“If you can tell me—” she put her hand on his shoulder “—I’d like to hear.”

She gazed into his eyes and she looked so...sincere. Like she cared. Who would care? He gave an incredulous crack of laughter. “What makes you think there’s more than the Amazon debacle?”

“No one becomes a survivalist based on a happy childhood.”

His brief spurt of bitter amusement faded. How did she know? “I can’t tell you. I’m not the strong man you imagine me to be. Every time I remember, I break a little more. If much more of me crumbles, there’ll be nothing left.”

He had warned her, and still she hugged him. She was affection and kindness, and he...he was painful memories of a lost and broken childhood. “I’m here for you, and you feel solid. This house won’t fall in. Its foundation will hold us here on the hill. The furnace is working.”

She was reassuring him. When had the roles reversed?

“We’re warm,” she said, “and the voices in the wind aren’t really voices. It’s a storm off the ocean, and it, too, will pass.”

As if in protest, the wind shrieked like a soprano as she died a terrible stage death. Rain slammed against the windows and rattled the front door. Elle gasped as if a salty wave had slapped her face, and she was back on the boat...

She swung. She hooked him behind the back and yanked, burying the barbed point into his flesh.

Even with her impaired senses and through the roar of the wind, she heard him scream. Breathing, gasping, using the railing, she dragged herself to her feet.

Still screaming, he staggered, clawing at the metal rod. He grasped it, braced himself and pulled.

She couldn’t believe it.

Like a giant fish hook, that barb must have torn flesh all the way out, and he just...did it.

He should have been on his knees.

He should have been dying.

He looked at her, huddled against the rail. He looked at the hook, shiny and deadly. He adjusted his grip. He started toward her again, and the whites of his eyes glinted with madness or satisfaction or pleasure.

Now she realized he was a monster, a zombie, impossible to kill.

And he would murder her in the most painful way possible.

Wildly she looked around for an escape.

The wind paused. The rain ceased. For one moment, far away and high toward the east, she saw a light. If she jumped into the sea in hopes of reaching shore, she would likely not survive.

But if she stayed onboard the ship, she was going to die a terrible death.

Grabbing a flotation ring, she climbed the railing and flung herself into the violent churn of the Pacific Ocean.