"Katherine Mitchell!"
Huffing irritably, Katy smoothed down her dress as she slipped back into the main room, annoyed at being caught. "What?"
"Where have you been? This isn't the time to be sneaking off–"
"You can talk, mother."
Ronnie furrowed her eyebrows in slight confusion for a moment, before grasping her daughter by the arm and tugging her to the side. "Stop it. You're making a show of yourself."
"Leave it out." Katy muttered. "I bet you haven't had a go at Dad for smacking Max in front of everyone, have you?"
"What your father gets up to is nothing to do with me."
The younger blonde snorted. "Yeah, right."
"Can we talk for a minute?" Patrick requested politely, appearing beside them and attracting Isaac's attention away from the blondes.
"There's nothing to say."
Katy suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable, feeling as though she were intruding on something private that she shouldn't be a part of. Clearing her throat, she motioned that she would leave them to it, nudging her mother to walk away as well, but Isaac shook his head and signalled for her to sit down. Ronnie rolled her eyes and stalked away, moving to lean against the bar bad-temperedly.
"You know what, I've had it up to here with you. You've been jumping down my throat all day." Patrick announced.
"You're just no different from the rest of her blokes!" Isaac told him with a shrug.
"You know what? This isn't just a fling, you know. Me and your mother… we are connected, the same as you and me."
"Patrick? What are you saying?"
As Isaac's mother appeared, Katy stood and strode away quickly, not wanting to get caught up in a domestic. She had enough trouble with her own family and had absolutely no interest in getting stuck in the middle of another one.
Her mind wandered back to the problems Whitney was facing. She pointedly avoided meeting anyone's eyes as she skirted the dance floor in search of her friend but, before she could get very far, a thunderous bang filled the air and the floor moved underneath her feet. The boat was thrown violently to one side, suddenly listing dangerously at an angle. She stumbled, grasping onto the arm that had reached out to steady her.
"What the hell was that?"
"We've hit an iceberg!" Mo wailed dramatically.
"I think we must've hit something serious, man." Patrick added.
Katy nodded, smiling weakly as Isaac tightened his arm around her waist, silently asking whether she was alright. Her eyes swept over the rest of the room, noticing that Jack had instinctively rushed towards Ronnie, checking that she wasn't hurt. Katy's gaze quickly sought out Denise, realising that she, too, had noticed what her boyfriend's first instincts were.
"Katy?" Roxy lurched towards her unsteadily, grasping onto her niece for support. "What the fuck was that?"
"No idea."
"Ladies and gentlemen, please may I have your attention?" The captain requested as Dancing Queen was cut short and a tense silence fell over the cabin.
"I hope you're the flaming stripper." Mo called out, the fear evident in her tone.
"What's happened?"
"No need to panic, but there has been an incident in the wheelhouse," he continued, ignoring their comments, "and we all need to evacuate the boat immediately."
"You and your sodding drowning jokes," Katy muttered at her aunt, "bloody tempting fate left, right and centre."
Roxy pouted at her. "Hey! This ain't my fault."
"Incident? I thought I heard a gunshot." Tina announced, panic obvious in her tone.
"Yeah, I did!"
"An incident? What sort of incident? What? Are we sinking?"
"Kat! Can you believe this? Where's Leo DiCaprio when you need him?"
"This has got to be some sort of sick joke, right?" Katy asked, looking around in disbelief.
"The RNLI has been called, but for now we need to get everybody off at once." The captain told them firmly.
"You must be joking!"
"Oh, no, shush, Mo!" Denise ordered, something more than panic in her tone. Her eyes flickered back to Jack and Ronnie once more, the pair still standing incredibly close together.
"Could everybody please remain calm and move towards the top deck? There will be life rafts available, which we will be evacuating from. Members of my crew will be on hand to assist you. Thank you."
As they were ushered towards the exit, Katy broke free of Isaac's hand on the small of her back and pushed through the people trying to leave the cabin. She didn't care that she was receiving questing looks and comments as she headed in the opposite direction to everyone else, dodging the grasp of anyone who seemed to be trying to stop her.
"Whit?" She called out, gazing around desperately for her friend. "Whit? Where are you?"
She pushed through people and doors alike, calling for her friend and ignoring the blaring of the alarm. There was no way she was leaving the younger woman behind. Katy would never forgive herself if she got on the life raft and something happened to Whitney; she'd been a terrible enough friend as it was, especially recently.
As the water started rising higher and higher, Katy started feeling desperate. There was still no sign of her friend and she knew that time was running out. If she stayed below deck searching for much longer, Katy knew that she was going to be in serious trouble.
"Whitney?" She called out again, straining her ears for any hint as to where she might be.
Just as Katy was considering that perhaps Whitney had got past her and was above deck somewhere, or even in one of the life rafts, there was an ominous rumbling sound. Turning, she was just in time to see a great surge of water sweeping around the corner ahead and rushing towards her along the corridor. Before she could even take a breath, let alone think about moving, she felt the pressure crashing into her and sweeping her off her feet.
The confused swirling of rushing water buffeted her around as though she was a rag doll, throwing her into the walls on either side of her and, for a couple of minutes, Katy fought against it to no avail. Desperately she scrabbled for something to grab hold of, anything that would give her some control over the situation. Finally, her hand closed around the metal railing of the staircase that led upwards and she used all of her strength to drag herself up towards the deck.
