Read Online Adrift 2: Sundown by K.R. Griffiths - Free Book Online
Authors: K.R. Griffiths
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haven’t got time for this, not now. I have to get you somewhere safe before it gets dark.”
Dan spread his arms wide and gestured at the hull of the trawler.
“Seems like I’m safe right here, if what you say is true.”
“Here’s fine,” Herb said with a grin, “though you might not think so when you start to get hungry. Besides, search and rescue will be headed in our direction soon enough, along with just about every news outlet on the planet, and I doubt even the Order has enough influence to cover up what they’re gonna find. The Oceanus was probably declared missing hours ago. We were supposed to draw the authorities in the wrong direction once it was done,” he shrugged, “but the days of the Rennick family keeping secrets are over.”
Dan shook his head wearily. Herb had sounded crazy in the container, but now that he was out and apparently running the show, he sounded even crazier.
He thought about replying that he needed his medication; that he had a condition, dammit; that he had to go home and seal himself up in the only place he felt safe before he hurt himself or anybody else, but he clamped his lips shut. There was nothing to gain from going through it now, when he was trapped at sea.
Play along , he thought. Just until you get your feet on dry land .
And then, run.
“Follow me,” Herb said, and he turned, striding away from the freezer hold, leaving the door open.
Dan watched him go, and slipped on the sweater and a one-size-too-big pair of jeans, Herb’s words running through his mind like a fever.
Afraid of flying , he thought, and his face twisted into a rueful grimace. He was supposed to be afraid of just about everything , but now the fear that had been a constant in his life ever since the knife attack felt…unstable somehow, like the fury that had descended on him aboard the Oceanus had unbalanced it. He still felt a flicker of the old anxiety: apprehension at being trapped on the boat with a group of strangers who were apparently insane, but there was something else, too, right down there in that broken core. Something new.
It felt terrifyingly like anticipation; a thread of something like eagerness that ran through his nerves.
He knew then what the loose sensation in his head was. Something had changed, and he had woken up different in some way he couldn’t yet fathom; altered irrevocably.
As he started after Herb, he couldn’t help but wonder if different meant better.
Or worse.
*
Jeremy watched Dan Bellamy follow Herb up onto the deck, and when both men were out of sight, he stepped into the freezer hold, easing the sliding door shut and wincing as the rusting metal runners squealed softly.
He’d always felt a connection with Herb. His father had never forgiven the kid for killing his mother as he entered the world, and the wrong side of Charles Rennick was a bad place to be for anybody, let alone a young child. Herb grew to be an isolated character at the compound, tolerated by his brothers and despised by his father; unable to form any sort of friendship with the initiates of the Order who worshipped his blood like it ran through a king’s veins.
But the boy was reckless. Charles had been right about that, though even he might have been surprised to learn just how right. Charles’ primary concern had been that Herb would run ; that without him the EMP device would not get built and the operation would be a failure before the Oceanus even entered international waters. That was supposed to be the worst-case scenario, not that Herb would return to the Sea Shanty with no vampires and a bullet with his father’s name etched on it.
The operation had been a complete disaster, and now Herb seemed intent on making the situation worse.
Jeremy had hated lying to him.
He crossed the hold, kneeling at a low ventilation grate, and prised it open.
Reaching inside, he pulled out the satellite phone that he had hidden immediately following Charles’ execution.
Dan spread his arms wide and gestured at the hull of the trawler.
“Seems like I’m safe right here, if what you say is true.”
“Here’s fine,” Herb said with a grin, “though you might not think so when you start to get hungry. Besides, search and rescue will be headed in our direction soon enough, along with just about every news outlet on the planet, and I doubt even the Order has enough influence to cover up what they’re gonna find. The Oceanus was probably declared missing hours ago. We were supposed to draw the authorities in the wrong direction once it was done,” he shrugged, “but the days of the Rennick family keeping secrets are over.”
Dan shook his head wearily. Herb had sounded crazy in the container, but now that he was out and apparently running the show, he sounded even crazier.
He thought about replying that he needed his medication; that he had a condition, dammit; that he had to go home and seal himself up in the only place he felt safe before he hurt himself or anybody else, but he clamped his lips shut. There was nothing to gain from going through it now, when he was trapped at sea.
Play along , he thought. Just until you get your feet on dry land .
And then, run.
“Follow me,” Herb said, and he turned, striding away from the freezer hold, leaving the door open.
Dan watched him go, and slipped on the sweater and a one-size-too-big pair of jeans, Herb’s words running through his mind like a fever.
Afraid of flying , he thought, and his face twisted into a rueful grimace. He was supposed to be afraid of just about everything , but now the fear that had been a constant in his life ever since the knife attack felt…unstable somehow, like the fury that had descended on him aboard the Oceanus had unbalanced it. He still felt a flicker of the old anxiety: apprehension at being trapped on the boat with a group of strangers who were apparently insane, but there was something else, too, right down there in that broken core. Something new.
It felt terrifyingly like anticipation; a thread of something like eagerness that ran through his nerves.
He knew then what the loose sensation in his head was. Something had changed, and he had woken up different in some way he couldn’t yet fathom; altered irrevocably.
As he started after Herb, he couldn’t help but wonder if different meant better.
Or worse.
*
Jeremy watched Dan Bellamy follow Herb up onto the deck, and when both men were out of sight, he stepped into the freezer hold, easing the sliding door shut and wincing as the rusting metal runners squealed softly.
He’d always felt a connection with Herb. His father had never forgiven the kid for killing his mother as he entered the world, and the wrong side of Charles Rennick was a bad place to be for anybody, let alone a young child. Herb grew to be an isolated character at the compound, tolerated by his brothers and despised by his father; unable to form any sort of friendship with the initiates of the Order who worshipped his blood like it ran through a king’s veins.
But the boy was reckless. Charles had been right about that, though even he might have been surprised to learn just how right. Charles’ primary concern had been that Herb would run ; that without him the EMP device would not get built and the operation would be a failure before the Oceanus even entered international waters. That was supposed to be the worst-case scenario, not that Herb would return to the Sea Shanty with no vampires and a bullet with his father’s name etched on it.
The operation had been a complete disaster, and now Herb seemed intent on making the situation worse.
Jeremy had hated lying to him.
He crossed the hold, kneeling at a low ventilation grate, and prised it open.
Reaching inside, he pulled out the satellite phone that he had hidden immediately following Charles’ execution.
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