31. Vesper
VESPER
I keep paddling, my heart in my throat as I realize how close we just were to being drained by the Leech.
Locke flicks Stryker the bird behind us and smiles, but I don’t dare instigate him.
Stryker had said he had plans for me besides draining me.
I don’t know what those plans are and I don’t want to think about the way he makes my lower stomach tighten every time I see him.
Some traitorous part of me likes the Leech, and that’s really fucking dangerous. Clearly, my ability to pick lovers is just as bad in the Harrow as it was in Dross.
“That guy really has a thing for you,” Locke says, shaking his head.
“Don’t know why,” I grumble, paddling, matching Locke’s speed.
In front of us, I can see Nate in his own boat, cruising at a much brisker pace with his machine propeller.
He doesn’t have to paddle like us, but the machine isn’t super powerful.
He trucks through the water at a steady, slow speed, but it‘s noisy, echoing around us even as he starts to put distance between our two boats.
He looks at us and tips up his weapon again, holding it aloft like a threat. Fucker.
“The feeling seems mutual,” Locke casually adds.
I whip my head toward him, confused he’s talking about Nate. “What?”
Locke shrugs. “I’m just saying you seem into the Leech, too.”
Oh. Right. Stryker. I narrow my eyes. “That’s fucking stupid. He was trying to kill us,” I point out.
“Yeah, well, I didn’t say it was the brightest fucking idea,” he fires back. “Look, I don’t blame you. Luxe bastards are pretty, even I know that. Just keep it in mind in case that mutual attraction comes in handy.”
“How the fuck would it come in handy?” I grumble, glaring at Nate in the other boat, directing my annoyance on his slowly retreating form.
Locke shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe you have to seduce him next time to get away.”
I meet his eyes. “You think there will be a next time?”
He nods. “Did you see the obsession flickering in his eyes? He’s got it bad for you, Hyena.” He grins. “You two do have pretty intense chemistry.”
“Shut up,” I grumble, focusing on paddling now.
“He’s not wrong,” Svetlana chips in. “You and the Leech have an iskra.”
“See, even the bug sees it,” Locke says, gesturing to Svetlana.
The praying mantis turns to him and clacks her arms together. “If anyone here is a bug, Bone Breaker, it’s you.”
I shake my head, ending the conversation before it can turn into threats.
I look away from Locke’s probing gaze and Svetlana’s displeasure at the cold.
Because of that, my eyes find Nate again in the boat as he slowly gets further ahead of us.
I’m watching him, my lips pursed at the thought of him surviving the Harrow after what he’s done, when another movement catches my eyes.
At first, I can’t make sense of it. The water rises up behind the boat, ripples flowing away from something at its center. Something dark grey and black sticks up out of the water and then dips back down, following after the noisy boat. I’ve never seen anything like it before.
I frown. “What is that?” I ask, stopping my paddling. “Do you see that?”
Locke stops paddling as well and turns in the boat to follow my gaze. His brows furrow. “There’s three of them, whatever they are.”
When he says that, I realize he’s right. There are three separate ripples as something moves through the water after the boat.
We watch as the boat dances on the ripples, Nate none the wiser that something is chasing him.
I consider calling out to warn him. I even open my mouth to do so, but then the image of his wife and child in the snow flicker in my mind again, and the NPC he’d raped.
Slowly, I close my mouth and settle in to watch.
One of the things hits the propulsion system on the boat and the sound of the roaring cuts off suddenly. Nate whirls in the boat, his face pinched in anger when his momentum starts to slow and he’s left floating on the water.
He’s at least a hundred meters away, but with the stillness of the air around us, I can still hear his, “What the fuck,” all the way from where we are.
He beats on the propulsion machine with his weapon and pulls on the cord again.
Nothing happens. We watch as he tips the machine forward, lifting the propulsion tip out of the water.
There’s nothing at the end of it.
“Oh, dear,” I whisper, watching closely. “It looks like he’s stranded.”
“Indeed, he is,” Svetlana replies, peeking from my furred hood.
Locke shoots me a look at the clear glee in our voices.
“What a shame,” Svetlana adds, braving the cold to get a good view of the scene before us.
Apparently, I’m not much different from the bloodthirsty praying mantis, after all.
Nate seems to realize he’s fucked now and moves around the boat, rocking it violently as he searches for some way to paddle. He sees us in the distance and waves his arms.
