Chapter 15
Chapter
Fifteen
SAWYER
Wind howled and thunder rolled as a storm lashed the Cove. Sawyer stood gripping the bars of the jail cell, his forehead resting against the cold cast iron. His breaths were hard and fast, and his muscles ached, strung far too tight with the defeated strain of trying to get out.
This had been a mistake.
The call of the water, the pull toward Ciaran was a physical beast in his chest clawing to get out. The pain was excruciating. It was desperation and hopelessness, a separation that burned like acid in his core.
Locking himself in this cell had been a terrible, terrible mistake.
He had food and water and a phone... which would be great if he had anyone he could call. Which he didn’t. He had his last resort with him, too, which he would use if his death didn’t come quick enough. But he did have resources to survive. Logically, he knew this. And he wanted to live.
But above all that, he had an insatiable need to not be where he was.
He’d shaken the bars, stupidly tried to pry them apart, but they were the old old kind, from when things were made to last; the solid wrought iron bars were built directly into the concrete.
They didn’t even budge a millimetre. He had no hope of squeezing himself through.
Because he was, regrettably, human.
Oh, how he wished he was cephamorph.
He felt like he was dying. He felt like...
Like his heart and ribs were in splinters. Like he wanted to die.
He briefly wondered how bad the pain would have to get before it killed him.
For one awful moment, one moment when the pain was almost too much to bear, he wished it would.
But he stood there, trying to catch his breath, trying to stop his mind from delving into dark and dangerous places, and he waited.
For an age, an eternity, and he cursed how time was so strange here.
When the door to the police station opened, Sawyer thought it would be Ciaran returned safely from his expedition, smiling all warm and handsome. He could almost see him in his mind, and his heart leapt, filling with hope and relief—
But it wasn’t Ciaran.
It was a woman. She walked in as if she owned the place, without a stitch of clothing on, her long blonde hair wet and stuck to her body like wavy seaweed tendrils. She was pale and slender, soft and silver, water pooling at her bare feet.
She was beautiful.
She was familiar.
The same woman Tobin had brought here not so long ago.
Oh my fucking god.
She stared at Sawyer for a long beat. “Hello,” she said, her voice sweet, and Sawyer knew then. He was certain. The voice that had called to him, the voice that sung for him, was hers.
He took a step back from the bars, his blood running cold. She stepped forward, and he took another step back, and another.
“You will come with me,” she said, her voice like bells, soft and lyrical. Beckoning.
“No,” Sawyer said. Well, he’d meant to. He wasn’t sure any sound came out.
She smiled as if she’d expected nothing less and stepped closer to the bars between them.
She raised her hand and caressed one iron bar, and then her hands morphed into greyish-purple gnarled tentacles, and she pried the bars apart.
The metal protested for just a moment, screaming the way metal does before it bends and breaks.
Then, with no more than a little effort, she snapped the bars and bent them like straws, the twisted metal prongs sticking out at odd angles. Then she smiled sweetly at him.
Sawyer backed up against the wall, his heart hammering so hard now, it hurt.
Fighting would be futile, pointless, he realised, and his thoughts turned to Ciaran.
How he loved him, how he was so grateful for what little time they’d had.
How it was nowhere near enough. They were supposed to have forever, but he was grateful for every minute they’d shared all the same.
He thought about Ciaran’s smile, his copper-coloured eyes. The way he laughed, the way he loved. Sawyer thought about how his death would kill Ciaran, and Sawyer was sorry for that. He was sorry for that most of all.
He didn’t want Ciaran to suffer, to feel any pain.
“You will come with me,” she sang again, alluring and entrancing....
Sawyer refused to give in. He kept Ciaran in his mind, his anchor in this storm of horror and terrible things, the only thing keeping his sanity intact.
She was in his mind now. Her song, her voice, beckoning for him to join her.
I’ll take you to him, she lied. I’ll take you into the water, where you long to be. Come with me.
No, Sawyer said. Then he took his last resort out from the waistband at the back of his jeans, and for one briefest moment, he considered putting his gun to his head and pulling the trigger.
