Undertow (9 page)

I threw all the leftovers I could find into the microwave to warm while I held a large pot of soup to the stove and stirred it. The rhythmic motion soothed my nerves, but even as it did, I could feel the waves becoming increasingly erratic, battering the hull that separated me from an icy cold, watery death. It was a disturbing thought, and I did my best not to dwell on it. As my mind struggled to focus on something else, a voice startled me.

“So, Aesa, tell me something,” Damon purred as he stalked around behind me in the kitchen. I immediately felt like prey to a predator. “Did your father bring you on this boat to torture us all? Because this
feels
like torture.” His voice moved nearer to me while I continued to stir the soup on the stove. But my focus wasn't on that task; I needed to figure a way out of the situation, and quickly. Suddenly, the weather outside seemed far less important.

I had known Damon was trouble the moment I saw him, and his subsequent attitude had done nothing but confirm that initial perception. The boys didn't seem to notice it, but I knew his kind: women haters, the lowest of the low. I wouldn't have been surprised if he'd done his time for sexual assault charges. He reeked of them.

“I wouldn't imagine that's why he did it, Damon. He seemed to want to spend time with me. I don't think he gives two shits about what my presence does to you, but I know what he will care about. If you lay one hand on me, he'll toss you into the Bering Sea himself. I doubt anyone would miss you much. You don't seem like the friends-and-family sort to me.”

“Feisty. They always start that way,” he said, his voice sounding distant and lost in memories. It only further confirmed my suspicions. “But, in the end, they always break.”

He came around to my left side, blocking any chance I had to easily walk away.

“What do you want, Damon?” I asked, doing my best to sound irritated and not scared. The truth was he was pretty terrifying, and I wanted to get away from him at any cost, a hard thing to do while trapped on a boat.

Instead of answering, he pulled a long chef's knife from the drawer beside me and began playing with it, resting his finger against the tip while he twirled it slowly, staring eerily at the reflective metal. I almost screamed for help, but I knew that no one would likely hear me over the growing weather outside. I also knew that, if I did scream, it might motivate him to become violent. We weren't to that point yet, and I had no intention of forcing his hand.

“Right now?” he asked, feigning surprise at my question. “Right now, I don't want anything.” He leaned in closer to me, pressing me nearer to the hot element behind me. “I just want you to know that you're on my radar.”

The knife he held was far closer to my face than I was comfortable with, even though he seemed far more interested in playing with it than using it on me. But when he pried his eyes off of it and pinned them on me, every hair on my body stood at attention. I had been wrong about him. He was far worse than I ever imagined.

Unable to pretend he wasn't scaring the shit out of me, I closed my eyes, wanting to block out his image, however futile that act would be. I just couldn't stand staring him down any longer. Thankfully for me, I didn't have to.

I heard footsteps running down the stairs and opened my eyes in time to see Decker lunge at Damon, snatching his knife-wielding arm upward and bending his wrist into an impossible angle until he dropped the would-be weapon. The clanging sound it made seemed to echo off the walls for an eternity. But it was soon drowned out by their fighting. Decker had Damon pinned against the far wall, his forearm pressed against his throat. Damon struggled to pry himself free, but he was smaller and unable to gain leverage against Decker.

“Decker,” I called, slightly scared by the intensity he was pouring into his attack, even if it was well deserved. “You're going to crush his trachea.”

He let up just enough to allow Damon to breathe, but he would not abandon his position of power.

“Afraid you might not get a piece too?” Damon wheezed, baiting Decker. It wasn't a wise choice.

“If you so much as breathe in her direction until she gets off of this boat, I'll kill you, do you understand?” he threatened. “It would look like an accident too. Those happen on fishing boats, you know? How easy would it be for you to slip off the stack into the sea while nobody is looking? Or maybe a loose piece of rope finds its way around your ankle just as a pot is launched and it drags you down to the sea floor with it? Those are things that happen all the time in this line of work. You're relatively new around here. They'd chalk it up to rookie error and never think another thing about it.”

Damon's eyes were hard, but there was a crack in that toughness. Decker was getting underneath his armor. He was afraid that he wasn't lying.

“Are you willing to go back to jail again?” Damon asked, looking to me for a reaction. I gave him nothing.

“If it kept a motherfucker like you away from her, yes. I would.” Decker's words were cold as ice, and I knew he wasn't bluffing. The thought both scared and invigorated me. It was a disturbing realization.

“So you're going to rat me out?” Damon pressed, wanting to know exactly where he stood.

“Not a chance,” Decker replied, moving in closer to his face so that their noses were nearly touching. “I want you to live in fear of what I might do to you. I want you looking over your shoulder every time you turn your back on me. I want you to know what it's like to be intimidated. You're going to live in fear of me for the rest of your time here. You know what I've done. You know I'm good for it.”

I didn't know what Decker meant by his last threat, but I could see the weight of those words on Damon's face. He believed everything Decker said, and, for whatever reason, I did too. There was a sincerity in his threats that made me think that Damon might go missing any day, and, perhaps worst of all, a small part of me—a primal instinct that wasn't committed to saving lives—didn't care.

“Now get your slimy ass back on deck and don't let me see you anywhere else until I tell you otherwise,” Decker ordered, shoving Damon toward the stairway to the door. “Remember what I told you. I'll make it look like an accident.”

Damon staggered up the stairway and out the door before Decker had a chance to elaborate. Once he was out of sight, Decker took a long deep breath, his body facing away from me. His head fell back as he sighed, an attempt to disperse the adrenaline that was undoubtedly coursing through him.

“I should explain,” he started, still not turning to face me.

