Triton (2 page)

“Because I love you and sometimes your decisions scare me to death.”

“Well, I hate you,” she said, and before he could react, she sprinted for the door, yanked it open, and was gone.

“Brynn, wait!” Cedar cursed and ran after her, but by the time he made it out the door, she was already a hundred feet up the hallway, running as fast as she could.

He sprinted after her, but just then an elevator opened between them and a surge of people blocked his way. By the time he had shoved through them, she was gone.

At the Sand
Bar on deck fifteen of the
Cypress
, seventeen-year-old Naomi Delacruz slumped at a barstool, already bored out of her mind.

“Could I get another one?” she asked, sucking away the last of her virgin piña colada with a bubbly slurp.

Manny, the bartender, swung around, still polishing a glass, his barrel chest bulging under a Hawaiian shirt. “Just know I’m not carrying your drunk butt home when you pass out.”

She smiled, though it felt insincere. “Oh, so there is alcohol in these. In that case, give me two.”

With a chuckle, Manny prepared the drink and slid it up the bar toward her. She took a sip, and the burst of surgery sweetness in her mouth gave her a lightheaded rush.

Just then a guy about her age came up to the bar breathing hard and looking flustered. She glanced over—and did a double take.

He was
cute
.

Wavy, light brown hair hung down over his forehead, which he swept aside impatiently, and an adorable flush reddened the skin under his high cheek bones.

Inside, she cheered. The first cute guy she’d seen.

“Hey,” he said to the bartender, tapping the bar.

Manny, who was fixing a drink, didn’t hear him.

“Hey bartender,” the guy said louder. “I’m talking to you.”

And anger management issues. Lovely.

Manny swung around. “What can I do for you?”

“I’m looking for my little sister. She’s lost, I’m wondering if you’ve seen her. Blonde, real cutie, you’d know if you saw her.”

“Haven’t. Sorry.”

Alarmed, Naomi butted in. “Your sister wandered off?” On a cruise ship the size of
Cypress
, losing a little girl was not good news. There were a million places she could end up, and it could be hours...
days
until someone finally found her. “How old is she?”

“Fifteen,” he said.

Her prior alarm evaporating in an instant. “Oh, come on,” she sneered. “
Fifteen?
She’ll be fine.”

He narrowed his eyes at her. “She’s not supposed to wander off on her own,” he said, and then he was gone.

Naomi and Manny exchanged an eye roll, and she went back to her piña colada, disappointed. The tally of cute guys who
weren’t
jerks was still at zero.

Halfway through the
shop-lined Royal Promenade on deck five, Brynn felt it.

The floor shifted underneath her. She glanced around at the other guests scattered around the promenade, doubtful anyone else had noticed. The diners at Sorrento’s Pizza feasted on, oblivious.

Then the boat swayed. Though subtle, she sensed the movement in her inner ear. The
Cypress
was casting off.

She ran outside and flung herself against the railing. The ocean breeze caught her long hair and whipped it across her face, but the lifeboats blocked her view.

She darted back to the elevators and took the first one that opened as high as it would go.

Deck seventeen.

She emerged outside the Viking Crown Lounge, out of which leaked a nauseating piano waltz. Ew . . . not here.

She fled down the stairs and burst onto deck sixteen, into full sun. The Florida heat hit her like a blast furnace, and she sprinted to the railing, suddenly giddy.

Brynn shoved past the other passengers and leaned out over the railing, drinking in the sight of the ocean and Port Canaveral. Hulks of cruise ships and tankers floated past, an unreal display of floating cities, each one baking in the heat. The sun kissed her hair, the golden strands glowing as they lifted in the wind.

Then the ship’s horn roared. The sound jolted her out of her euphoria. She clamped her ears, but the thunder filled her mind like a fog, obliterating any chance of thinking. Just as abruptly, the horn cut off, leaving the deck in dumbfounded silence. Timidly, she lowered her hands. Around her, the stunned passengers clapped and cheered, clearly just as shaken . . . and she found herself joining in.

The MS
Cypress
had officially begun its seven day cruise into the Bermuda Triangle.

