Apocalyptic Pirates 4, page 25
Then Dia suddenly tightened her grip on my hand. She leaned forward and stared intently at the horizon.
I followed her gaze, and I saw what she’d already spotted.
We were getting close to land, and that line on the horizon must be Cartagena. It got closer and closer. Dia’s grip didn’t loosen on my hand, and I held her fingers tightly with my own.
And then Dia’s hand suddenly clenched in mine, and she drew in a quick breath.
We were close enough now to see the colorful buildings rising up in the background, and the more modern towers and structures that circled the dock.
And like a stain on the perfect morning, a thick cloud of black smoke hung over the city and drifted across the clean, blue sky.
Chapter 15
Dia took an unconscious step toward the guard rail, and I tightened my grip on her hand. I wouldn’t put it past her to leap overboard and try to swim to shore.
“Dia,” I said. “Dia.”
“It’s on fire,” she gulped out. “Cartagena’s on fire.”
“We don’t know what’s happened there,” I insisted. “It could be old smoke. It doesn’t mean your mom isn’t safe.”
Dia’s eyes were wide and staring, but she didn’t seem to be taking in anything she saw.
I pulled her to me and threw my arms around her. Beneath the softness of her curvy body, I could feel the tension stiffening in every one of her muscles. I released her quickly before she could grow uncomfortable, but I kept a tight hold on her hand.
“Breathe,” I instructed. “Just breathe. We’re getting there as quickly as we can.”
Dia gave a jerky nod.
“Do you want to go down below?” I asked.
“No,” she said, and she seemed to shake herself and take a deep breath. “No. I want to stay up here.”
“Okay.” I watched her profile as she stared out at the horizon.
Her black curls blew around her face and into her eyes, but she didn’t seem to notice or care. Her full lips were pressed firmly together, and her shoulders were locked in position with her spine as straight as a ramrod. She was as tightly wound as an attack dog sighting prey.
“I’m okay,” she said, but I wasn’t sure if she was telling me that or if she was saying it to reassure herself.
I didn’t say anything more, and just gave her hand another squeeze to let her know that I wasn’t going anywhere.
It wasn’t long before Shannon and Letty came on deck.
“Morning,” Shannon yawned. “What’s up? Oh, shit.”
Her sleepy tones suddenly sharpened as she took in the black cloud of smoke looming on the horizon.
“Fuck,” she hissed. “That’s Cartagena.”
“Yep,” Dia gritted out.
Shannon must have known that Dia wasn’t likely to be soothed by words, but she grabbed hold of Dia’s other hand and came to stand by her shoulder. The two women looked at each other, and the corner of Dia’s mouth lifted in a little smile. Shannon gave her a nod, and even in the midst of everything, it melted my heart a bit to see the bond between the two of them.
“Breakfast,” Letty announced. “Who’s for pancakes?”
“Sounds good,” I said.
“Dia?” Letty pushed.
“Yeah.” Dia sighed and swallowed. “I’d like that. Thanks, Letty.”
“No problem.” Letty disappeared down the hatch.
The shores of Cartagena came closer and closer, and I could soon make out the dock. It wasn’t a pretty sight.
The area was full of abandoned cruise ships as well as smaller boats, and many of them were completely wrecked. Some of them sagged on their sides, or were drifting aimlessly and bumping into each other. Many had broken masts, torn sails, and smashed windows, and all of the boats I could see had the telltale gouges to show where dragon claws had left their mark.
The water here was a far cry from the beautiful clear seas of San Andres. Instead, it was a murky green and covered with a shimmering slick of spilled oil.
The smell of burning rubber, smoke, and fuel was thick in the air, and there was a faint gray haze that hung over the scene and made my eyes sting.
The buildings that surrounded the dock were in no better shape than the boats. There were a couple with roofs that had fallen in, more with smashed windows and broken-down doors, and several where it looked as though someone had gone crazy with a wrecking ball.
Substitute wrecking balls for bloodthirsty dragons, and I reckoned we’d found our demolition crew.
