Chapter 64: Madeline
When I open my eyes, everything is wrong.
There’s a shrill, piercing sound ringing in my ears—like a fire alarm going off inside my head. I can’t tell if it’s real or in my skull, but it won’t stop. The sky’s spinning. No—the world is spinning. I squeeze my eyes shut, and the motion only gets worse, like I’m trapped in a washing machine.
I try to move. My body won’t listen.
Voices start bleeding through the static. Muffled at first, then clearer, cut apart by the ringing that keeps splitting my head in two.
“Madeline!”
Finn’s voice—high, frantic.
Then, “She’s—she’s not—shit, she’s bleeding—”
Bleeding? Who’s bleeding?
“—I told you to double-tie the line, you idiot!” Liam’s voice, panicked and breaking.
“—I did tie it!—”
“Move!” Jake’s voice cuts through them, sharp and cold. “Both of you—back the fuck off!”
The sound hits me hard enough to jolt my body.
Boots scrape against the deck. My heart kicks.
“Jake?” My voice sounds small, distant even to me. “What—”
“Don’t move,” he snaps, close now—so close I can feel the vibration of his words more than I hear them.
I blink, forcing my eyes open, but all I see at first is light, the blur of a face, the shape of someone kneeling beside me. The world shifts, sharp and nauseating, so I shut them again.
“Stay down, Madeline.”
The sound of my name like that—steady, commanding—drags a shiver up my spine.
“I—what—what happened?” I breathe out, but the words barely come out, tangled and weak.
There’s a low curse above me, rough and quiet.
“Fuck,” Jake mutters, and it’s not angry—it’s something darker, heavier.
I feel his hand—large, warm, the heel of his palm pressed flat against my chest, right between my collarbones. “Lie back,” he says, voice gentler now, but still with that edge of authority that makes my pulse race.
“I’m fine,” I whisper, because that’s all I can think to say. I try to move again, but his hand doesn’t budge.
“Don’t,” he says, firmer. “You’re not fine. Don’t move.”
My head is spinning so badly I couldn’t if I wanted to. My body feels heavy, pinned by his weight, and even though I know it’s because he’s trying to keep me still, there’s something in the way he says it—low, controlled, mine for the moment—that makes the air around us thrum.
“Jake,” Finn’s voice wavers, “I swear, I didn’t mean—”
Jake doesn’t even turn. “Didn’t mean isn’t good enough. Get away from her.”
“But I—”
“I said move!” The words crack like thunder.
I flinch, dizzy all over again. Jake’s hand softens against my chest immediately. “Easy,” he mutters, quieter now, but it still carries that weight. “Stay down, please.”
Please.
I've never heard those words coming out of the twins' mouths.
I try to open my eyes again. Everything’s tilting, but I can see him now, really see him. His face hovers above mine, brows drawn tight, jaw locked. He looks furious. Not at me—at something.
“I didn’t—” My throat’s dry. “I didn’t see it coming.”
“Yeah,” he says roughly. “I figured that out.”
Another voice joins the chaos—Liam’s this time, shaking. “We didn’t—she was just—Jake, we can fix it—”
“Enough.” Jake’s tone drops lower, final. “Go. Tie down the rest of the gear before someone else gets hurt.”
The footsteps scramble away, and for a moment, it’s just him and me and the wind. I can smell the salt on his jacket, the faint cologne he wears under it. His hand’s still pressed lightly against me, not hard enough to hurt, but enough to keep me grounded.
He mutters something under his breath—soft, almost like he’s not talking to me at all.
“Christ, Madeline…” He exhales hard, the kind of breath that sounds like it’s meant to steady him.
The edges of the world are getting clearer now—the sound of the water slapping against the hull, the whir of the engines. My ears are still ringing, but I can hear enough to know the chaos has quieted.
“Jake?” I manage, blinking up at him. “Am I—”
He cuts me off. “Don’t talk. Not yet.”
The words shouldn’t sound caring. They should sound bossy. But there’s something about the way he says it—controlled, low, like he’s holding everything in by sheer force—that makes my chest tighten.
He glances over me once more, scanning for something. His expression hardens. “Fuck,” he mutters again, quieter this time, but the curse sends a chill down my spine.
“What—” I start, trying again to sit up, but his hand presses me back down.
“Madeline,” he says, low, warning. “Do not make me hold you down.”
My breath catches, not just from the words but from the way he says them—calm, dangerous, final. My pulse is a wild drum in my ears.
I lie still. My voice comes out small. “Okay.”
He studies me for a second longer, like he doesn’t trust me not to move, then finally shifts his hand away. “Good.” He glances over his shoulder. “Reid!”
The world starts to tilt again. A second later, Reid’s heavy footsteps thunder down the deck, and the moment his shadow falls over us, I feel smaller somehow.
He crouches beside Jake, his eyes scanning over me with that same sharp, assessing look he gives everything. “Is she—”
“Conscious,” Jake cuts in. “Might have a concussion. Door hit her hard enough to knock her down.”
Reid grunts, eyes flicking from the latch to the ropes to Liam and Finn, who are still hovering uselessly near the railing. “We’ll deal with that later.”
He looks back down at me, jaw tight. “You dizzy?”
I can feel my vision slowly fading to gray, feel another set of hands, this time on my thighs, rough, warm. I want to stay conscious just to keep feeling them there, along with Jake's hand. But the world is spinning, and their voices are fading, letting me hear just one last time in a rough, low voice, "stay with us, Trouble."
Then everything cuts to black.