Chapter 14: The Door
The bridge filled with smoke.
Hannah helped the surviving crew toward the upper deck while I searched for another route.
There was none.
The emergency bulkhead had jammed halfway.
Beyond it, flames moved through the corridor.
Behind us, water climbed the stairwell.
The ship was becoming both furnace and grave.
Grant appeared through the smoke.
His face was bleeding.
“We have to hold the door open,” he said.
My body remembered what came next.
Burning steel.
Screaming muscles.
Skin blistering against metal.
I had done it once.
I did not know whether I could do it again.
Grant placed his hands beneath the edge of the bulkhead.
“I’ll hold it.”
“You won’t last.”
“Then help me.”
Together, we lifted.
The metal groaned.
Hannah pushed crew members beneath the opening one at a time.
The heat became unbearable.
Grant screamed through clenched teeth.
I felt old scar tissue tearing across my back.
Mercer stood behind us.
He could have escaped.
Instead, he pulled a knife from his uniform.
“If I go to prison,” he said, “everything I protected becomes meaningless.”
He moved toward Grant.
I could not release the door.
Neither could Grant.
Mercer raised the knife.
Then Admiral Reed stepped through the smoke.
He had boarded with a naval rescue team from the stern.
Reed fired once.
The bullet struck Mercer’s shoulder.
Mercer fell, alive but unable to fight.
Reed helped us hold the door while the final crew members escaped.
“Move!” he ordered.
Grant crawled beneath first.
Reed followed.
I started to lower the bulkhead.
Then I saw Mercer lying behind me.
Flames surrounded him.
He looked at me with hatred.
“Leave me.”
It was exactly what Arthur had said from the balcony.
Men like them believed mercy was weakness because they had never possessed it.
I dragged Mercer toward the opening.
The bulkhead dropped another inch.
My arms shook.
Reed reached beneath it from the other side.
“Celeste!”
Mercer’s uniform caught on a twisted piece of steel.
The ship groaned.
The floor began to split.
I tore the fabric free and shoved Mercer under the door.
Then the bulkhead crashed down between us.
I was trapped on the burning side.
Through the small glass window, Grant struck the steel with both fists.
“Celeste!”
Smoke swallowed the corridor.
I searched for another exit.
Above me, a maintenance ladder led toward an exterior hatch.
I climbed as fire rushed below.
The hatch opened onto the side of the sinking ship.
A rescue helicopter hovered above the water.
The Valiant Crown rolled sharply.
I jumped.
For one endless second, there was only black water beneath me.
Then a rescue line caught my harness.
As the helicopter lifted me away, the ship disappeared beneath the sea.
Mercer survived.
Grant survived.
Hannah survived.
Every hostage survived.
Three weeks later, Arthur Vale entered a federal courtroom.
He looked directly at me as the clerk announced the charges.
Murder.
Kidnapping.
Treason.
Fraud.
Conspiracy.
Before the judge entered, Arthur leaned toward his attorney.
Then he smiled.
His lawyer stood.
“Your Honor, the defense has evidence proving Commander Celeste Ward ordered the destruction of the Valiant Crown to conceal her own crimes.”
May you like
The courtroom erupted.
And the prosecution’s main witness was Vivienne.
