The Pathway To Us (4 page)

She smirked. “I’m not a very strong swimmer and to be perfectly honest—” She laughed. “I’m not sure that my swimsuit was actually built for being in the water.”

“Well, you deprived a lot of men today of the honor of
helping
you while you were in the water.” Logan continued to laugh as he thought back on all of his friends trying to pump him for information about her.

“I’m sure that’s not true. If Megan and I weren’t two of the only women on this boat, your friends probably would never have even noticed us . . . well me anyway.”

Was she serious? She couldn’t be.
Logan couldn’t imagine for one moment that Lily was unaware of how attractive she was.

The smile on her face turned into a slight frown as she turned to him. “Do you smell that?”

“What?” Before he could finish his thought, Logan smelled it too. “Wait . . . yeah. Is that something burning?”

“I think so.” There was a loud BOOM followed by a blast so big, it shook the entire boat thrusting Lily into Logan’s arms. He caught her, while watching in horror as billowing clouds of smoke started to appear in the same area where he thought he’d heard the explosion. Quickly, the smoke started to engulf their side of the boat.

Logan yelled as he helped Lily stand upright. “Shit! Are you okay?”

She nodded. Shaken but otherwise, all right she responded. “Yeah, I’m fine.” Her legs felt like jelly, but Lily tried to stand. Her vision was clouded as the smoke began to wrap itself around them. The cloud of smoke made breathing difficult and they began to cough uncontrollably.

Seconds later, the doors to the bridge opened and an engineer could be heard yelling, almost in a panic. Initially, he couldn’t see either Lily or Logan through the smoke filled haze as he barked orders. “Wake the Captain! The engine’s gone and the boat’s taking on water! Get the passengers on the lifeboats!”

Freaked out, Lily screamed. “My god! Did I just hear him right?”

The alarm sounded. It was a high pitched ringing that pierced the air. Lily wanted to put her hands to her ears, but that would mean taking them away from Logan’s and in that moment, he felt safe. She covered her nose and mouth with the other hand. She could barely see two feet in front of her face, but she could hear the staff running around in a frenzy.

She screamed above all the noise to Logan. “This is bad. I’ve got to go get Megan!”

He nodded. As they were about to go towards the door to the cabins below deck, someone in uniform blocked their path. “We need you two to get on a lifeboat.”

Logan shook his head. “Just as soon as we get our loved ones. We have friends in the cabins below. We need to go get them.”

“Our staff is already in the process of evacuating the guests. It’s too dangerous to let you go down.” Logan was about to sidestep the man, but he wouldn’t let him. “Look, one of the explosions took out our engines, and the other may have affected some of the cabins. The boat is taking on too much water, I can’t let you go down there. I must insist that you two have got to get off this ship and put on a life preserver,
now
.”

Frustrated Logan spoke again. “We can’t just leave our friends.”

The engineer spoke to Logan as if he didn’t understand the severity of their problem. “We’ve had to call in a mayday. We’re doing everything we can to get them off of the boat, and we don’t have any more time to waste. There is a life boat just over there.” The man pointed to it. “Get in it!”

Lily was torn. They both were. After a moment deliberation, they decided to follow the instructions given. The lifeboat was attached to the yacht. There was a small drop to get into it as it hovered over the ocean. Logan jumped down into the boat first then reached up for Lily. She threw one leg over the railing then the other as he pulled her down by the waist into it. Her breathing was heavy, uneven. Logan’s was too. Lily pushed her hair out of her face. “This is crazy.”

A flash of orange light jolted them out of their shock. It was no longer just the smell of something burning, there was now evidence of it, as flames shot out from the stern of the yacht.

Lily was starting to panic. “Oh my god. This ship is really going down. Where is everybody?”

Logan was wondering the same thing. He hadn’t seen any of his friends come up from below deck. Just as dread was starting to consume him, Anthony’s head appeared over the side of the boat. “Thank God you two are over here.”

Logan yelled up. “Where is everybody else?”

“They’re in the other boat on the other side of the yacht. It’s full, so I came over here.”

“Megan too?” Lily couldn’t help but ask.

“Yes. She’s in the boat too.” Just as Anthony was about to jump down into their lifeboat, another explosion rocked the ship. It was louder and more powerful than the first two. It knocked Anthony back onto the deck of the yacht and loosened their boat enough for it to free fall into the ocean. Lily screamed as she fell backward and hit her head on something hard. She felt paralyzed. She couldn’t move or hear anything. Everything went silent then darkness took over.

Lily’s vision slowly came into focus. She had a massive headache, and the lurching of the boat wasn’t helping. The waters seemed angry. It hadn’t felt so unsettled while they were up top on the yacht.

“Good. You’re awake.”

Lily tried to sit up. “What happened?” She touched the part of her head where it ached and realized it had gauze wrapped around it.

“You slipped and hit your head. I wrapped it for you.”

Everything started to come back from the night before. The smoke, the explosion—everything. She looked around her, and there was nothing but blue skies and water. “Oh my god. Where’s the other boat?”

Logan’s face was tight with worry even though he tried not to show it. He sat with one knee raised while the other leg was extended out in front of him. “I don’t know. Somehow, we got separated from them. It was late, and it was dark. In all of the commotion, I couldn’t see or hear anything, and they probably couldn’t either. I’m sure they are fine.” At least, he hoped they are.

Lily didn’t like not knowing for sure that their friends were okay. “Logan, do we even know if they got their boat into the water safely?” Lily remembered Anthony had fallen back into the yacht. “And, Anthony? Is he okay?”

