I ran my fingers down one of the wires. It was thick, white, and I had no idea what it powered. I also had no idea what would happen if someone were to rip a live wire out of a wall. Especially while sitting on water. Probably nothing good. But maybe not anything really that bad. Maybe just enough to cause a disturbance.

And causing disturbances was something I excelled at.

I turned off my flashlight and waited for my eyes to adjust again. They did, and I grabbed a handful of wires. I braced my feet against the wall and said a quick prayer.

“Please, God, don’t let me die in here. But if you do, make it quick.”

Without giving it another thought, I pushed against the wall with my feet and yanked on the wires as hard as I could. Nothing happened. The wires had pulled away from the wall a little, and that was it. I let out my breath and panted, my arms slack at my sides.

Well. At least I wasn’t electrocuted.

But I was still stuck in this place.

Building up courage was a little harder the second time, because I was afraid I’d somehow damaged the wires and just touching them would light me up like a sparkler. But after a few readying breaths, I planted my feet on the wall again, wrapped my hands around the wires, and pulled.

Something loosened, and then a wire pulled free completely. There was a muffled cry of surprise. I opened my eyes to see the strip of light had gone out.

It worked. Holy shit! It worked! Score another one for no plans, Martinez.

I released the wires as if they were on fire and thrust myself forward, feeling for the lock. I found it, swiveled it upward, and pushed the door open just a fraction. There were about twenty people in the room, most of them standing at the bar, and the ones that weren’t were so wrapped up in the drama of a power outage, there was no way they would see me. Not if I moved fast.

So I moved fast. I didn’t even bother to shut the door behind me. I spilled out onto the carpet, got to my feet, and booked it to the stairwell.

THE REST OF the ship still had power, and word hadn’t yet reached other decks about the outage upstairs. The main deck was wall-to-wall people, some of whom I recognized from Pear Magic, all dressed in fancy gowns and expensive-looking suits. All drinking and talking over one another. It wouldn’t be long before someone would start investigating what was wrong on the upper deck, and then they would find the open storage door and the loose wires inside. I had only a minute or two to make sure the rest of the ship was in the dark.