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  “I hate to say it, guys, but it looks like this is going to get worse before it gets better. There’s a crazy cold front playing heck with the forecasts. It’s pushing some of this storm at us faster than we expected.”

  He stopped and held tight to the upright pole in the middle of the salon as the boat dipped and rose, and dipped again. Coffee mugs clattered against one another in the cabinet. Jane’s camera slid across the table.

  “This kind of thing’s always a possibility, but not to worry,” Dexter went on. “The only thing to do now is sit tight while we skirt around this squall a little farther.”

  “Does that mean we’re changing course again?” Vanessa asked.

  “Yep,” Dex said. He went to the nav station, unrolled a chart, and looked at it. “But just temporarily. Today’s Boomerang Day, and I’ll have us right back on track by tomorrow.”

  Boomerang Day was Dex’s name for the trip’s midpoint, when they came around and headed back toward Hawaii. Maybe that was a good thing, Buzz thought. It meant they’d gotten half of this trip over with. Then again, it also meant that they were as far from home as they’d ever been.

  When Dex looked up from his chart, he seemed to sense something in their faces. He turned toward the group again with his hands clasped in front of him.

  “Guys, I think your parents would be proud to see how brave you’re all being. I know it’s scary, but you’ve got me and Joe up top, handling everything. I just need you to be down here, for one another. Make sense?”

  “Yeah,” Vanessa said quietly. Carter shrugged.

  “Carter?” Dex said, leaning down to catch his eyes. “You got a problem with that?”

  “No,” Carter said. “I just wish I could help.”

  “You can help,” he said. “Down here. Right now, your job is to hang tough, and hang together, so you’re ready to go when we need you on deck again.”

  Buzz looked down at the table, trying not to show his face. He didn’t feel very tough right now.

  “You know what?” Dex said. “I’m almost glad this storm came up.”

  That seemed to get everyone’s attention.

  “Why?” Jane asked.

  “I’ve sailed with some rough-and-tumble crews before—even rougher than you four,” he said with a wink. “I remember this one time, we were out fishing, a couple hundred miles north of Oahu. We got hit with the biggest, fastest-moving squall I’ve ever seen. It was like sailing sideways, with enough wind to blow you right off the deck. That storm made this one look like a little spring shower, and I don’t think any of us thought we were going to see the morning.”

  “Um . . . Dex?” Buzz said. “I thought you said you were glad this storm came up.”

  “Right,” he said. “My point is, we all pulled together that night and made it through. Not only that, but those guys are still some of my best buddies. A hard turn like this just brings you closer together. And let’s face it, isn’t that exactly what your parents wanted you kids to get out of this trip?”

  Just then, the small companionway door at the back of the rear sleeping cabin opened up, and Joe shouted down from the cockpit.

  “Dex? Can you get up here? Now?”

  “What is it?” Vanessa asked, the worry plain in her voice. “What’s going on?”

  “Probably just a loose line. I’ll go find out,” Dex said.

  “You sure you don’t want some help?” Carter said. “I can hold the wheel.”

  Dexter turned and put out one of his big hands to stop Carter.

  “There’s nothing that needs doing right now,” he said. “But I do want you guys to strap on your PFDs.”

  “What?” Buzz blurted out. PFD stood for “personal flotation device”—also known as a life jacket. Dex already had his on, but he’d been working up top. “Why do we need those?”

  “It’s just standard operating procedure for a storm like this,” Dexter said. “You never take chances on a boat.” He pulled the four vests off the hooks where they hung by the stairs and dropped them on the galley table. Then he stopped, just long enough to show his old familiar smile. “There’s nothing to worry about, guys.”

  Buzz glanced around at the others, to see if anyone was buying it. From the somber expressions all around, it didn’t seem like anyone was. But Dex had already gone back up top and closed the hatch behind him.

  “Watch out.” Vanessa scooted Buzz out of the way as she got up from the table.