He sighed. “I’m not sure about Anthony. I pray he was able to get onto the other boat. I’m confident they probably were able to get it into the water, but I don’t know for certain. Everything happened so fast. We were lucky because we were already out on the deck.” He had hoped like hell that they were able to get clear of that sinking boat, and they did.

“We’ll have to worry about them later because we’ve got bigger problems. When our boat fell into the water, it must have damaged some things. I couldn’t get the radio or the motor to work. The winds were stronger, and the waters were choppier than they are now when we drifted away from the yacht last night.”

She whispered. “You said that the motor and engine aren’t working. We’re just floating out here? How will anybody find us?”

Logan did his best to try and calm Lily’s fears. “There is probably some kind of tracking device on this boat. Jackson’s yacht and this boat are on the cutting edge of technology. One of the engineers mentioned they’d called in a mayday. Someone will find us soon. We just have to be patient.” Logan didn’t know if anything he said was true. He just hoped like hell that
if
there was a tracking device on the boat, that it wasn’t powered by the same thing that powered the engine.

*****

Lily wasn’t sure how long they had been floating along. She just found herself waking up. At some point, she’d dozed off
again
. It must be the shock of everything causing her body to shut down. Now that she was fully awake, her head hurt, she was hot, her throat was dry, and Lily was thirsty. To make matters worse, the winds had picked up causing the water to swish fiercely up against the boat as her hair whipped across her face. Lily pulled it back as she looked up into the sky. If the darkening clouds overhead were any indication, a storm was coming. “That doesn’t look good.”

Logan looked over at Lily then up into the direction of her gaze. “No. It doesn’t.” He didn’t know how much time they had before the storm was upon them, but it could literally be life and death in their situation. “Think you can you help me with this?” Somehow, Logan managed to create a makeshift sail. “I think there might be an island up ahead. I’m hoping we can steer this boat over to it before the storm rolls in.”

Lily looked at what he was pointing to, but all she could see was sky and water. “I-I don’t see anything?” Still, she got up to help.

“Hold this and be careful balancing yourself in this boat.” Logan threw a rope in her direction as he tied it to some kind of pole.

Lily did as she was asked. She watched as the muscles in his arms bunched together while he pulled on the rope. What was wrong with her? Lily was ashamed of herself for noticing how incredibly handsome this
engaged
—meaning not available to her—man was. Not to mention, they were stranded on a boat in the middle of nowhere and could possibly die!
Get it together girl.
Lily attempted to shake some sense into herself. She shook her head from side to side and repeated in her mind, f
ocus on the rope, Lily.
Like a laser, she zeroed in on the rope as it got tighter and tighter.

Finally, Logan seemed to have accomplished his goal. He wiped the sweat from his forehead and stared at his handy work. “There. That should be it.” Logan managed to tie and knot the rope so that it wouldn’t slip. It was a sail. He’d created a sail and now was turning it in the direction of the island.

He watched intently as the wind caught in the fabric and the boat started to move in that direction. He spoke over his shoulder to Lily. “There’s an emergency kit on this raft. It had a pair of binoculars in it. As I was looking for the other boat, I spotted the island. If you’re thirsty, there are also some water bottled waters.”

Lily eased down on her knees then crawled over to the box. She didn’t want to take a chance of falling overboard. Once she reached the box and opened it, she found it was full of supplies. There was also a first-aid kit
that must be how he bandaged my head
, some other stuff and thank God
water
. She pulled one out. It wasn’t cold, but it was wet and fresh, that was all that mattered. The hot sun had sapped her energy and made her thirsty. She turned the bottle up and downed it in just a few seconds.

Logan turned slowly and walked tentatively back to where he’d been sitting. “Whoa…whoa…whoa. Go easy on that water.”

“What?” Lily’s eyes scrunched together. “I-I was thirsty.”

“I know, but we don’t know how long we might be out here. So, just keep that in mind.”

Lily nodded. “Right.”

He was exhausted when he sat down. It was a miracle that he didn’t fall down. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. Neither of them spoke as they sat in silence. Periodically, Logan would glance at the sky and then the horizon.

“Think we’ll make it?”

“Hmm, what?” He’d been lost in his own thoughts when her words broke through.

She repeated herself as she hugged her knees to her chest. “Think we’ll make it to the island before the rain starts?”

Logan rolled his neck and shoulders. “I hope so. You never know what kind of storm might form in this part of the ocean. They can spring up pretty quickly and be.” Logan stopped talking as he realized he was scaring the shit out of Lily. “I hope so.”

Lily looked up. The sky was blue in the direction of the island but behind them, the clouds were getting darker, and the darkness seemed to be following them. She swallowed deeply then looked out towards the horizon. Squinting even harder, she asked, “Logan is that? I think I can see it.”

He turned around to see what she was looking at. The smile that spread across his face was breathtaking. Logan couldn’t keep the excitement from his voice. “Yeah. That’s it. Hopefully, we’ll get off this boat and find a nice hotel where we can call our families.”

If Lily had been standing, she’d have fallen flat on her face because her knees would have been too weak to support her. She inhaled and chastised herself
again
.

As Logan finished speaking the first drops of rain landed on her wrist. Heightened concerned was etched over Lily’s face. Firmly, she pressed her lips together as the wind picked up even more. The boat started to rock. “I don’t think we’re going to make it to that island before the storm.”