Chapter 21

Akari was sleeping when an alarm sounded, waking her from her nightmare and the ship was suddenly rocked by explosions. Loud ones, coming from above decks and rocking the entire ship—it sounded like an all-out attack, like the end of the world. Something had happened, she thought, to the engines the afternoon before, and the ship hadn’t moved all night. She’d thought they must be working on the engines, but this sounded more like an attack. Had Davos finally caught up with them?

The explosions threw her out of bed and made her heart bang loudly in her chest as the sound pierced right through her. She sat up on the floor, disoriented. She had bitten down so hard on her tongue when she fell that it brought blood. She could taste it in her mouth and gagged a little, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand. The door to his her was suddenly flung open and three swarthy looking men crowded in, dressed in brightly colored clothing with strips of cloth wrapped around their head