Chapter 17 - Into the Abyss
The panic was instantaneous. Water surged through the ventilation grates, roaring like a waterfall as it cascaded into the cargo hold, rising from our shins to our waists within ninety seconds.
"Up! Everyone up the ladders now!" Rhys roared, his deep voice slicing through the screams like a clarion trumpet.
He didn't grab a weapon; he became a human machine of salvation. Rhys reached down into the flooded container, lifting two young boys onto his shoulders and thrusting them up the companionway toward our tactical team waiting on deck. He returned immediately, wading waist-deep into the freezing water to carry an elderly woman through the swirling current, his muscles straining against the weight and the violent listing of the ship.
I handed the toddler to a waiting Coast Guard specialist who had just dropped from the second rescue helicopter, then turned back into the darkness of the hold.
"Isadora, get to the deck!" Rhys barked, hauling another young mother up the ladder. "The center of gravity is failing! She’s going over!"
"There's someone still trapped in the rear compartment!" I screamed back, pointing through the dim emergency lights.
Beneath a collapsed steel pallet in the far corner of the hold, a teenage girl was pinned, the rising water already lapping at her chin. She was too exhausted to scream, her fingers weakly clawing at the rusted iron grating.
I didn't think. I plunged into the freezing black water, swimming and wading against the violent suction created by the sinking hull. The cold hit my chest like a thousand knives, stealing the breath from my lungs, but the fire inside my soul refused to let another innocent girl die in the dark.
"I’ve got you!" I gasped, reaching the pallet and wedging my shoulder beneath the heavy steel beam. "Push with your feet! Push!"
The beam was impossibly heavy, slick with grease and sea growth. I strained with every ounce of strength I had, the veins in my neck throbbing, but the metal barely shifted an inch. The water reached the girl’s lower lip. She looked at me with wide, terrified brown eyes, whispering a prayer in a language I didn't understand.
Suddenly, a massive pair of arms wedged beside mine.
Rhys was there. His jaw was set with ferocity, a vein pulsing at his temple as he let out a guttural roar that echoed off the sinking steel plates. Together, with our combined strength, the pallet tore free with a grinding screech of twisted metal.
Rhys swept the girl up into his arms, driving his legs through the water toward the ladder. "Climb, Isadora! Now!"
I scrambled up the iron rungs, the water swirling just inches below my boots. As we burst onto the open deck, the sight was pure apocalyptic chaos.
The Valkyrie was listing at a forty-five-degree angle, her starboard railing already submerged beneath the black waves of Lake Michigan. Two Coast Guard cutters had arrived, their searchlights illuminating the raging blizzard, while three large inflatable rescue boats hauled the last of the survivors across the churning water.
"Last basket incoming!" the helicopter crew chief yelled over the loudspeaker, lowering a rescue hoist directly over the listing bridge wing. "Get in! She’s going down in sixty seconds!"
Rhys shoved the teenage girl into the arms of the rescue diver, who snapped her into the hoist and signaled the winch to lift.
Then, the final catastrophe struck.
A massive rogue wave slammed into the exposed port hull. The cargo ship groaned, rolling violently on its side. A heavy steel derrick boom broke loose from its mooring cables, swinging across the deck like a giant pendulum.
"Rhys, look out!" I screamed.
Rhys saw it coming. He didn't try to dodge away to save himself. Instead, he threw his entire body over mine, shielding me with his chest, driving us both onto the wet, tilting deck plates as the multi-ton iron boom swept over us.
The heavy steel cable whipped across Rhys's back with a sickening, hollow impact.
A sharp, ragged gasp tore from his lips. He collapsed on top of me, his weight heavy and limp, his blood warm against my neck in the freezing spray.
"Rhys!" I sobbed, clutching his face, feeling the slick crimson warmth spreading across the torn fabric of his tactical vest. "Rhys, stay with me! Look at me!"
His gray eyes fluttered open, clouded with agonizing pain, yet the moment his gaze found mine, the only thing in those eyes was raw, desperate love. "Isadora... are you... are you hurt?"
"I'm fine! I'm completely fine!" Tears spilled down my cheeks, hot and bitter against the freezing sleet. "Hold on to me! Do not let go of me!"
The deck gave way beneath us as the Valkyrie plunged beneath the surface.
Water engulfed us—freezing, deafening, and suffocating.
I locked my arms around Rhys's waist, kicking with all my might toward the faint halo of the helicopter’s searchlights shining through the churning foam. I refused to let the darkness take him. I refused to let this city, this war, or these monsters steal the man who had taught me how to live.
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With a final, desperate surge of fury, we broke the surface into the howling air.
Strong hands grabbed my collar. Carabiners clicked onto our harnesses. The winch engaged, hauling us up into the roaring belly of the helicopter as the great iron ghost of the Valkyrie vanished beneath the waves forever.