  “What are you doing?” he asked.

  “I’m calling Dad.” She stepped over to the navigation station and pulled the black plastic satellite phone out of its wall-mounted charger. They’d all been shown where it was and how to use it.

  “But . . . we’re only supposed to use that for emergencies,” Jane said. Just then, another power-ful gust of wind screeched from outside, tossing the boat into a hard tilt. Vanessa barely caught herself on the countertop to keep from stumbling, while the others struggled to put on their life jackets.

  “Yeah, close enough,” she said, and started to dial.

  * * *

  Vanessa held on to the nav station desk and sat herself down as the boat continued to tilt and roll. She didn’t care if Dexter wanted them using the satellite phone or not. Maybe he’d been through worse, but she sure never had.

  The phone wasn’t complicated, either. They’d been shown all of the emergency equipment on the first day, when Dex and Joe had taken them through hours of “boat school” before they set sail. Vanessa hadn’t paid attention to all of it, but this was something she remembered. She dialed zero-zero-one and then her father’s cell number.

  As soon as it started to ring on the other end, she felt tears begin to sting the corners of her eyes.

  “Hello?” her father’s voice came suddenly in her ear.

  “Dad?” Vanessa shouted. “Dad!”

  “Vanessa, what’s going on?” Eric Diaz asked. “I can barely hear you.”

  “We’re in a storm, Daddy. It’s bad. Like, really bad.”

  Jane was there suddenly, reaching for the phone.

  “Can I talk to Mom? Please? Pretty please?”

  Then Carter was there, too. Only Buzz stayed where he was, but he watched just as intently as the other two.

  “Where’s Dex?” her father asked.

  “He and Joe are up top,” Vanessa told him. “Everyone’s okay. I’m just . . . I just wanted to hear your voice.”

  “Listen, sweetie, you’re going to be fine. Dex and Joe know what they’re doing. Just try to hold on and be brave, okay?”

  Vanessa took a deep breath. “Okay,” she said, mostly because there wasn’t any choice. “Is Beth there, Dad? Jane wants to talk to her.”

  “All right. Hang on a second. I’ll get her.”

  But before Vanessa could even hand over the phone, an enormous scraping sound screeched up from under the boat. Everything seemed to stop short with a sudden, violent jerk, as if someone had jammed on the brakes. Vanessa felt herself thrown toward the back of the boat. The others tumbled around, too, and the phone flew out of her hand. A cascade of books, dishes, storage baskets, and swiftly unrolling charts came down on top of her where she landed hard against the aft cabin door.

  “What just happened?” Carter shouted.

  “Did we hit some rocks?” Buzz asked.

  “Dad!” Vanessa shouted. “Dad? Can you hear me?” She started scrambling through the pile of debris on the floor, but she couldn’t find the phone anywhere.

  Instead, her hand landed in cold water. It was soaking the carpet, Vanessa realized. When she looked to her right, she saw it was also pouring in from under the small engine-compartment door.

  At the same moment, Joe came barreling down the galley steps.

  “Joe? What’s going on?” Vanessa said
.

  He clambered over the mess as if none of them were even there, and fell onto the wooden stool bolted in front of the nav station.

  “What are you doing?” Vanessa asked. “Joe, where’s Dex? There’s water coming in!”

  But Joe wasn’t listening. He was holding the sideband radio transmitter with one hand and adjusting a dial on the console with the other.

  “SOS, SOS, this is the Lucky Star,” Joe said into the handset. “SOS, SOS, this is the Lucky Star, do you copy?”

  Whatever was said next, Vanessa didn’t hear. It was swallowed up by a brilliant flash of lightning and a crash of thunder too overwhelming to be anywhere but right on top of them.

  In the next moment, the entire cabin was thrown into darkness.