Kennedy Space Center

In the Royal
Promenade on deck five, Jake’s eyes wandered wistfully from their “outdoor” table at Sorrento’s Pizza to the sliver of ocean visible past the Prince & Green botique clothing store.

He had just seen her.

That blonde girl. She had run right past their table; her silhouette still lingered in his vision. Up close, that face . . . so freaking annoyingly adorable.

Jake turned back to his parents, seated across from him, wishing he were anywhere but here. Maybe after lunch he’d head down to the cruise ship’s fitness center and lift a bit.

“So . . .” Jake began, his third attempt at striking up a conversation. “They’re supposed to launch at midnight.”

“That’s kind of late, Jake-ey.” His mom tugged her sun hat lower, so it blocked most of the right side of her face—a move that had become a nervous tick since the fire.

Jake caught himself staring at the puffy scars visible under the hat’s brim and averted his eyes. “But this is the big one, remember? This one’s
manned
.”

“You go ahead,” his dad said. “We’re probably going to hit the sack early.”

“What do you they’re going to find up there, Dad?”

“I guess we’ll find out.” Like always, his father avoided his eyes.

“You think it’s got anything to do with all that neutrino radiation they’ve been detecting?”

“Just some kind of magnetic disturbance, that’s all,” he muttered. “Hope they don’t crash into it.”

“Come on, Dad, they’re not going to crash into it—”

His dad flinched at the sharpness of his voice, which Jake hadn’t intended, and his gaze dropped to his plate.

“
Jake,
” his mom scolded, patting his dad’s knee reassuringly.

“I’m trying to be
nice
.” Fed up with his parents, Jake tossed his napkin on the plate and stood up. “Whatever. I’m going to go get some fresh air. I’ll see you guys back in the room later.”

His parents didn’t ask him where he was going, they just watched him leave with that sad, regretful stare . . . as if they hardly knew him.

Because of what happened six months ago. Because of what he had done.

Because of the fire.

Jake sauntered out onto the deck and decided he really needed to hit the gym and lift. Just a few sets to get the endorphin rush, the big muscle groups. Then he’d go for a swim.

The blank screen
of Brynn’s cell phone tormented her. No calls. Not from Simon, not from anyone.

And once they hit open ocean, there would be no more reception.

Why did she keep checking?

She shoved her phone back into her pocket, feeling both angry and hurt. Simon had been the first and only boy she had ever been in love with. They had been perfect together.

Until Cedar had put an end to it.

Brynn hung onto the deck sixteen railing, reflecting on her shattered love life. As the
Cypress
cruised up the coast, the port shrank into the distance, replaced by a bare stretch of beach and flat marshes crisscrossed by Air Force service roads. In the noon sun, her hair singed the back of her neck.

All that ocean and all that heat made her want to swim. Yeah, a swim would take her mind off things. She slipped back through the crowd.

Brynn slipped into
her bikini back in the stateroom. Her dad was napping on the bed, his hand still clutched around the empty bottle of scotch. Basically, he would miss the whole cruise. Cedar was probably still out looking for her.

She dragged her big fluffy pink beach towel out of her suitcase, wrapped herself in it, and headed back up to deck fifteen, the pool deck. Barefoot, the soft carpet tickled the undersides of her feet.

She chose the main pool and scanned the poolside for a cute boy to plop her towel down next to.

A real hottie by the deep end caught her attention. Her eyes roved over a chiseled bronze torso, a broad jaw and thick lips, deep-set eyes hidden behind aviator sunglass, a head of curly black hair. She pressed her lips together.

Perfect.

She trotted over to him and chose a poolside recliner two away from his. She recognized him. The guy she had seen playing Hacky Sack earlier.

“Excuse me?” she said. He didn’t move. “Hey, buff guy!”

He opened his eyes, squinted into the sun, and glanced over at her.

This is for you, Cedar. You asshole
. She made doe eyes at the guy. “Do you think you can rub sunscreen on my back?”

He nodded and waved her over.

“Cool, thanks.” She giggled and dropped her towel, exposing her right side to him—and noted smugly the way his gaze descended slowly over her bikini-clad body. She carried the sunscreen over to his recliner. Success—

“There you are, Brynn.” Cedar appeared between them and dropped a load of his own stuff onto the recliner between them. “Awesome, you got sunscreen. Mind putting some on my back?”

