The sun was sinking toward the Atlantic, turning the decks of the Aetheris Dawn gold. Music drifted across the pool, champagne flowed freely, and the company’s top performers were doing their best to enjoy a vacation they hadn’t paid for themselves.
Kai Reed had spent the last three hours making sure they could.
His shirt clung to his back. His sneakers squeaked against the damp tiles as he crossed the lower deck with a tray of empty glasses. He’d only been invited on the cruise because Kael Rainer, Head of Sales Operations, wanted someone to handle the errands no one else was willing to do.
Apparently, an intern counted as someone.
“Reed! What’s taking you so long?”
Kael’s voice carried across the pool.
Kai turned. His supervisor was sprawled in a white lounge chair, an expensive watch on his wrist and a gold chain hanging over his unbuttoned shirt. Beside him, Zara Marlow, the company’s top sales representative, was stretched out on a sun lounger.
She held up a bottle of sunscreen.
“Do my back, would you? And make sure you spread it evenly. This stuff costs a fortune.”
Kai set down his tray and took the bottle.
“Of course.”
A few of the sales reps exchanged amused looks. One of them leaned toward his friend and whispered something that made them both laugh.
Zara rolled onto her stomach and moved her hair aside. Kai squeezed some lotion into his palm and began spreading it across her shoulders.
“Careful,” she warned. “Your hands are rough.”
“Sorry.”
“Don't apologize. Just do it properly.”
Kael took a sip of champagne. “You should be grateful, Reed. Most interns would kill for this kind of opportunity.”
Kai kept working.
He’d learned early on that arguing with Kael never accomplished anything. It only meant more late-night shifts, more pointless errands, and another lecture about how easily he could be replaced.
“Look at him,” one of the men muttered. “Getting paid to touch the boss’s favorite.”
“Paid?” his friend snorted. “He’s an intern. Probably thinks the sunscreen counts as a bonus.”
The laughter continued.
Kai finished applying the lotion and wiped his hands on a towel. He was about to collect his tray when his attention drifted toward the VIP cabanas at the far end of the deck.
That was where the people who actually mattered had gathered.
Elara Voss, CEO of Aetheris Group, stood near the railing, talking with two major clients. She wore a white one-piece swimsuit and oversized sunglasses, and even in the middle of a crowded party, she had a way of making people give her space.
Beside her was Lila Hart, a Hollywood starlet whose appearance on the cruise had been announced as a surprise. She was laughing at something one of the clients had said, a lavender cover-up draped loosely over her shoulders.
Kai glanced over for a moment.
A sharp slap landed against the back of his head.
“Eyes down here, intern.”
Kael was grinning.
“Those people aren't for the likes of you. You think Ms. Voss is going to notice some nobody who fetches drinks for a living?”
Zara laughed into her glass.
Kai's ears burned, but he picked up his tray without answering.
“Good,” Kael said. “Now go to the cargo hold and bring up another case of Dom Pérignon. And don't drop it. A single bottle costs more than your monthly salary.”
Kai headed for the stairwell.
He'd made it halfway down when the ship shuddered beneath his feet.
At first, he thought it was just a change in the engines. Then the vibration disappeared.
He stopped.
The music cut out overhead. Somewhere behind him, a glass hit the floor and shattered. The steady hum that had accompanied the ship all afternoon was gone, leaving an unfamiliar silence.
Kai climbed back onto the deck.
The sky had turned a strange, heavy gray. There were no storm clouds in the usual sense, just a pale wall spreading across the horizon and swallowing the sunlight.
The ocean looked wrong, too.
The surface was almost flat, the waves strangely subdued. Several passengers had gathered by the railing, staring toward the west.
“What's going on?” someone asked.
A man lifted his binoculars. Whatever he saw made him lower them immediately.
“Oh, God.”
Kai followed his gaze.
A white line stretched across the horizon. For a few seconds, his mind tried to make it into something ordinary—a bank of clouds, perhaps, or a trick of the fading light.
Then the line grew taller.
And taller.
It wasn't a cloud.
It was a wall of water, rising hundreds of meters above the sea.
“TSUNAMI!”
The scream came from somewhere near the bridge. A moment later, the ship's alarms began to howl.
The deck erupted.
People ran in every direction. Someone shoved past Kai hard enough to knock him against a table. A woman screamed for her husband. Near the pool, a man punched his own girlfriend in the stomach to snatch the life vest she'd managed to grab.
The same people who'd spent the afternoon discussing stock options and luxury cars were now fighting over anything that might keep them alive.
Kai didn't run toward the lifeboats. There wasn't time.
The main stairwell stood beside a thick steel support column, one of the strongest structures he could see. He rushed to it, wrapped both arms around the metal, and braced his feet against its base.
Across the deck, Elara Voss had abandoned her sunglasses. She was gripping the railing, her face pale beneath the fading light.
For one brief moment, their eyes met.
There was no recognition in hers, only the same desperate calculation Kai was making: Is there any way out?
Then the wave arrived.
The impact was like being hit by a building.
The deck tilted violently. Glass exploded. Furniture tore loose and swept past him in a torrent of seawater. Kai's shoulder slammed against the column, and pain shot down his arm.
He tightened his grip.
Water struck him from the side, forcing the air from his lungs. The ship rolled beneath him, and for a moment he was suspended between the column and the crushing weight of the ocean.
He couldn't hear the alarms anymore. He couldn't hear the screams.
There was only the roar of water and the shriek of twisting metal.
His fingers began to slip.
Kai thought of his cramped apartment, his unpaid bills, and the job he'd spent months trying to keep. It seemed ridiculous that he'd spent so much of his life worrying about being fired.
The column tore free of whatever had held it in place.
Something struck Kai's head.
The world went black.