A wheeze?
Laura didn’t bother waiting. She knew what she heard: the sound of someone struggling for air as they were strangled to death. She shouted once—a desperate and wild “Nate!” into the darkness in his direction—and then she grabbed hold of the rungs of the ladder and jumped, throwing herself down in as controlled a way as she could.
The atmosphere below was totally different. The electric lighting gave a yellow tinge to the hold, full of stacked boxes and barrels that obscured her vision of the darker shadows. But that didn’t matter. She didn’t need to see the shadows.
She could see the two of them right in front of her, in the middle of the lit space. Schafer rolling around on the ground, clutching at his neck, and behind him—
Jens Makks?
There was no time to work with the shock that echoed through Laura’s very being at the sight of the young son of Elias, at seeing him holding that rope around Schafer’s neck. There was no time to process the reality that if he was strangling Schafer now, he must have strangled all of the others.
There was only time to try to save Schafer, to stop him, and to prevent him from taking one more life.
Laura lunged forward and joined the fray, forgetting completely the notion of her gun given the fact that there was no way to aim at one without aiming at the other. She grabbed hold of Jens’s hands, ignoring the rope and instead going to the source of the actual power and strength, trying to wrench his fingers away from the rope itself. He struggled, fighting to keep his grip. Both of them uttered wordless cries as they tried to be stronger than the other, and Schafer was still rolling and kicking, trying to throw Jens off, but his face was going dark with blood, with lack of air…
Laura knew that she had to do this fast. Schafer didn’t have the luxury of a fair fight. She spun around, turning her feet toward him instead of her hands—and kicked down on Jens’s fingers as hard as she could.
Her action was rewarded. Jens howled in pain and let go of the rope. But Schafer didn’t get up or gasp for air or turn to fight him off further. He slumped to the ground, his face going slack. Laura shot forward to catch him, and in that instant, Jens was gone, springing toward the ladder.
“No!” Laura shouted, feeling the moment of the decision snap her in half. She could stay with Schafer and try to revive him, keep him alive, and make sure he was okay. And maybe he was okay, just stunned. If so, there was nothing much she could do that couldn’t wait ten minutes, and by that time Jens would be gone.
Or she could go after Jens. Because if he got away, he could go and kill someone else—even now, right now, tonight, before they had a chance to catch him again.
Hoping to God that she wasn’t leaving an innocent man to die on his own, Laura got up and sprinted for the ladder, reaching the bottom of it just as she saw Jens clambering off the top.
She had never climbed so fast in her life. Laura finally reached up for the top of the ladder and pulled herself the rest of the way up, hooking a knee up on the deck and using that to push herself out of the hatch, immediately looking around for him.
The deck was quiet, but for the sound of the water.
Where was he?
The only way he could have escaped so fast without her hearing something would have been if he went overboard. Maybe not even into the water—he might have just grabbed a rope and hung over the side, waiting for her to leave the ship in search of him so he could climb back on.
Laura rushed to the side and looked over, searching the silver-tipped waves for any sign of him, checking the side of the ship itself—
And something yanked tight against her neck, pulling her backwards and off her feet.
Laura only had time to register the fact that it was happening to her too—that he was going to strangle her with a rope the same way he had all of his victims—before she was on her back, the wind knocked out of her. She wanted to roll to the side, try to get some air, but he already had the rope tight around her throat and there wasn’t enough oxygen getting through. She couldn’t twist away from him—he was too strong. He was young and working on adrenaline, and with the wind knocked out of her, she was still trying to recover.
Laura looked up, tilting her head back just enough to look at his face. It was cold and pale in the moonlight. His eyes were sad, but his mouth was a hard line. It was a mistake. He had more access to her throat. He pulled tighter, one hand in either direction, the rope crossed in an X behind her neck.
Laura tried to breathe, tried to pull in air desperately with gasps from her mouth and nose, but there was nothing coming through. It was a horrible feeling—there was nothing covering her mouth and nose at all, and yet the air wasn’t getting through, wasn’t getting to where it needed to be. She could hear her own blood pounding in her ears, louder even than the waves, so loud that it overtook everything.
The sound of her own heartbeat. A sound that might soon stop forever if she couldn’t…
Laura reached behind her, scratching at his hands, trying to do anything to stop him. He shifted, for a moment the pressure abating only a tiny amount, and then moved his hands out of her reach. She struggled to flail in his direction, hoping to catch him again, but she couldn’t see anything anymore and he was behind her, her arms not at full strength. Absurd thoughts flickered through her mind as darkness began to cloud her vision.
She hadn’t seen this in a vision. A vision would have been useful. She was glad he hadn’t seen her gun, or he could have just shot her and ended this even quicker. She wondered if Schafer was alive. If he was, did it matter? Jens would go back for him. Would he string them both up? One figurehead each, or both at the same time? Would he be able to do it at all? Nate would be here sooner or later. He would have to run. Nate would know who he was: his DNA was under her fingernails now. If the coroner didn’t mess this up too, Jens would be identified. Unless he threw her overboard and washed the evidence away.
Overboard…
They were right by the railing.
He was focusing everything he had on the rope. Down there, Laura remembered, Schafer had been rolling around with Jens hanging on determinedly like a cowboy at a rodeo. Stopping himself from letting go of the rope at the expense of his stability.
What if she exploited that?
Laura knew she was on her last gasp. She hadn’t been able to get any new oxygen. The effort this would cost her would be everything. Afterwards she would fall down and, if it hadn’t worked, die.