Read Online Burnt Sea: A Seabound Prequel (Seabound Chronicles Book 0) by Jordan Rivet - Free Book Online

for the
meal.”
    “Thank you,” Simon said. “Everyone will feel better once we get some
food in us. What’s your name?”
    “Rosa Cordova.” The woman swept back up the steps, the children
following her. Simon gave Judith a look that was probably meant to be a smile
and then started down the stairs.
    “I have to find my daughter,” he said.
    Judith shivered. She still wore her jogging gear. The plaza had grown
darker, colder. Many of the lights were off. The skylight above them looked
like dark sunglasses. Was that ash? What would they do if the sky never
cleared?
    She thought about her family, but she couldn’t reconcile what the
captain had said about San Francisco with reality. They would get to Hawaii in
four days and discover it was all a terrible mistake. They just had to hold on
until then. The first order of business was to get warm.
    She went into one of the shops, smelling wood polish and cotton when
she pushed open the door. No one manned the register. Her debit card was tucked
into the pocket of her running shorts, but that wouldn’t do her much good here.
She hesitated, then put on a sweater with the Catalina ’s logo screen-printed on the
back. She found a pair of navy-blue yoga pants and pulled them on over her
running shorts. The feeling of thick cotton against her skin was comforting,
almost like a hug. She pulled off the tags and pocketed them. She’d find a way
to pay later, when the world was back to normal.
    She took a pile of sweaters from the rack and returned to the plaza.
She gave one to the boy, Neal. His mother gripped Judith’s hand wordlessly.
    Judith went over to a group of people who looked like they had come
from San Diego. They wore an assortment of office clothes, workout gear, and
even a fast-food uniform, complete with a visor and a button that said, “ How can I help you?”
    “There are sweaters in the gift shop,” she said. “Under the
circumstances I think we can use them. Spread the word.”
    They thanked her and began to tell the others.
    Judith clutched her pile of sweaters close and made her way back to the
reception lobby, where they’d left the pregnant woman, unsure what she would
find there.

 
    Simon

 
    The
tall sailor still sat on the plush carpet steps, running his hands over his
shaved head. He kept shaking it, as if arguing with himself, denying something.
    “Excuse me,” Simon said. “I wanted to thank you for your help at the
door. And on the gangway.”
    “Just doing my job.” He stood and rolled his broad shoulders. “Name’s
Reggie.”
    “Simon. Did you see where my daughter went? I told her to find the
deepest corner she could and shut the door.”
    “Try the laundry room and the bowling alley,” Reggie said, “and the
engine room if she’s not afraid of big machines.”
    “She’s definitely not afraid of machines,” Simon said. “How do I get
there?”
    Reggie gave him instructions, and Simon set off into the bowels of the
ship. He made his way down staircases and through corridors, occasionally
passing bewildered-looking passengers and crew. He asked if they’d seen a
little girl with pigtails and urged them to head to the plaza. No, he didn’t
know what was going on. No, he didn’t think they were going back.
    The ship was large, but it wasn’t the biggest cruise ship he’d seen by
far. It didn’t belong to any of the major cruise lines, based on the logos
painted on the bulkhead. It seemed to do family-oriented cruises to Mexico and
the like. Had this ship even been as far as Hawaii? Simon wasn’t sure he liked
the captain’s plan. He wanted to get back to San Diego as soon as possible. It
couldn’t be destroyed. It just couldn’t.
    He checked the laundry room, calling for Esther as the cotton piles
swallowed sound. The clean scent of detergent masked the charcoal smell of the
ash still clinging to his clothes. Where was she? Rationally, he knew she
couldn’t have gotten off the ship, but panic still clutched at