Monstrum (25 page)

Mike gapes at him.

“Let's go!” Murphy shouts.

Mike stands, puts the ring back on his finger and hurries to join us. Gray scootches over to make a space for him on my bed and Mike sits, clearing his throat and looking wary.

“Right then,” Murphy says. “The main thing is that we stay together as a group. None of this boy-cabin and girl-cabin nonsense. We look out for each other, and if one of us has a snotty nose, the rest of us need to be passing around the tissue. Agreed?”

“Agreed,” we all echo, nodding.

“Bria Hunter,” Murphy continues, “how do you think that creature was able to attack our poor Esperanza Torres and leave the room again without anyone seeing?”

I shrug helplessly. “I've been wracking my brain trying to figure that out. Someone else needs to figure out how it got out of the tank in the first place, because I'm stumped on that one. But I think it must've attached itself to Espi somehow as we were leaving the tank cabin, because she was already acting funny when we came in here. She wanted to go to bed without a shower, and we were concerned about getting her warmed up. Right?” I look to Maggie and An for confirmation.

They nod. “It camouflaged itself, obviously,” An adds. “And it must have done something with its shell—”

“And manipulated its size,” Maggie says. “Because otherwise, why wouldn't Espi have felt it? I mean, if she had something the size of a dolphin with a shell on its back stuck to her neck . . .”

“Makes sense,” Carter says, but he looks doubtful.

“So that's how it got in,” Sammy says, frowning thoughtfully. “How'd it get back out again?”

“Maybe it was never all the way inside the cabin,” I say, pointing to the shut door, which has a space of about an inch beneath it. “Maybe it, I don't know, dropped off in the corridor, but kept a tentacle attached to Espi. There's enough room under the door for a tentacle to fit, right? And I don't know if any of you noticed when it was in the tank, but those tentacles stretch pretty far, pretty fast.”

There's a general murmur of agreement.

“Or maybe it opened and closed the door,” Gray says, “but did one of its hocus-pocus things—”

“A glamour,” Mike supplies.

“Yeah, a glamour.” Gray frowns as he tries to work out the scenario. “Maybe it walked right in and out the door and used a glamour to cover up what it was doing. I mean, it's possible, right?”

We all nod before lapsing into a discouraged silence.

Carter speaks first, voicing the group's concerns. “How are we supposed to defend ourselves? This thing's got every weapon in the book, and we're throwing stones and trying to figure out how to build a slingshot.”

“A slingshot's better than nothing, Carter Edwards,” Murphy says, “and you seem to have a great deal of time on your hands for negative thinking, so I'm thinking you need a chore.”

“A chore?” Carter says.

“Take yourself over to the door,” Murphy says, pointing. “Block off that gap at the bottom with a towel or some such, and then rig up some sort of early alarm system directly in front of the door that the beast'll knock over with a clatter if it tries to come calling again.”

Carter looks wide-eyed and overwhelmed as he gets to his feet. “How'm I supposed to—”

“Oh, for pity's sake,” Murphy says, huffing. “Sammy, help your friend, will you, before his pitiful little brain spontaneously combusts from the strain.”

“Now you're getting personal, Murphy.” Carter heads toward the door as Sammy walks over with one of the metal stools. “I'm going to ask my parents to get you fired when we get back. Gray, remind me to get Murphy fired when we get back. Make a sticky note so you don't forget.”

“Done,” Gray says.

“You want to get me fired?” Murphy asks, his eyes glinting with real amusement. “Be my guest! You'd be doing me a favor, for sure. They don't pay me enough to deal with you spoiled rich brats.”

“We prefer the term economically advantaged punks,” Gray says.

“As I was saying,” Murphy continues, shooting Gray a sidelong glare, “our only hope is putting out some kind of SOS call and getting rescued by the Coast Guard or something. Between the captain, the chimera and the hurricane, we don't stand a snowball's chance in a tropical summer of making it to Rio alive. Agreed?”

We all nod, sobering.

“But we've got no working cell phones, not that we'd get a signal in the middle of the ocean, anyway,” Murphy continues, “and no satellite phones and no carrier pigeons or magical owls that I know of. Which means we need to get into the communications cabin somehow and hope we can raise a nearby ship on the hopper.”

“That's never going to work,” An says flatly. “Did you see the keypad alarm system outside the door? We'll never break that code. And even if we could, you saw how twitchy the guy inside the cabin was when we got too close to the window. All we need to do is give another one of these rabid crewmen an excuse to shoot us.” She flaps a dismissive hand. “We may as well march up to Captain Romero and ask him if we can phone home. We'd have a better chance.”

“Jesus!” Sammy says. “Do you think you could manage not to be the voice of doom for once?”

An shrugs. “Not if that's the quality of ideas you're coming up with, no.”

“Well, what ideas have you got, Madam Einstein?” Sammy demands. “‘Cause I'm sure we're all dying to—”

A quiet knock on the cabin door makes all of us jump. An image of Captain Romero arriving with the crew and firepower to shoot us all sends my heart rate into triple time.

We freeze and dart panicked,
what-do-we-do-now?
looks at each other.

“Shhh,” Murphy hisses over his shoulder, already in motion toward Carter and Sammy, who have, by now, rigged the metal stool in front of the door with glass tumblers from the water tray. “You children keep your yappers shut and let me do the talking. Understood?”

We nod.

“Who is it?” Murphy shouts aggressively.

“Cortés,” comes the muffled answer.

