On Top//Topper Thornton

forty two

We get settled back in the container.

JJ scoffs. "You seriously didn't grab nothing, not one single gun?"

"We tr... we tried, okay? I got attacked," John B tells him.

"This is why I should've gone with," JJ insists.

"Let me get this straight. You five, with no weapons, decided you were gonna hijack this tramp steamer on your own?" Cleo asks. "Do you have any idea who these people are? Eberhimi, if he catch you, he's gonna kill you. Dead. Cut off your fingers."

"Okay. What about waiting until we get to port?" I offer. "At least then, if something goes wrong, we have a place to run."

"No. No, we can't do that," Pope insists.

"Why?" Kie asks.

"Because I've run the scenario over 1,000 times in my head, and our best chances are on this ship," Pope insists. "There's 15 crew members and seven of us."

"Exactly," Kie says.

"It's two-to-one odds. That's the best it'll get. We wait till we get there, they'll trap us," Pope says.

"We have no chance," Topper insists.

"No, Topper, there's something else," John B tells me. "Ward's alive. He's alive, and he's on this boat."

I look at him in disbelief. "What did you just say?"

I saw the Druthers explode with my own eyes. My dad is dead.

John B nods. "Yeah."

"No way," Kie remarks.

"You gotta be kidding me," JJ states.

"Are you serious?" Pope asks.

"It was all a setup, blowing up the boat, the confession to Shoupe," John B explains. "Think about it. That was to clear Rafe's name. And he does what? Goes to the Druthers. And what's on the Druthers?"

"Scuba," Kie states.

"Bingo," John B says.

"So, Ward's alive, huh? And he has the gold and the cross and Sarah," JJ says.

"Thanks for rubbing that in," Kie tells him.

"So he's just gonna get away with everything again, huh?" JJ shakes his head. "Not happening. We're not watching this movie again, right, Pope? You said we need the win. And with her, we're going to the bridge, and we're gonna take it right now. You with me?"

"Let's do it," John B says.

"I'm with you, and I wanna be the one to take that bridge," Pope states.

"That's what I'm talking about," JJ tells him.

Cleo laughs. "He's gonna take the bridge?"

"Yeah," JJ says.

"He couldn't even take me," Cleo states.

"First of all, I was going easy on you," Pope insists.

"Seriously?" JJ asks.

"I went easy on you," Cleo argues.

Kie shushes them.

"Shut up," John B tells them.

"She didn't even..." Pope starts.

John B cuts him off, "Relax, all of you."

"If you're really with us, if we use that knife, we can go up into the bridge, hold it up against the captain's neck, then we go on the intercom and make him tell the rest of the crew to meet up in the forward hull. Once they're in the same place, bam, we lock them in there, and we take back what's ours," JJ explains.