Mustang itched to reach out to Rachel, but he didn’t dare. He concentrated on the job at hand, and could only hope she was lying low, safe, wherever she’d decided to hole up.
Elodie cursed herself. Why had she left her hiding space? Because she was stupid, that was why. She hadn’t heard anything in so long and had needed to use the bathroom. She figured it was safe enough—but she’d been wrong. The second she’d come out of the small restroom next to the officers’ mess, she’d heard someone in the galley.
For just a second, she’d had the hope that it was Scott and his team. That the Navy SEALs had finally arrived and everyone was safe. But then she’d heard the man muttering in a foreign language and knew she was in deep shit.
She froze, looking around for a place to hide. But the officers’ mess had nothing in it but a long table and chairs. There weren’t any cabinets or any other place to hide. She could go back into the bathroom, but she’d be a sitting duck in there. And she’d already been lucky whoever was in the kitchen didn’t seem to have heard her exiting the small room.
If she could make it to the officers’ pantry, she might be able to get into one of the lower cabinets, but the pirate would definitely hear her moving around.
Elodie panicked. Any second, she was going to be seen. The man would walk into this room and find her there. The only thing she had going for her was that it was dark. She wanted to kiss whichever engineer below deck who’d had the great idea to turn off the electricity.
An idea struck her then. It was risky as hell, and if she made any noise, she’d surely be caught, but at the moment, she literally had no other options.
Moving slowly, she felt her way around the large oval table in the middle of the room. Elodie moved the chairs on the far side so they were a little closer together, making sure not to scrape the legs against the tile floor. When she thought they were positioned where she wanted them, she got down on her hands and knees and crawled under the table. She’d never been so thankful that whoever had furnished the ship had been too cheap to get chairs with armrests.
When the man in the other room seemed to finish whatever he was doing in the galley, she heard him enter the officers’ pantry. He was only one room away from her right now, and she knew if she’d gone into that room to try to hide, she would’ve been caught.
Barely breathing, Elodie eased herself up onto the row of chairs she’d pushed together, under the table. Her belly was resting on one chair, her upper chest on another, her legs on a third. Stretched out flat, she held her breath as the pirate ransacked the cabinets. She had no idea what he was looking for, all that was in there was food and supplies, but he seemed to be taking great pleasure in throwing stuff on the floor and breaking bottles.
Elodie hoped that when he came into this room, all he’d see was a table and chairs, and with nothing to look through, he’d continue on. He had a flashlight of some sort; through the small circular window in the door, she’d seen the light wildly flicking around the room and walls. She prayed he wouldn’t decide to shine it under the table for any reason.
She held her breath as she slowly reached for the knife she’d put in her belt loop. She pulled it out and clutched it in her fist, then waited to see what the man in the pantry would do next.
Minutes passed slowly. Elodie had no idea how long she’d lain on the uncomfortable chairs so far, but if the man didn’t do something soon, her heart wouldn’t be able to take the stress. It was going a hundred miles a minute and she felt as if he’d be able to hear it pounding.
When a radio suddenly crackled and one of his fellow pirates began speaking, Elodie nearly leaped out of her skin. She jolted badly and almost dropped the knife she was holding, which would’ve been a disaster.
The man on the other end of the radio sounded agitated, and Elodie wished she knew what he was saying. The man next door swore…at least, that’s what she thought he was doing.
Then he yelled, “If anyone is here, you come out now. I won’t kill!”
Elodie didn’t dare move a muscle.
“If you hide, you die!”
She still didn’t move. Elodie wondered briefly who the man suspected was down here before he suddenly shot off a volley of rounds from his rifle. She jerked and gasped. Luckily, the sound of the shots was slightly muted, since the pirate was shooting in the pantry behind a closed door.
“That was warning!” the man yelled again.
Nothing about him shooting his weapon made her want to come out of hiding.
Then he muttered something under his breath before speaking on his radio once more.
He was still speaking when the door to the officers’ mess opened.
If Elodie hadn’t turned her head at the exact right moment, she wouldn’t have seen the two sets of legs entering the room. A sliver of illumination from the pirate’s flashlight, flickering through the pantry window, momentarily highlighted the figures. The door shut without a sound, and she almost threw up with fear when she lost sight of the men.
Were these more pirates? If so, why weren’t they calling out to their friend? She was confused, but didn’t dare make a move, much less breathe. She couldn’t see what was happening, but she could faintly hear the fabric of their pants as the two figures walked past the table, and her hiding spot.
The pirate in the galley seemed to be arguing with someone on the radio now. He sounded upset and pissed off. Then he stopped talking—and the sound of something large being thrown against the wall made Elodie jump in surprise yet again.
Apparently, while the pirate was throwing his temper tantrum, whoever had entered the officers’ mess had opened the door to the pantry. The sound of gunshots made a small whimper escape her lips. The shots were much louder, since the weapon was fired in the same room where she was hiding. Now she could hear little but the ringing in her ears. Elodie strained to hear what was going on, and for several seconds heard nothing but her own heart racing.
“Tango down in the galley.”
With the ringing and her heartbeat, Elodie wasn’t sure she was hearing correctly.
That sounded like English. Non-accented English. And she was pretty sure her fellow Asaka Express employees wouldn’t use a word like “tango” to describe the pirates. She also didn’t think they’d be slinking around like these two men were.
She’d waited what seemed like forever for Scott and his team to arrive—and it sounded like they finally had.
It had been a couple hours since she’d been in contact with Scott, which she understood. He was busy planning a way to get onboard, and he couldn’t exactly take the time to reassure her every other minute. But each time he’d reached out, it had made her feel so much better. Less alone.
“We need to find Rachel,” one of the men said. She knew it was Scott because she recognized his voice.
“Maybe we should leave her where she is,” the other man said.
“No. She would’ve heard the shots and is probably freaking out,” Scott argued.
The last thing she wanted to do was get shot, so Elodie knew better than to pop up out of her hiding spot and surprise the men, but she definitely didn’t want to stay where she was either.
“I’m here,” she said softly, hoping she didn’t startle them badly enough that they’d turn around and start shooting.