My pulse skitters, but this news sends Gray into full freak-out mode, and his eyes widen as though he'd discovered a terrorist wired with explosives has come to call.

“Cortés?” he asks as he gets up and follows Murphy, pausing only to nail me with a narrow-eyed look. “What does he want?”

“Open up,” Cortés replies, “and I'll tell you.”

After a brief hesitation to think things over, Murphy shrugs and reaches for the handle. “We've nothing to lose.”

“Nothing to lose?”
Gray cries. “Are you crazy? Don't let that guy in! I don't trust him! Maybe his sociopathic dad sent him!”

“That's ridiculous,” I scoff. “In case you didn't notice, there's no love lost between him and his dad.”

“Maybe it's a trap or something,” Gray persists, his face tight and stubborn.

“Come on, man,” Carter interjects. “Paranoid, much?”

“A trap?” I say. “Are you kidding me? This whole freaking ship is a trap! Where are we going to go? And, since you seem to be falling behind on breaking events, genius, he could have had us all killed about a hundred times by now if he wanted to.”

“Maybe he's here to spy on us,” Gray says. “How should I know?”

“Maybe he's here to help,” I say.

“Maybe I'm here to take your breakfast orders,” Cortés says from the other side of the door.

“Or maybe you could let me in, I'll tell you what I want, and we can clear up the mystery. Up to you.”

With a final warning glare at Gray, Murphy waves a hand at Sammy and Carter, who scramble to move their makeshift alarm system out of the way. Murphy then unlocks and opens the door. Cortés hurries inside, and Murphy locks the door behind him.

Cortés's hair is windswept, and his jaw line is roughened with the dark beginnings of a beard. His face is lined with exhaustion and yet still, somehow, alert. His keen gaze sweeps the group, lingers on mine for a beat or two and then settles on Murphy.

“I'm with you,” Cortés says. “Whatever you're planning to do to get out of here, I'm in.”

“Who says we're planning anything?” Gray demands. “And even if we were, why should we trust you?”

“Look, man,” Cortés says, “I don't want to cause problems. I want to help—”

“Help?”
Gray snorts out a laugh. “What, like your father's helped us? Thanks, but no thanks.”

“I believe I'm the adult in charge here, unless I'm much mistaken,” Murphy says, scowling. “And I want to hear what the young man has to offer, if that's quite all right with you, Graydon Johnson.”

“We don't need his kind of help!” Gray shouts.

By now, I've really had it with Gray's bewildering belligerence, and I can't stop myself from yelling. “What is your problem, Gray?”

“Maybe I don't like his bloodlines!” Gray thunders, his face developing splotchy red patches. “Maybe I don't like the way he—”

“Dude. You don't want to go at it like this.” Carter steps up to Gray and rests his hand on his shoulder in a gesture that's quiet and supportive. Gray shuts up immediately, hanging his head and muttering something indistinct.

Gray wheels around and paces several steps away, all but vibrating with frustration.

“As far as I'm concerned, we're on the same side, Gray,” Cortés calls after him.

Gray looks back. His turbulent gaze flickers in my direction for a quick second. I want to give him an imploring look, but, for reasons I can't let myself think about right now, I can't even meet his gaze. My face feels too hot.

After an excruciating beat or two, Gray addresses Cortés.

“As far as I'm concerned, we're not,” he says flatly.

No one seems to know what to say to that, so we all fidget uncomfortably.

“Well, then,” Murphy says finally, clapping his hands together, “I don't have the first bleeding idea what that's about, but I'm glad it's settled.” He turns to Cortés. “You do understand our concerns about your loyalties, don't you?”

Cortés hesitates and goes very still. “I'm not my father, Mr. Murphy.” Another pause, his expression darkening as he touches the bruises now circling his throat. “And after today, I plan to forget I have a father. Does that answer your question?”

“Aye.” Murphy regards him sadly. “It does, I'm sorry to say.”

“Good.” Some of the tension in Cortés's shoulders eases visibly, but he still looks uncomfortable. Vulnerable, as though he's realized just how tricky and desperate our situation is, new alliance or no.

“Great,” An says briskly, stepping forward. “Maybe you can tell these hotheads it's not a great idea to break into the communications cabin and try to call for help.”

“Break in?” A confused frown grooves its way down Cortés's forehead. “Why would we bother to break in when I know the code?”

Everyone gasps with excitement.

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph, man,” Murphy cries. “Why didn't you say so?”

“I just did. Don't get too excited, though,” Cortes says. “I can get you in there, but I don't know anything about the satellites or relaying our position or anything like that.”

“I know a little,” Sammy says. “I spent some time exploring the bridge on our cruise to Barbados last summer.”

An shakes her head with some mixture of admiration and exasperation. “And I spent my cruise working on my tan on the fiesta deck. In case anyone was wondering.”

We grin at her.

“Let's get our plan together, then.” Murphy rubs his palms together. “Every second we stand around picking our noses is a second closer to the hurricane and Rio. It won't be easy, though. We've got to think this thing through, careful like.”

“We'll get there,” Cortés says easily. “You know what the Aborigines say.”

Dead silence.

Cortés looks incredulous. “What's wrong with you people? ‘The journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.' Ring a bell?”

“That's what I was about to say,” Sammy reassures him, and then, glancing over his shoulder to Gray and Carter, he shakes his head and mouths,
No, I wasn't.

Everyone, including Cortés, grins.

“All right then,” Murphy says briskly. “Joke time's over. We've got work to do, and a lot of it, if we want to send out our distress signal and get ourselves rescued before it's too late.”