  CHAPTER 3

  Buzz’s mind was a jumble of panic, fear, and blind confusion. He heard everyone talking at once in the dark, but not what any of them were saying. Jane screamed. Joe was saying something about SOS. Vanessa and Carter were yelling, maybe at each other. The only light in the shifting galley came through the hatchway, from several more flashes of lightning, one after the other.

  He was on the ground, somewhere near the back of the boat. That much Buzz knew. It felt like they had crashed, but if that was the case, why were they still moving?

  The first thing that made any kind of sense was the stinging chill of water, rising fast around his feet and hands. The shock of it sent him into action, moving faster now than he had in a long time.

  He felt his way through the dark, into the rear cabin. It was a small space, so it wasn’t hard to find the two tall steps at the back. Struggling to keep his balance, Buzz reached for the place where he knew the companionway door to be. As soon as his fingers landed on the latch, he threw it open and leaned out into the cockpit, where Dexter was holding on to the captain’s wheel, trying to steer the boat against the storm.

  “What are you doing?” Dex screamed over the wind. “Get below!”

  “We can’t!” Buzz shouted back. “It’s flooding. Water’s coming in fast!”

  He pointed back the way he’d come. Dexter crouched down to see past him, his headlamp shining inside. When Buzz turned to look for himself, he saw Joe herding the others up the stairs on the opposite side. The water had continued to pour in. It was past Joe’s knees already and nearly up to Jane’s waist.

  Dexter pulled Buzz up onto his feet in the cockpit and slammed the companionway door closed.

  “Take the wheel!” he shouted in his ear. There was no question of yes or no. “Hold on as tight as you can. I’ll be right back.”

  “I don’t know how to do this!” Buzz shouted. Carter was always the one begging to steer the boat, not him. And now he was supposed to learn in the middle of the world’s biggest storm?

  “You can do it!” Dex said. “Just hang on!”

  “Wait!” Buzz’s heart was racing as fast as the wind that whipped past him. There wasn’t even time to think. “Where are you going?”

  “To open the life raft!” Dex shouted, just before he left. “We’re getting off the boat!”

  * * *

  Carter stood at the top of the galley stairs in the downpour; Jane hovered just behind him, grasping his waist with both hands.

  Vanessa was there, too, holding on to the small banister for balance. “Where’s Joe going?” she asked.

  “I don’t know!” Carter said, and leaned farther out to see.

  Joe had turned a one-eighty from the stairs and was working his way back toward the middle of the boat where Dex was waiting for him. They quickly started wrestling with the straps that kept the big life-raft capsule lashed to the deck.

  Carter felt a cold sense of dread run through him. They were going to have to abandon ship, weren’t they? This was even worse than he’d thought.

  “Wait here!” Carter shouted at Vanessa and Jane. He clipped himself to the jackline on that side and started to follow back the way Joe had gone. He’d barely taken a few steps before the boat pitched hard again and sent him stumbling to his knees, then flat out on the deck. Even from where he was, though, he could hear the two men shouting at each other over the storm.

  “I don’t think we can launch in these conditions!” Joe yelled.

  “We don’t have a choice!” Dex bellowed back.

  “But how are we—”

  “One of us has to go in with it!”

  That was it. There was no more conversation. Within a minute, they’d freed up the capsule. Each of them took a side and heaved the whole thing into the water, where it opened automatically, unfolding and inflating at the same time. Suddenly, there was a bright orange, canopied disc bobbing on the waves—but it was also drifting quickly away from the boat.

  “GET IT!” Carter heard Dexter shout. “I’ll throw you a line!”

  Carter watched from the edge of the deck as Joe dove without any hesitation. He disappeared into the churning water and then resurfaced several yards away. With some effort, he managed to swim over to the raft and scramble up into it.

  Working quickly, Dexter had already unspooled an orange floater on a line of rope and tossed it straight out to where Joe was. He wrapped the other end of the line around his own waist, wedged his foot against one of the cleats on the deck, and then motioned for Carter to bring the others over.

