The alarms died.
One second they were screaming.
The next—
Nothing.
Silence swallowed the ship whole.
Not peaceful silence.
The kind that made your skin crawl.
The kind that made you realize how much noise had been protecting you from your own thoughts.
Rain hammered the deck overhead.
Metal groaned beneath the strain of the storm.
Somewhere far below, the ocean slammed against steel.
And Allison Croft stood in darkness trying very hard not to panic.
Again.
The blast doors had separated everyone.
Lucian was somewhere on the other side.
Theo was missing.
The federal team had vanished into different sections of the ship.
And Clara—
God.
That little girl was still trapped somewhere.
Allison closed her eyes briefly.
This wasn't how her life was supposed to look.
Two months ago she had been making presentations and arguing with Anthony over quarterly reports.
Now?