Dia’s dark eyes swept the view without flinching, and only the tight, grim line of her mouth showed her fear at the sight of all the destruction.
Letty came back up on deck to stand with us.
“Breakfast is ready,” she announced, and then she doubled over as a fit of coughing wracked her body.
“Oh, my god,” Shannon gasped. “The fumes.”
“Fuck, you’re right.” I kicked myself for not realizing sooner that Letty’s asthma would be triggered by all the noxious chemicals that must be hanging in the air.
“I’m okay,” Letty gasped.
“Come on, let’s get away from here.” I took her arm and quickly guided her down the hatch.
Letty was wheezing in a way that sounded extremely painful, and I helped her to sit down on the couch. She dragged herself up and squeezed her hands into fists as she tried desperately to gulp down air.
The other women hurried down the hatch after us, and Shannon ran into the bedroom where Letty kept her inhalers and brought one back to her.
The Southern woman grabbed it gratefully and pumped the medication into her lungs. She closed her eyes as the life-saving medicine did its work.
“Thanks, guys,” she managed to croak out.
“Don’t talk,” Shannon ordered.
“Do you want a drink of water?” Ally asked with her eyes wide in concern.
Letty shook her head.
“Give me a moment,” she wheezed. “I’ll be okay in a second when I catch my breath.”
We hovered anxiously around and peered into Letty’s face until she smiled and waved us away.
“I’m fine,” she insisted and stood up.
“Shouldn’t you sit down?” Dia worried. “Take a rest?”
“Lord,” Letty said with a hoarse chuckle. “I’m asthmatic, not dying, and I’m fine so long as I have my inhaler nearby.”
“Are you sure?” Shannon pressed.
“I’m sure,” Letty said in a firm voice. “Come on, I just spent all this time making pancakes, and now they’re getting cold.”
Letty wasn’t about to be discouraged from making sure that we all enjoyed our breakfast, so we sat round the table and tucked into the fluffy pancakes she’d made. There were liberal helpings of maple syrup, and Letty had fried up bacon until it was extra crispy and chopped it up into fine cubes for us to sprinkle over the top. It was pretty damn fine, and for one moment in-between mouthfuls, I could almost forget the scenes of destruction that were waiting for us just outside.
I knew Dia couldn’t forget, though, and as I chewed my last mouthful, in my mind I was running through the map of Colombia that I’d studied with Ally the day before.
“Ally,” I said as I put down my fork. “This is the main dock in Cartagena, right?”
“It’s the one that all the cruise ships use,” she replied.
“That explains all the ghost ships out there,” Shannon said.
“Right,” I said. “Is there another dock near the Old Town where you can drop us off?”
“Probably.” Ally nodded. “I noticed that there’s something that looks like a sea wall near the Old Town with some rocky spits that go out into the water, so if it comes to it, we might be able to dock there.”
“What’s wrong with this dock?” Letty said with raised eyebrows. “I hope you guys ain’t leaving here on my account.”
“Well…” I began.
“Drew, you can’t add more hours onto the mission,” Letty argued. “I’ll just stay down here and keep out of the fumes.”
“For the whole trip?” I shook my head. “We need you to go ashore with us. We have no idea what’s waiting for us in the city, and Ally needs to stay with the yacht. You’re a better shot than she is, and we’ll need all the guns we have out there.”
“I don’t like the idea that I’m making this more difficult than it has to be.” Letty’s brow wrinkled.
“It’s not difficult to make sure that you’re safe,” I pointed out with a smile.
“Yeah, Letty,” Ally chimed in. “Call us crazy, but we’d sort of like it if you stayed alive and didn’t die from smoke inhalation.”
“So kind of you.” Letty chuckled.
“Yeah, well,” I said with a grin. “We’ve got to keep you alive so we get to eat more of these pancakes.”
“Oh, I see how it is.” Letty rolled her eyes. “It’s cupboard love, isn’t it?”
“Yep, that’s all you are to us, Letty,” Shannon added. “A pair of tits holding a wooden spoon.”
I burst out laughing while the others giggled. Letty gasped in mock outrage as her cheeks flushed dark red.
