She knew, because there was no sleep. There was only watching the dark turn to light. There was a morning with no breakfast. An afternoon with only water from the tap to fill her belly.
And then an intrusion.
Thrilled, Joan barged in. “I don’t know what you did, but it worked! He spent the night and all day in Jessica’s room. Everyone’s talking about it.”
Eugenia would not throw up. She would not. “Then I’ve fulfilled my side of the bargain.”
Scoffing, Joan waved a hand. “I mean, it was only one night…”
Parroting the posture, the gesture, and the tone, Eugenia found solace in hate. “And I mean, it’s only one artery I need to cut.”
“Young lady.” As if that phrase might work…
“Old hag.”
Plucking an innocuous plastic keycard from her pocket, Joan dropped it on the floor. “This will open any door on the ship.”
It looked so bland, so anticlimactic as freedom lay discarded at her feet. “I’ll need water. Supplies.”
“I never said I’d give you that. You’ll die out there either way. Die sooner and save yourself the trouble of suffering.”
God, the woman really had a mean streak. One Eugenia felt was both enviable and a lash she deserved. “Like Brooke?”
Waving off the sting, Joan said, “The new girl is named Chrissy. She has red hair too. He always was one for a redhead. I’ll change the schedule so she entertains him tonight. Go while he’s distracted.”
Blue dress held to her chest, Eugenia came forward to swipe the keycard off the floor. “Won’t he know you gave it to me?”
“The door wasn’t locked when I came in. Far as he knows, you snuck out during the night and threw yourself overboard.”
Fair enough. “Which way do I go to get off the boat?”
That, Joan did assist her with, the verbal map set to memory, Eugenia pulling on a dress badly in need of a wash and setting off—in the opposite direction.
Joan was a liar. If she lied to her beloved captain, she was lying to Eugenia too.
But the key card did work, and as the sun set, level by level, on a massive ship designed to hold thousands, only three hundred men roamed. Men who were easily avoided as she wandered through what might be the home of a new civilization.
Cruise ships were generally tacky, draped in color and experience. While wandering, she found a dark casino, banquet halls with crystal chandeliers, guest rooms yet to be pillaged for supplies. Whatever she might find was stuffed into a pillowcase: pre-bombs cola bottles. Crackers wrapped in plastic way past their expiration date. Bags of nutritious nuts.
A proper pack lacking the familiar weight of written knowledge.
Nelson’s Textbook of Pediatrics, Volumes I and II… she’d forgotten them on Aaron’s bedside table.
Let the ship keep valuable knowledge. Let the doctors here learn from it.
Maybe the kids would benefit.
For heaven knew, she didn’t deserve them.
Brooke’s face and genitals were a testimony to that. The captain’s broken heart payment enough.
Long past dark, a crisp breeze cut through her dress. Level 4—economy class rooms that were full of dust and smelled in need of an airing and boasted balconies. Standing in the wind, she heard the distant sounds of the Level 15 festivities, imagined she might even hear a search party, and dropped the small cabin’s in-room refrigerator into the water below. Once the surface tension had been upset and chance of a severe impact injury massively decreased, she threw herself over. Simple physics. Landing feet first with not a single brok
en bone.
Pack dragging her down, the room’s sofa floatation cushions strapped to her body buoying her up, the current had its way with her.
And for once, she didn’t fight back.