"Oh my god!"
Two bodies barged into her on either side, grasping and tugging her to a standing position while she tried to catch her breath. Desperate fingers combed through her hair, pulling her into a tight hug. Someone else rubbed roughly at her with a blanket, apparently fighting a losing battle to get her warm and dry.
"Katy! Where the hell have you been?" Ronnie demanded tearfully, pulling her daughter into yet another hug. "We thought… we couldn't find you anywhere. We looked and looked…"
"We thought we were going to lose you." Roxy agreed, wrapping her arms around her niece as well. "They wanted us to get on the life raft, but we said we wouldn't leave without you."
"What happened, darlin'?" Jack demanded, pulling her away from the blondes and into his arms.
"Whit… where's Whit?"
"Whit? Was she down there with you?" He looked at her seriously. "Katy?"
She shook her head in confusion. "I don't… I don't know. No, I don't think so. I couldn't find her. I was looking for her and then… all this water knocked me off my feet. I thought… I thought I was going to…"
"You're OK, baby." Ronnie assured her, hugging her tightly again. "You're safe."
"But Whit…"
"You need to get on the raft, now." A member of the crew commanded them.
"We can't leave without her!" Katy told them agitatedly.
"You need to go, now." The crewmember repeated, ushering them towards the raft.
"But–"
"She'll be OK." Jack assured his daughter firmly, pushing her down the ladder and onto the raft, helping Ronnie and then Roxy to follow. "Whit will be fine."
"Whit!"
There was still no sign of her as they started floating away from the ship. Tina, sitting beside Katy, was just as agitated as the young blonde, calling out for Mick. Denise joined in, calling out to Patrick, the whole atmosphere tense and terrified as they bobbed on the water.
"They could be on another raft." Denise tried reassuring everyone, herself included.
"He can't swim very well." Tina sobbed as Roxy wrapped an arm around her shoulders.
"He'll have a life jacket, won't he?" Max told her, not very convincingly.
"Is that… Keanu?" Denise pointed out a figure being hauled out of the water by the lifeboat crew.
"Why is he…?"
"Jack!" Max pointed to someone else in the water.
"It's Ben." Jack moved to the edge of the raft and started leaning out, reaching for the young man in the river.
As Denise tried to caution her boyfriend and Ronnie and Roxy attempted to stop Katy helping him, Jack and Max managed to haul Ben into the raft. The rescue seemed to make the brothers realise that life was too short, that their relationship was more important and they embraced tightly for a moment.
"Ben?" Katy peered down at him, realising that something was wrong as he gasped and writhed slightly on the bottom of the boat. "Ben? What's wrong?"
He simply stared blankly up at her, shaking his head and struggling to forced breath into his lungs. Pulling her daughter away, Ronnie motioned for Roxy to sit with Ben while she held Katy in her arms and sobbed tears of relief into her hair.
The noise of the boats, the screeching of the sirens and the flashing blue lights were doing nothing to diffuse the tension. The panic was prominent in the air as everyone worried for the fate of the others who'd been at the party with them. No one knew who else had been rescued and who might be in danger and that, in itself, was almost more frightening than their current state bobbing along, apparently aimlessly and endlessly, in the cold and dark.
"Mum… where's Whit? If something's happened to her I'll never forgive myself…"
Ronnie said nothing, but pulled her daughter more firmly against her, tucking Katy's head under her chin and rocking her gently.
Finally, they reached the dock, apparently the last but one raft to reach safety, where they were pulled up onto solid ground. Katy screamed with relief as she saw Whitney, pulling herself free of her mother and sprinting towards her. She threw her arms around the younger woman and ran her hands through Whitney's hair soothingly. The brunette clung on tightly, both of them crying in relief.
A couple of moments passed, before they pulled back at Jack's shout that Mick was on the last raft. Katy moved forwards to look over the railings, before Ben, standing beside one of the ambulances and looking incredibly confused, caught her attention. She had just taken a couple of steps towards him, when Jack pushed past in the direction she'd just walked.
"You need to arrest me." Whitney was saying. Katy's heart dropped into the pit of her stomach and she leapt forward to try and stop what was about to happen. "Look, I know it's bad timing but… I killed someone. He's on my kitchen floor."
"Shut up!" Katy hissed at her, before turning to the police officer. "Don't listen to her… she banged her head pretty hard. I mean, look at her! Does she look remotely as though she's in any state to be reliable at the moment?"
"Katy, it's fine… I have to do this."
"No… Whit... don't…" Katy tried to argue with her, a hand on her arm pulling her back and lowering her arm so that the officer wouldn't hear. "You don't need to. I said I'd sort it."
There was no time for anything else before Whitney stepped forward and was led away, leaving Katy and Jack staring after her. Before the blonde could even think about arguing or repeating her assertions to the police that Whitney didn't know what she was saying, Ronnie appeared and pulled her towards an ambulance.
"I'm fine." Katy tried to tell them, but no one would listen.
Ronnie had explained about her cancer and transplant and the paramedics were taking no chances. They had her in the back of an ambulance and hooked up to an IV before she knew what was happening. No arguments had any effect and, although she felt like a fraud considering she was sure there were people in worse situations than she was, Katy couldn't stop them whisking her into a hospital bed and running all sorts of precautionary tests.