five thousand people
taken
in the middle of the night
?
”

“Eight thousand including the crew,” said Naomi.

“Were they abducted?” Jake added.

“I’m just saying—” Cedar began.

“We hear what you’re saying. We’re just looking at the what’s likely right now.”

“Oh, and what is
likely
, Jake? Since you’re so smart?”

“That everyone’s still on board. That they’re somewhere below decks.”

“In case you didn’t notice,” said Cedar. “Our cabins were empty.”

“We only checked three.”

“Sky made her announcement to the entire ship,” said Cedar. “If there was anyone else on board, they would be in this room right now suffering through this goddamn lecture.”

“Not if they were unconscious,” said Jake.

His statement was met with silence, and Brynn’s eyes wandered back to Sky—the one person who hadn’t spoken yet.

“Why don’t we ask her?” she said, pointing at Sky. “Isn’t she the one who supposedly knows what happened?”

Sky peered around
the conference table at the four gazes targeting her like she was some kind of alien. Her eyes gravitated again to the light-haired boy with ruddy cheeks . . . the cute one.

Cedar.

At first she had dismissed him as eye candy, typical jerk flavor. Her least favorite type, too: perky boyish cheekbones and a jawline sharp enough to cut her. In other words, adorable.

He leaned back in his chair and regarded her like he didn’t give a shit, his long, lean arms slung across his chair’s armrests and his skin-tight bleached white T-shirt leaving little of his lithe torso to the imagination—though she did a pretty good job filling in the rest anyway.

But now, staring into his vivid blue-gray eyes, she realized he might be the only one on her side. The others didn’t believe her.

Last night, she had been taken somewhere, abducted. The cruise ship had been attacked. And she needed to tell him.

Later, though. When he was alone.

Right now, she didn’t want them to think she was any more of a psycho than they already did. “It was probably just a bad dream,” she said.

“Well, that settles that,” said Jake, slapping both his hands on the table. “Let’s get back to the search of the ship.”

“We still don’t have a way to get into the rooms,” said Brynn. “They’re all locked, remember?”

“The crew have master keys that open all the doors,” said Naomi. “If we can find those, we’ll have access to every room.”

“The master keys.” Jake nodded. “Good thinking. Where do we find them?.”

“Housekeeping.”

“Alright,” said Jake. “Naomi, lead the way. Let’s get the master keys and start searching this ghost ship.”

“Got them,” said
Naomi, grinning and holding up a stack of white cards imprinted with magnetic strips. “Masters for every stateroom on the
Cypress
, courtesy of the Chief Bedroom Steward.”

She shut the drawer and left the Steward’s office on deck two, high-fiving Jake on the way out.

They were ready to begin their search of the rooms.

On their way back up the I-95, though, the group passed a pair of double doors leading to a cavern of gleaming stainless steel—a kitchen.

Next to her, Jake craned his neck to peer inside, and something caught his eye. He slowed. “At least now we know we’re not
completely
alone,” he said, pointing to a lone lobster resting at the bottom of a murky tank.

Naomi laughed. “Yeah. Reassuring.” They continued a few more steps, but Jake’s words replayed in her mind.
Completely alone
 . . . No, it couldn’t be—

She halted, and Cedar ran into her back. “Hang on,” she said. “I need to check something.” She rushed back into the kitchen and flung herself to the lobster tank. She stared at the solitary critter, the back of her neck bristling.