“I’m sure I can find somewhere on the map where I can leave you guys and then safely drop anchor nearby,” Ally said as she dabbed her lips with a napkin.
“I’ll come and help you,” I said.
“And I guess I’ll do the washing up,” Letty said with a theatrical sigh. “Stuck down here in the kitchen like a 1950s housewife.”
“Letty, you like being stuck in the kitchen.” Shannon rolled her eyes.
“Victim blaming!” Letty announced and pressed her hand over her heart.
“Come on,” Ally said to me with a chuckle. “Let’s leave them to their amateur dramatics.”
Dia had been quiet all through breakfast, and she now stood up from the table.
“I think I know a place where Ally can drop us off,” she said. “One of my friends would use it as a quick getaway place for when she did a job near the Old Town.”
“A job?” Ally queried.
“Stealing car parts,” Dia supplied.
“Oh.” Ally’s innocent green eyes opened wide. “Uh, alright.”
“Her boat was smaller than the yacht, but I think it should still be okay to use,” Dia said.
“Sounds like we’ve solved that problem, then,” I said. “Ally, I think it’s best if you keep the yacht a little distance from the land. That way we’re not such an easy target for any dragons or people that might try to board us.”
“Good plan.” The redhead nodded. “We don’t want a repeat of what happened on Providencia.”
“Dia,” I instructed. “You go with Ally into the cockpit and show her where we need to go. Shannon, you come with me on deck and help me keep watch. I’ve got a feeling we’ll need to be on high alert the closer we get to the city.”
“Sounds like a plan.” Shannon nodded.
“Leaving the housewife down below to do the dishes.” Letty heaved a tragic sigh and shook her head.
“Letty, we do have a dishwasher,” I pointed out.
“Such a tragedy,” Letty sighed. “Feminism has been set back decades by this one single act.”
I rolled my eyes, but I was glad that Letty was turning the situation into a joke. I knew she would find it hard to be relegated to below deck, but we couldn’t afford to risk her having another asthma attack if we stayed in the main harbor. The situation was tense enough already, so I welcomed anything that would help lighten the mood.
Shannon and I grabbed our guns and went up the hatch.
The trashed ships and buildings were a grim sight, and I was glad we hadn’t gotten too close to the harbor. Smoke and chemicals aside, there were a thousand places where people could be hiding here. Every one of these boats could be home to gunmen, bandits, and all sorts of people ready to defend their turf.
This was the main reason why I hadn’t immediately whipped out the drone and sent it over the city. The last thing we needed was to give away our presence, not to mention get our only long-range scoping device shot down from the sky.
Ally started the engine and adjusted the yacht’s course. I was glad to see us getting further away from the main dock, and soon the greasy rainbow of spilled oil on the surface of the water was the only reminder of the destruction we’d witnessed.
Shannon and I stood at the front of the boat and scanned the horizon for any signs of trouble. Our guns were loaded and ready, and my body felt on high alert as we passed by more of Cartagena’s shoreline.
With Dia guiding Ally, the yacht glided up close to the sea wall, which was a border built of jagged white rocks between the road and the water.
On the other side of the wall ran a long road that was mostly empty but randomly peppered with abandoned vehicles. One section of the road was completely covered in a layer of broken glass, and another section was piled up with car doors, fenders, and tires. It looked like someone had tried to build a barricade from broken car parts but had abandoned it a quarter of the way through.
Or they’d been forced to abandon it.
“This is fucking creepy,” Shannon murmured.
“I know,” I muttered back. “There’s literally no one here.”
“There’s got to be some survivors,” Shannon said. “And if they’ve got sense, they’re hiding somewhere.”
“I hope so.” I threw a quick look over my shoulder to check on Dia in the cockpit.
She was standing next to Ally with her arms crossed. I couldn’t make out her expression properly, but from the way she was standing, I guessed that the sight of all the destruction and abandonment wasn’t doing much for her state of mind.
As the yacht sailed along the length of the sea wall, we approached the part of the city that was known as the Old Town. A wall of dark gray stone separated this part of the city from the road, but it was built on an incline, and even down at sea level, I could make out the tops of the colorful buildings of the Old Town.
