“Like hell,” she replied, her heart pounding in her throat. “What did you do to me?”
“Tavish used one of Arden’s devices to incapacitate you before you could harm the Doctor any further.”
That he hadn’t been the one to injure her didn’t make her feel better. “You should have let me have him. You had no right to do that to me before I got an answer from him.”
“He had no answers to give you, and if he’s going to be tortured, Luke’s going to be the one to do it. You promised him the Doctor, remember? If you had killed him, all of his secrets would have died with him.”
She did remember. She also knew he was right, but that didn’t mean she had to like it. She wrapped her arms around herself and glanced around. “I can’t stay here. It’s too close. Where’s . . . Where the hell is the door?”
He pointed up. Claire followed the line of his finger and saw an airtight hatch above her head.
“Oh my God.” Her knees buckled beneath her. Her head swam as she gasped for breath. “Where are we?” She didn’t really need to ask; part of her—the paralyzed part—already knew.
“Claire?” Alastair was suddenly there beside her, catching her in his wonderfully strong and warm arms. She felt like such a . . . a girl. “Claire, are you all right?”
“No, I’m not fucking all right!” she yelled. “You’ve put me in a box! A tiny sa b width= little box that’s going to crush the air right out of me!” As if on cue, her breathing became shallow and labored as she gasped for breath. Her lungs couldn’t seem to get enough.
“It’s a submersible,” he told her. “Claire, we’re going after Howard. Claire!”
She heard him, but she couldn’t respond. It was such a tiny little box inside the ocean. Even if she got out, the water would claim her. Surround and suffocate her. Oh God, it was worse than the closet. Worse than any cell could ever be. Blackness swamped her mind, tugging her down. Blackness was good. If she passed out, she couldn’t panic anymore.
“Claire.” He shook her. “Speak to me. You’re all right. I have you. Close your eyes.”
That she could manage. When she did, he pulled her against his chest and soothed her with a gentle rocking motion. “Just keep them shut and listen to me. Can you do that?”
She nodded against his waistcoat. Her starving lungs continued to gasp for air, but it wasn’t quite as bad as it had been. Large, warm hands stroked her back, easing the chilling pinpricks that assaulted her skin. The darkness behind her eyes, inside her own mind, was the one that didn’t terrify her.
“You’re safe.” The low, rough timbre of his voice washed over her. “The walls are sturdy and strong. They will not collapse on you. We have plenty of air. Slowly breathe in through your nose and out through your mouth, pet. That’s it. I won’t let anything happen to you. You are all right.”
Claire focused on his voice and tried not to think about those horrible times as a child when she misbehaved and her father would lock her in the closet as punishment. The more he did it, the worse it became, until she would start to shake at the very thought of the closet. The sight of one was enough to make her throat go dry. Being “good” had become a full-time occupation for her.
In through the nose. Out through the mouth. In through the nose, and out through the mouth.
But she wasn’t in a closet right now, and Alastair wasn’t her father. She wouldn’t have ever gotten on this thing if she’d been conscious, and now they were on their way after Howard once again. All was not lost.
She had to pull herself together. She would not allow fears from years ago, caused by a man long dead, to stand in the way of what she wanted. And she wanted to catch up with Stanton Howard.
She remained curled against Alistair until most of the panic passed, leaving her feeling drained and even more shaky than she’d been when she woke up. Oddly enough, she didn’t feel the least bit ashamed. He had seen her at her worst and her weakest, and he hadn’t exploited it. He hadn’t made her feel inferior or broken.
“How much longer?” she asked.
“I’m not sure,” he replied. “Not long. An hour or so. They got a head start, and then we lost a little more time getting on board. The ship he’s on is one of the fastest passenger ships in the Bright Star line, and this is an old sub, but we’re gaining on her. I’m going to get you justice for your brother, I promise.”
Justice for her brother. Not that he was going to get Howard for the sowaont> Wardens or for his own advancement. Of course, those things had to be a consideration, but he had thought of her as well. He made it sound as though they really were partners in this rather than prisoner and Warden.
“Thank you.” She sniffed. Damn it, she’d been crying and hadn’t known it. She pulled away from him and wiped at her eyes with her fingers. “I’m sorry. You must think I’m an idiot.”
“No, I don’t. We all have things that scare us. I’m afraid of heights.”
She peered at him from beneath damp lashes. “But you helped take down Erlich on a dirigible.” She’d heard about it because Erlich was a Company agent who had infiltrated the Wardens and began working on his own agenda without Company consent. It had been a shocking scandal when it broke, and Five—Huntley, blast it—had been right in the middle of it, along with Alastair.
In fact, if it weren’t for Robert’s death, if she didn’t want Howard and to stick a spike in the Company’s eyes, she would have knocked him out the night before and taken him as her own prisoner. That would have earned her some respect from her fellow agents.
He nodded and continued. “And I thought I was going to piss my trousers the entire time. I refuse to let my fears get the better of me.”
“You’re not even like a real person,” she told him, half joking. “You don’t let fears or insecurities stop you. You do the right thing at all times. Don’t you ever make mistakes?”
A chuckle escaped him. “Plenty. Remember the woman who tried to kill me? And you were right. I did allow myself to develop feelings for Arden. Even though I knew there was no chance of ever truly claiming her affections.”
“So, your mistakes have been with women?” No wonder he tried to deny their attraction. She was a reminder of every bad choice he’d ever made with a female.
“Most of them, yes.”
“When you look back on this, will you think of me as a mistake?” She forced herself to meet his gaze, because she knew that he would regret ever laying eyes on her by the time she was through.
He smiled at her—a little lopsided affair that made her heart hitch. “Maybe. Though it was a thoroughly enjoyable kiss.”
Heat filled her cheeks, much to Claire’s horror. “Yes, it was.”
Alastair’s smile faded. “I’m sorry about what I said earlier—about wondering if you’d been involved with Howard. It was cruel of me, given what he did to you. Not to mention petty.”
She shrugged, though she felt as if a huge weight had been lifted from her. “I would have thought the same.” In fact, she was thinking about what he’d said in the carriage, wondering why Howard hadn’t killed her. At first she’d thought Howard had made a mistake—but he rarely did that. Then maybe she thought he’d wanted to humiliate her, let her live and be taken into custody. She still wasn’t completely convinced of that, but she wasn’t paranoid quite enough to come up with a different reason.
In all truthfulness, she’d already mentioned the best explanation—he’d been wounded and there were witnesses to summo sssen an the police. He’d chosen escape over her death. She would have done the same thing.
Alastair gestured toward the console with his thumb. “I need to steer this thing. Want to help? It may prove to be a good distraction.”