“Hey!” he shouts. “Hey! We can work together if you help me!”
We don’t answer back. He’s an idiot to think we would help him after the way he’d threatened us. My eyes are on his face, watching his expression as he tries to school his anger to appeal to us. That’s how I see the moment he realizes there’s something in the water. Something big.
He kneels back down, his hand curling around the sides of the metal boat for balance. “What’s that?” he asks, reaching for his weapon he’d set in the bottom of the boat again. “What the fuck is that?”
I force myself not to blink, the cold wind making my eyes water as I keep them open. I don’t want to miss it. My gaze remains locked on him as the first of the three creatures reveals more of itself.
A long narrow snout appears above the water, its body slick and grey. As it moves, I catch sight of a lighter gray color on its bottom and spots running all along its body. It’s large, much larger than the boat. It blows air out of its nose and dives back down.
Locke frowns. “It’s . . . cute?”
“It’s big,” I whisper. “There are three of them.”
“Maybe they’re just curious,” Locke hazards.
“They took out the propulsion,” I murmur, meeting his eyes. “They’re just playing with their food.”
Locke’s eyes widen and he turns back to the scene unfolding before us. None of us make a sound, not wanting to attract the attention of the three creatures circling Nate’s boat.
“Help me!” Nate says, waving at me. “Hey! You two! Come get me! Please! I’ll . . . I’ll give you my pistol! I’ll do whatever you want!”
We don’t bother answering. Why he thinks we could paddle into the middle of that and survive saving him, I don’t know, but assholes like him don’t think like that.
They only think of themselves.
I’ve met many “Nates” in Dross. Sure, Dross is all about survival. It’s brutal, and difficult, and you have to do things you don’t want to. But there’s a difference between people like me, who did it to survive, and people like Nate.
They enjoy the bad things they have to do. Get pleasure from it even.
Perhaps, we’re not much different in some ways, though. Because I’m about to get a whole lot of pleasure from watching this.
I don’t know what the creatures are, but I can sense their malignance even from here. They circle the boat, bumping it with their backs, teasing Nate as they play. He’s screaming threats at us now, angry that we would dare ignore him.
“You fucking rats!” he shouts. “I’m going to shoot you!”
He indeed points his weapon at us and fires off a projectile that goes past us and hits the water.
Neither one of us moves, afraid to make any noise and attracts the monsters.
One of the creatures hits the boat harder and Nate redirects the weapon toward them.
He squeezes it one, two, three, four times.
On the fifth squeeze, the weapon clicks and nothing happens.
“Oh, damn,” Locke whispers. “Looks like his weapon is limited on projectiles.”
“Yeah,” I whisper back, watching raptly.
The first creature comes crashing out of the water onto the boat. It’s large and thick, large flippers on the front that it uses to move. The boat immediately tips forward with the weight of the creature as it opens its mouth and reveals sharp, terrifying teeth.
Nate screams as he tips forward toward the creature, water splashing over him at the movement of the creature.
He throws his apparently now useless weapon at the creature as a last resort.
It bounces off the creature’s head and splashes into the water.
He doesn’t pull another weapon, either too panicked to remember his inventory or not having anything else.
He’s clearly spent most of his time in the Shatterlands. Items are harder to find here.
I lean forward, watching him as he clamors up the boat, trying to get away from the creature, but there’s nowhere to go.
He’s in the middle of the Frostbit Sea, all structures too far away.
While there are massive boats in the distance, they’re too far to reach with no way of moving through the water.
“Help me!” he screams at us. “Help me! Please!”
As if we could do anything. As if we would want to.
We watch silently as the first creature slides off, back into the water, throwing Nate violently back forward across the boat.
It rocks back and forth, water splashing into the boat as the creatures make large waves and making it sink lower in the water.
They swim faster, hitting the boat over and over again, making Nate scream with each movement as he clutches the metal sides in fear.
We watch the creatures work Nate into a panic, watch them seem to enjoy his screaming, the tension in the air building as we float silently on the gentle sea, gently being pulled along by the current.
Svetlana moves closer to my neck, as if offering comfort or seeking it.
I’m not sure which, but I accept her touch. She needs the warmth.
The tension in the air breaks, and the creatures seem to switch from playing . . . to acting.