  When Carter looked back, Vanessa was out on the deck, but she’d clipped herself in on the other side, away from the life raft. And Jane was still peeking around from the stairwell. He couldn’t see Buzz at all.

  “Come on!” Dex shouted. He held on to the line with one hand and motioned for them to stay low as they came. The boat heeled again to the side, and he stumbled to keep on his feet. “Let’s go, let’s go!”

  “Are we getting off the boat?” Jane yelled when Carter reached her. It was easier to nod than to try and answer right now, and he still needed to get Vanessa and Buzz.

  “Hurry!” Dex yelled again. Carter turned to look and caught sight of Buzz somewhere over near the cockpit.

  That’s when the next crash of lightning hit. Even with the storm raging, it was deafeningly loud. Carter saw a bright flash from somewhere near the top of the mast, like an explosion of light and force. The sailboat itself twisted nearly all the way around with a violent turn. The life raft veered off in the opposite direction, and Dexter, still holding on to the line, lost his footing altogether. Before Carter could try to get to him, Dex slammed into the railing, flipped over it, and was dragged all the way overboard by the force.

  Jane screamed.

  “No!” Vanessa shouted.

  In a matter of seconds, the boat was driven in one direction and the life raft in another. It was too dark to see clearly, but Carter could just make out the flashing orange light rigged to the raft and the vague glow of Uncle Dexter’s headlamp in the water as Joe used the rope line to haul him in. Dex was shouting something back their way, but it was impossible to make out a single word.

  Carter stepped onto the rail. He thought about diving in after them, but that seemed like suicide. And he couldn’t leave the others. Instead, he looked around desperately for another length of rope or anything he might use to pull Dex back in.

  But it was already too late. By the time he looked out toward the water again, Dex, Joe, and the life raft had all disappeared completely into the storm.

  CHAPTER 4

  Buzz couldn’t believe what he’d just seen. It all happened in a matter of seconds. One moment, Dexter was motioning him over to get into the life raft, and the next, he was just . . . gone.

  Now the four kids were alone on the sinking boat, left to fend for themselves against the storm.

  Buzz stayed low in the cockpit, his arms threaded around the spokes of the captain’s wheel. There was no trying to steer anymore. It was only a matter of holding on and t
rying not to get swept overboard himself.

  Heavy sea spray and driving rain smacked against his face as they crested another enormous swell. The entire boat seemed to stand on end for a moment, its bow pointed at the sky, and Buzz’s stomach lurched wildly, just before the hull slammed down hard on the other side.

  Keeping to a crouch, he looked around trying to spot the others. Carter and Vanessa were at the front now, hanging on to the rails on either side. Hopefully, they were both still clipped to their safety lines.

  But Jane . . . where was Jane? Had she gone over, like Dexter? Buzz scanned the dark ocean all around him—what he could see of it, anyway. Even if he did spot her, he realized, he’d never be able to save her now.

  Suddenly, another loud, cracking sound split the air. Not lightning this time. Something even closer. It wasn’t until he looked straight up that he realized what it was. The fifty-foot mast towering over his head had begun to sway like a tree about to come down in the storm. And if it did, it was going to fall right toward the two at the front.

  “Vanessa! Carter!” he screamed, but the wind seemed to whip the words right out of his mouth before they could do any good.

  Next came the sound of popping bolts. Then the groan of metal buckling under its own weight as the mast started to fall.

  “LOOK OUT!” Buzz yelled as loudly as he could.

  But the storm was louder.

  * * *

  Carter never even heard the mast coming until it crashed onto the deck, just barely to his left. The impact sent him sprawling on his back again. Fiberglass tore like paper around him. Teakwood splintered and broke off at crazy angles. The mast itself dipped, top first, into the water, and then slid right off the boat like a giant goalpost, taking the entire side railing with it.

  Before he could even try to move away from the edge of the deck, another wall of water slammed into the Lucky Star. It came from the left—port—this time, sending the boat heeling sharply onto its right side.