“No. It's okay,” I replied softly, my voice shakier than I expected. Hearing that, he turned to face me, his expression soft and concerned as if he hadn't just threatened another man's life.

“Damon did some time before he came here,” he explained, not knowing I'd been aware of that from the beginning.

“I know. He has a couple of prison tattoos.”

“You noticed those?”

“We used to see them on patients at the hospital downtown. I put two and two together when I saw his.”

“They are a dead giveaway if you know what you're looking for. I knew he'd done time when I first saw him, and it didn't take more than one night out at the bar with the crew to know why. He's a predator, Aesa. Most likely a rapist. I know his kind; they're easy to pick out if you've spent time near enough of them.” He let his words hang in the air, awaiting my reaction. I had none to give him. I had already figured out where he was coming from. He too had done time. Seeing the understanding in my eyes, his expression saddened. “I got out of jail a few years ago. I've been here ever since. I served a four-year sentence for second-degree assault. I learned a thing or two about intimidation in that time.”

I didn't know what to say. His honesty was commendable, if not refreshing, but the content was off-putting, to say the least. It seemed so unlikely for a person who appeared to be so upstanding and loyal to be capable of nearly taking the life of another. There was more to the story, I could feel it, but there was no way to find out. How do you ask someone questions about something of that nature?

A rogue wave blindsided the ship, nearly knocking me off my feet. I shrieked, falling backward against the cabinets, barely catching the handle of the soup pot as it slid toward the edge of the stove. Decker, having steadied himself with the kitchen table, moved toward me to help.

“I'm fine,” I yelled, putting my hand up defensively. I felt ridiculous for screaming as I had. I didn't want him rescuing me to make me feel even more so.

He froze immediately, shooting a look of concern at me before slowly taking a step away from me. He appeared to think he was the cause of my dramatic reaction. He thought I was scared of him.

“I'm sorry,” he started, continuing to retreat, his sad eyes never leaving mine.

“No, it's not you. The wave—it startled me. I didn't mean it like that.”

He paused, but refused to come closer to me, a look of worry taking over his expression.

“What I did just now,” he started, looking more uncomfortable by the second, “to Damon . . . those things I said. I did that to scare him off.” I could only bring myself to nod in acknowledgment. “There's no guarantee it will work.”

“Okay,” I replied, placing the soup pot in the sink.

“I think that we need to tell your father about this.”

“He's got so much on his mind right now with this storm,” I argued, not wanting to drag him into the issue while he faced the worst storm he'd ever battled. “Do you think Damon will come after me again?”

He shrugged.

“If he's smart, he won't, but I don't trust him where you're concerned. With Robbie still down for the count, there's one less pair of eyes on you. I'm just not sure, Aesa. I don't like it.”

“Well,” I started, weighing the options in my mind. “Let's just get through tonight. It won't matter anyway if we don't survive the storm.” I forced a weak smile, attempting to make light of the circumstances we were in. His tight expression told me that he found no humor in my words. “I'll tell him tomorrow when we're out of harm's way. I promise. Right now, I'm hungry, tired, and, if I'm being totally honest, scared. I just want to finish things up on deck then go to bed. I'll lock myself in my bunk tonight with the dresser pressed in front of the door for good measure if that makes you feel any better about Damon.”

“I'm not worried about him in the immediate future. I think he'll bide his time before he tries anything, if he does at all.”

“Okay, then let me finish up down here. The second we're done eating and preparing the boat, I'll disappear.”

“Fine, but you are not going back up on deck, and I'm staying down here with you,” he insisted, still unwilling to come nearer to me.

“Deal, but if you're going to stay down here, the least you could do is make yourself useful,” I told him, a nervous smile breaking across my face.

“Do you have anything you want to ask me about first?” he prompted, still unmoving other than his involuntary sways with the roll of the boat.

I considered his question before answering.

“Was what happened to you out of your control?” I inquired, purposely leaving my question vague.

“Very much so,” he replied, his voice holding a note of regret.

“And that wasn't the outcome you had wanted?”

“Nothing could have been further from my mind at the time.”

“Self defense?”

“In a way . . . ”

I paused for a moment.

“You want to figure out how to set the table and keep it all from sliding away?” I asked him, indicating the cupboard full of flatware beside me. “But you should probably put that knife away first.”

He picked it up off the floor and made his way to the sink.

“Yes, ma'am.”

After washing it, he came to stand beside me, gently placing the blade back in its rightful home.

“Are you all right? I mean, mentally. Are you feeling okay after that?” he continued to look down at what he was doing while he awaited my response.

“I've dealt with some pretty scary individuals in the ER, but he took the cake for sure,” I told him, mindlessly staring at the pot of soup in the sink before me. “But to answer your question, I'm not sure. I don't know that it's fully set in yet. I will be though. Thank you . . . for what you did.”

He placed his hand on mine, his action begging me to look up at him.

“You're welcome, Aesa. And if you have any questions about what I've told you, you can ask them. I'm not trying to hide my past,” he said in earnest. “I've learned a lot from it. It's made me who I am today, and I'm proud of who I've become.”

“I think you should be,” I replied, the words leaving my mouth before I really contemplated them. I didn't really know him, but at every turn he seemed to be someone completely unlike who he'd claimed to be—a felon. I was an amazing judge of character, having not trusted people for at least a decade. I could read a person without even trying. Damon was bad news, and I knew it the second I laid eyes on him. Decker was anything but and continued to show me why.

I heard a rustle from the hall and turned my head to find Robbie standing only a few feet from us, wearing his prize-winning grin. He looked infinitely better than he had the last time I'd checked on him, a rosy glow now painting his cheeks instead sallowness. His fever had clearly broken.