Everything I had ever relied on — my name, my money, the soft cushion of a life where problems were handled by other people — was suddenly worth exactly nothing, and I was going to live or die on what I personally could do in the next six hours.

I had never in my life been so completely alone.

And strangely, once I understood that fully, the panic drained out of me and something harder took its place.

My stomach turned over.

The drug was surging back now, dragging at my eyelids, and the sea outside the hull gave a long low roll as if the ocean itself were leaning in to listen.

It was not yet six in the evening.