Chapter 20: Damon's Last Stand

The floor of the corridor ran downhill, and the water at the bottom of it was black.

Veda took the stairs on her hands and her good leg, with Lois hauling at her collar.

"Deck Two," the lifeguard shouted behind them. "The hatch winch is on the gantry."

"He'll have jammed it."

"Then we'll unjam it."

The hold was a cavern of echoes.

The big stern door hung open on its chains, and the sea poured through in a fat grey tongue that rose around the fuel drums.

On the gantry above it, Damon stood with both hands locked on the winch wheel and a coil of chain wrapped around his boots.

He turned his head and looked down at her.

His face was wet, and happy, and entirely mad.

"I always knew you'd come," he said. "You never let anything go."

"Close it."

"No."

"There are nine hundred people on this ship."

"Nine hundred people who'd rather follow a woman with an axe than a man with a plan," Damon said. "I'm only doing what you'd have done."

It hit her, because it was true.

She would have done it, in the first life.

"I'm not her anymore," Veda said.

"Everyone's her," said Damon. "Wait and see."

The water reached her knees, and the ship tilted another degree.

Veda looked at the chain.

It ran from the door up through the gantry and into the wheel, and it was as thick as her arm.

She could not cut it.

She could not climb that ladder on her leg.

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