There were some spits of rock that jutted out from the rest of the wall and extended out into the sea. They looked like they’d been built deliberately as a kind of rudimentary quay, and as we rounded a curve in the shoreline, we saw one of these rocky quays stretching out into the waves like a long pointing finger. The yacht changed direction slightly and headed toward it, so I guessed that this must be the place that Dia knew about from her friend.
“Are you alright to keep watch out here by yourself for a bit?” I asked Shannon.
The Indian woman nodded her head, and I went into the cockpit to speak to Ally and Dia.
“Ally,” I said. “Keep one of the phones by you, and I’ll call when we’re ready for you to bring the boat in closer again.”
“Sure thing, jefe,” Ally said.
I blinked at her in surprise.
“Um…” I began.
“No.” Dia shook her head. “No way. Uh-uh. Nope.”
“What?” Ally protested.
“I’m sorry,” Dia said. “But you’re not a jefe kind of gal.”
“I could be,” Ally insisted.
“Sorry, Ally,” I said with a grin. “I think Dia’s right.”
“Never say it ever again,” Dia said.
“Fine,” Ally grumbled. “You’re such party poopers.”
I was glad to see the grin on Dia’s face, and she seemed a little bit more cheerful as Ally carefully navigated the yacht in and moored by the rocky quay.
I went below and found Letty in the kitchen area.
“We’re here,” I told her. “We just need to arm everyone, and then we can leave.”
“Way ahead of you.” Letty nodded toward the table. She’d selected two rifles for her and Dia, and several spare magazines for all of us, and laid them out on the table for us.
“Nice work,” I said with a smile.
Dia came down the hatch and went into the bedroom. She came back out with her backpack.
“Dia,” I called to her. “Come and grab a gun.”
“Cool.” She slung one of the rifles over her shoulder and stuffed the extra magazines into her bag before looking around at us with a determined expression on her face.
“Are you ready?” I asked her.
“Yeah.” She hesitated, and then her next words came out in a rush. “Thanks. For doing this, I mean. Making the detour here and then helping me find my mom.”
“Hey, you’re welcome,” I told her with a smile. “You know that we’re happy to help.”
“Yeah,” Letty added. “We’re going to really miss you, Dia.”
Dia blinked rapidly and stared down at her shoes.
“Yeah. Cool.” She cleared her throat. “I’ll miss you guys, too. Been great… uhh… Anyway. Uh. Yeah, let’s go.”
She almost ran to the hatch and hurried up the steps.
“Poor Dia.” Letty smiled softly.
“We’d best follow her,” I said. “I don’t want to have the yacht this close to land for too long.”
Letty nodded and picked up the last rifle. Then she double-checked that her inhaler was secured in her pocket before we went up on deck to join the others and found Shannon standing at the edge of the boat with her rifle ready.
Ally had Dia locked in a tight hug.
“Now you keep in touch, you hear?” the redhead was telling her in a fierce voice. “Don’t vanish on us. I know you’ve got a phone, and I will be expecting regular messages and phone calls.”
“This isn’t goodbye yet, is it?” Letty said in dismay.
Ally let go of Dia and dabbed the back of her wrist against her eyes.
“We can’t be sure of what’s waiting on land,” she sniffed. “What if you have to make a run for it? Or what if you find Dia’s mom, and she’s got an escape route ready? There won’t be any time for Dia to come back to the yacht.”
Dia impulsively grabbed Ally and pulled her into another hug. I saw the pain in the Latina woman’s eyes as she pressed her cheek against Ally’s auburn waves, and the sight of her sad face brought the finality of the situation crashing down on my head.
Dia was leaving. She was really going. This was her last time on the yacht, and after today I might never see her again.
I had to swallow hard to keep down all the words that were churning around inside me. I couldn’t ask Dia to stay with us. She would never agree to leave her mom, and I couldn’t burden her with that kind of choice. It wasn’t fair, and it would put her in an impossible situation where she might end up resenting either me or her mom for whichever choice she made.
