Furious by Jeffrey Higgins (top 10 novels to read TXT) 📕

it creaked beneath his weight. He scanned the deck, and saliva dripped onto the plexiglass. He grunted and moved aft, out of view.

I was not safe here. I opened a cabinet and found two bottles of Evian. I twisted the caps open, smudging the plastic with blood, and guzzled them, one after the other. My body soaked in the liquid like a plant in the desert. I did not see any food.

I moved toward the ladder to locate Brad and stubbed my toe on a canvas bag.

The mast ascender.

It could work, if I had the courage. I slung the bag over my shoulder and climbed the ladder. The sun reflected off the glass, and I could only see a few feet in any direction. I gripped the handle. I had no choice. I unlocked the hatch and opened it halfway. I poked my head up and viewed the empty deck.

Time to go.

I bounded up the ladder onto deck, and tiptoed toward the mast, careful to avoid the stateroom hatches. I crouched low, in case Brad watched from the cockpit.

I made it to the mast. I untied a sheet from a cleat at the base and retied it to a cleat along the gunwale. I set the bag on the deck and dug out the harness. I clipped the ascenders to the sheet, as I had seen Brad do in the Java Sea—a lifetime ago.

Something crashed in the cabin below.

Had he heard me? I had to hurry.

I stepped into the harness and through the loops in the bottom ascender. I stood and pushed the top ascender over my head. I sat in the bosun's chair and took my weight off my feet. I reached below, raised the lower ascender, stood in the straps, and repeated the process. I had climbed four feet of the deck when Brad craned his head out of the cockpit.

“Yaaa,” he yelled.

“Shit, shit, shit.”

I pushed the ascender above me and sat back into the seat.

Brad came for me.

I grabbed the lower ascender, but I pulled it too fast and it did not move. I used both hands and slid it higher.

Fifteen feet.

I stood in the stirrups and raised the top ascender.

Brad lunged for my leg.

I sat back in the chair and lifted my feet.

He swiped at air as he sailed past, his fingers inches from my ankles. He toppled onto the deck and rolled.

I lifted the lower ascender and stood, pushing the top ascender with me.

Brad sprinted across the deck and jumped again.

I sat and lifted my legs in the stirrups. He missed me by two feet. I climbed until I hung twenty feet off the deck, beyond his range.

I gasped for air and my heart beat as if I had suffered a heart attack. I managed a breath and gazed upward. Sunlight glinted off the communications pod, seventy feet above. I did not intend to go higher. Blood dripped off my foot onto the deck, and my raw hands darkened the ascender. Sweat poured off me, and fatigue wore away my resolve. I had to rest.

The bosons chair swung side to side. I looked below. Brad held the line in his hands.

He started to climb.

CHAPTER FIFTY-ONE

Brad hauled himself, hand over hand, climbing the taut line toward me. His weight rocked my boson’s chair, and I held on as it whipped back and forth. I had to keep going. I stood, raised the upper ascender, sat in the elevated seat, and pulled the lower ascender after me. I repeated the process and did not look down. I did not rush and moved as fluidly as possible. One mistake and he would catch me.

“Smooth is fast, smooth is fast,” I repeated.

My technique improved, and I raised the seat eight times before I stopped to catch my breath. I peered between my legs. Brad had stopped climbing. He hung from the sheet, twenty feet off the deck. He arched his neck and stared at me. The muscles in his arms twitched with spasms. He lowered himself.

He lost his grip and fell.

Brad struck the deck with a snap and lay still on the deck. My head swooned, and I shut my eyes. I had never been suspended in air. Heights terrified me, but I had been too scared to notice until now—my desire to live overcoming my fear.

Brad groaned.

I opened my eyes.

He shook his head, dripping saliva everywhere. He rolled onto his knees, stood, and squealed. Brad collapsed on the deck holding his lower leg. The cracking sound had been his fibula or tibia fracturing. Or both. Brad stood, balanced on one leg, and glared at me. He bit the air. He limped away and disappeared into the cockpit.

Had my inability to recover from Emma’s death begun a chain of events that led to this nightmare? Was I responsible for Brad’s infection? Had my weakness doomed him? Doomed me? I shook my head. I could not go down that path. Not now. Not ever.

“This is not my fault,” I screamed.

I swayed in the seat, sixty feet above sea level. From my perch, I could see eight or nine miles, and I explored the horizon in all directions. No land. No ships. Nothing but ocean. Off the port side, the great white’s dorsal fin broke the surface and cut circles around our yacht. I hung from the mast, trapped above a great white shark and a madman who wanted to kill me.

What the hell was I going to do now?

CHAPTER FIFTY-TWO

My tongue swelled in my desiccated mouth and my parched lips cracked. I needed more water, and I wished I had grabbed my bikini top off the deck, because my chest glowed bright red. My entire body stung from sunburn, and fatigue hung on me like a heavy coat. Brad stayed somewhere below, in the shade, probably sleeping in bed while I clung to the mast.

I hated him.

That was not fair. He was sick, and the virus had turned him into a monster, but I