She’d have no hostage then, no victim, and maybe this would all be over.
Maybe his self-sacrifice would put an end to it and save his consortium.
But it was the image of Ciaran in his mind that gave him pause. He would fight for him. He would die fighting for him.
So he pointed the gun at her, flipped the safety, and pulled the trigger.
Bullet after bullet hit her, centre mass, but her skin shimmered greyish purple and... and just absorbed the bullets.
No blood, no wound. She didn’t even flinch.
What the fuck?
But her eyes turned black like a shark’s, dead but for the rage that lurked within them, and her lips curled back to reveal a mouth filled with too-sharp teeth.
Sawyer recoiled in shock and fear. In horror. And a long, thick, grotesque tentacle reached out and smacked the gun from his hand so hard, it hit the wall and shattered into pieces.
The bones in his hand did, too.
Pain shot through his palm, but before he could react, her tentacle wrapped around his forearm and pulled.
He heard the wet snap before he felt the pain, his arm broken for sure. And his hand. And yet, the pain wasn’t so bad.
Her wretched tentacle touching him seemed a worse thing to endure.
It was bulbous and gnarled, cold and unwelcome.
Nothing like Ciaran’s touch. His tentacles were sensual and sure. Hers felt like a precursor to death.
She dragged him outside into the biting rain, oblivious to the odd angle of his arm, and headed across the street.
She was so strong, her grip like a vice, her stride effortless despite Sawyer trying to find purchase with his feet in an attempt to delay the inevitable.
Across the street and almost to the pier, to the water, she stopped walking. Sawyer struggled to get his feet beneath him, still trying to pull his broken arm free.
She let him go.
He fell on his arse and scrambled back, his arm useless, but the pain.... Oh, the pain. The rain was coming down hard, like ice needles in his face. He couldn’t see twenty metres in front of him. If it was the rain, the clouds, the mist, or his fading consciousness, he couldn’t be sure.
But he blinked and blinked, making himself focus. He then saw the reason why Lusca had stopped.
A tall figure was coming down the jetty, pulling on some shorts as he stalked toward them, fury rolling off him like waves.
Ciaran.
“Sawyer?” he yelled. His skin was shimmering, glimpses of copper in the rain. Sawyer could have wept and laughed with relief, but he pushed himself back some more. He wanted Ciaran to see that he was still alive. Still moving.
Sawyer could sense his concern. He could feel how his hearts were thrumming.
“I’m okay,” he said, even though he wasn’t. Not really. Which Ciaran could feel, no doubt.
Then Fray and Tobin were behind him, and then Hendrix, Kellan, and Dylan were too. Like soldiers. Like saviours.
With Lusca’s attention on the consortium in front of her, Sawyer tried to get to his feet, but then Ciaran saw Sawyer’s arm, and he roared. The sound came from somewhere deep inside him, and Lusca widened her feet and crouched, as if ready to fight.
But then more people climbed out of the water and came forward. The New Zealanders and the Norwegians. Lusca did a double-take at Pania. She was shocked to see a woman among them, that much was clear.
But then two other figures emerged onto the pier. Aurin, Sawyer recognised, and a man he’d never seen before. He was a foot taller than Aurin, and a foot wider too. He had pale skin, jet-black hair, and striking yellow eyes.
Lusca saw him, and her reaction was immediate and visceral. She bared her teeth and hissed.
Sawyer didn’t know who the visitor was, but Lusca clearly recognised him. Her sharklike teeth dripped saliva, and her dead eyes flashed with laser focus.
The others parted to make a path for the stranger, but Aurin stayed close to him, and the moment Aurin reached out and touched his arm, Lusca let out a loud burst of energy that hit everyone like a shockwave, knocking them all off balance.
Everyone froze for a split second, eyes wide, some looking to the newcomer, others to Ciaran.
She lifted her hand regally, as if reaching for the newcomer, but then she opened her maw and let out a sound that came straight from hell.
Everyone covered their ears, but it was too much for Sawyer. The sound went through his head like an icepick. The intensity, the pain, dropped him to his knees, his vision going hazy at the edges until it dragged him under and into the darkness.