Then her idiot brother whipped off his shirt and flashed the entire pool with the whitest skin they’d ever seen.

Sabotaged.

Beyond Cedar, the hot guy settled onto his back and closed his eyes again.

“Put it on yourself.” She uncapped the tube and sprayed her brother with a fat white glob.

Satisfied his sister
had resigned to arm-crossed sulking on her own recliner, Cedar turned to the bro-hulk taking up space next to him. “Hey man, I’m Cedar,” he said, extending his hand.

The guy opened his eyes with a pained expression, but didn’t take his hand. “Jake.”

“Don’t keep me hanging.” Cedar held his palm right over the guy’s face, until he finally took it—about a minute later. Cedar gripped hard. “Attaboy . . . good firm handshake. You here with friends, Jake?”

“Family.”

“That’s cool. Where you from?”

“California.”

“Nice. Why you here in Florida? They don’t have cruises in Cali?”

“Not cruises around the Caribbean.”

“You ever been on a cruise before, Jake?”

Jake shook his head.

“I like your board shorts,” said Cedar. “Where’d you get them?”

“Look man, I’m just trying to enjoy the sun.”

Cedar held up his hands in surrender. “No problem, just trying to make conversation. Oh, by the way—” He pointed over his shoulder at Brynn. “That’s my sister.”

“I get it, bro.”

“No, you don’t get it,
bro
. That’s my sister. She’s fifteen.”

“Cedar,
shut up!
” said Brynn.

“Just trying to make conversation,” said Cedar, laying back on his own recliner. “Just trying to enjoy the cruise.”

Later that night
, Naomi watched the countdown to the launch from her mom’s bunk below the waterline. Every flash on the small flatscreen flooded the entire closet-sized cabin with blue light.

Even on the tiny screen, though, it was hard to miss the behemoth size of the Triton IV rocket—so named because it was NASA’s fourth attempt to investigate the interference zone.

The other three unmanned missions had vanished off the radar once they reached their destination.

They were never heard from again.

In the two years since its discovery, the interference zone had remained a complete mystery. Like a hole in space.

Some people saw it as an omen that Armageddon was near.

“T minus two minutes and thirty seconds,” said the announcer’s voice.

Well, she may as well watch the launch from the decks. She dragged herself unhurriedly off the bunk and slipped into the corridor.

From the deck
sixteen railing, Jake’s gaze wandered across the glassy water to the Kennedy Space Center nine miles away. Earlier, the
Cypress
had sailed within three miles of the launch site, giving the passengers an up close view of the thirty-two story Triton IV rocket that would carry two astronauts into high earth orbit for the flyby. Now, just a few minutes until T minus zero, a constant patrol of military helicopters enforced the exclusion zone back to nine miles.

In the distance, the reflection of the floodlit launch site rippled off the water.

Jake thought of that girl he had met earlier that day, Brynn—her brother had used her name.

Trouble. She was nothing but trouble.

Yet, as far as Jake could tell, she remained the only cute girl aboard the entire cruise ship. Not that he had searched every cabin, but he had an eye for that sort of thing.

And he had a thing for blondes. Such silky blonde hair . . . girls like her drove him crazy.

But she was only fifteen, too young for him. If he tried anything, her brother would murder him in his sleep.

Behind him, the ship’s intercom system streamed the Kennedy Space Center announcer, “All systems are go. We’re about ninety seconds from the launch of Crew Rendezvous Vehicle Triton Four . . .”

He sighed. It wasn’t like he got a choice with Brynn, anyway; now that her brother had no doubt locked her in a stateroom and thrown the key in the water, he doubted he’d ever see her again.

The announcer fell into the familiar countdown. “All engines are go for ignition . . . in T minus ten—nine—eight—”

His heart picked up speed. Around the deck, the
Cypress
passengers joined in the countdown, which rose to a chorus. “Four—three—two—
one!
”

The rocket’s base ignited in a white-hot flare, forcing him to shade his eyes.

“We have liftoff,” said the announcer. “Triton Four has just cleared the tower . . .”