Total pages in book: 76
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 71348 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 357(@200wpm)___ 285(@250wpm)___ 238(@300wpm)
“Rachel,” I say in exasperation. “Go back to bed. Get some rest. You have a shift starting in about four hours.”
“Not tired,” she says stubbornly. “I’ll just hang with you guys and watch the action. The tracers are pretty at night.”
Frustration hits me hard, followed by an anxious squeezing to my chest. “I don’t want you up here—”
Rachel’s eyes flash with fury. “You don’t want me up here?”
I refuse to answer, setting my jaw into a stubborn clamp of tightness.
“What is it, Bodie?” she asks sarcastically. “Getting on the bandwagon with your other buddies who think I’m inferior now that I’m pregnant? Think my emotions might overwhelm me? Make me a danger to you?”
“That’s not what I’m—”
She rolls right over me. “Or maybe it’s just that I’m a woman? Not quite as strong as you. Is that it?”
“No, Rachel,” I say angrily. My blood boils that she would even think that.
“Oh, I know,” she says, getting in my face. “It’s because I’m your brood mare, isn’t it? Got your baby inside of me, and you want that precious cargo tucked—”
My hands shoot to the sides of her head, and I take in her wide eyes and the little “o” her mouth forms into. I press my thumbs under her jaw to close her mouth, and yank her to me so my face is hovering right over hers. “I don’t want anything to happen to you. It’s got nothing to do with your abilities or the pregnancy. It’s about you, you dumbass.”
She blinks at me in confusion.
Again, she blinks.
She stays silent. Thank fuck for that.
“I would worry about you,” I continue in a gentler tone. “And that would make me ineffective.”
“But there’s no danger,” she says in a raspy voice, her jaw working against the pressure of my thumbs. I release my hold on her and take a step back.
“If they have guns like ours,” I say in a defeated voice. “Then there’s great danger.”
“I’m more than capable—”
“It only takes one stray bullet,” I cut her off. With a sigh I lean over and pick her gun back up. I push it at her, and she takes it almost reluctantly. “But I also know that it’s wrong of me to ask you to go hide just to appease me. This is what you do, Rachel.”
Her eyes hold mine, and I wonder if she’s actually going to appease me and go below. The moment is broken when Benji comes across our comms. “Suspected hostile a mile out, course unchanged. Take positions.”
There’s no time to debate this further with Rachel. Cage and Sal come out of the same door that Rachel had just a few moments ago. She orders them to position as backup to Kara and Merrit on the port guns.
Before she turns to leave, she reaches a hand out and touches the back of mine briefly.
“Stay safe,” she murmurs.
“You too.”
Then she’s gone.
The blaring of the ship’s horns—two long blows—is the indication to the crew that danger is approaching, and they are to get below deck. There’s a scrambling around of the few night-shift members, but it doesn’t take a lot to run a small tanker like this. There are only twelve crew members, and they’ll all be below to minimize injuries. The exception is the captain and navigator, who will stay in the control room with Benji. If pirates were somehow to make it past us, there’s a fifth Browning in there set up on a tripod aimed at the door. No one is getting in without Benji’s say-so.
I see the light of the speeding boat just before Benji announces, “Two thousand yards out. Merrit and Kara… at your will.”
The approaching boat is closer to the stern, which is Merrit’s gun. It’s coming at a high rate of speed with no signs of slowing, so it’s clear their intentions are nefarious. As such, Merrit doesn’t wait. He lets loose, the booming noise of the machine gun drowning out everything. Tracers light up the bullets’ trajectories, helping Merrit to keep his aim just short of the approaching boat. At the same time, Kara lets loose a volley of bullets, spraying the water from bow to midship, letting the approaching pirates know we’re heavily armed.
I stand braced, my own M27 trained on the boat. I want to look to my right, lay my eyes just briefly on Rachel to know exactly where she’s positioned, but I can’t.
The ear-splitting bursts of rounds lasts no more than ten seconds in totality, but it’s enough that the approaching speedboat now five hundred yards out swings hard to the right, throwing a wave of seafoam outward at the abrupt maneuver. For a moment, I think the boat might tip over. It’s close enough to the lighting of the tanker that I can make out perhaps ten men on board, some with rifles. They grab hard onto railings so as not to pitch over the side, and while I can’t quite make out the detail, I suspect their faces are masks of fury and frustration they won’t be sacking this vessel.