Chapter 36
Thirty-Six
Angie
Angie ended her call with Mia, Jack, and Rosie, and slipped her phone into her backpack. Her still-sore muscles gave a slight whine of protest when she climbed out of the car.
Raindrops spattered against her insulated rain jacket, and her rain boots squished against the muddy ground.
She had a half hour before her first class, and she walked on the outer edges of the university, listening to the Salish Sea’s gentle ebb and flow, and occasional crashing wave two miles away.
A National Guard helicopter trailed through the skies, the chuff-chuff of its rotors growing softer as it moved over the seas. A helicopter with the letters MDRT was close behind.
She circled around to the front of the school and walked up the hill it sat on, entering through its gates.
Around her, groups of students gathered, loudly objecting to the captured mer in aquariums, research labs, and universities, asking for their release, one holding a sign with a website on the bottom and in bold text:
Join the movement to free the mer!
We can make a difference together!
A flicker of warmth licked at Angie’s heart; glad she could set a positive example. Her phone pinged with an incoming text and she took it out of her backpack.
It was from Stefan; the first time she heard from him in several weeks. He sent a link to an article from The Creston Gazette with no other context.
She clicked on the link, and with a shaking thumb, Angie scrolled down to the bottom of the article.
The search is still ongoing for a group of five divers who went missing over the weekend.
She texted Stefan.
What’s going on? Are you guys alright over there?
While she waited for his response, she kept walking to her first class. The usually balmy, moist air had become stifling.
The MDRT helicopter hovered in her mind, and she pulled her phone back out, typing in the acronym into her search bar.
M–D–
The ground shuddered under her feet, and she took a step back, catching her balance.
“What was that?” Reesa asked, approaching her from her left side, hot coffee in hand.
Sharp shakes rattled underfoot. “Earthquake!” Angie grabbed Reesa’s jacket sleeves. “Get away from the buildings!”
She ran for her life as the earth shook and jolted underneath them.
When they made it halfway down the hill, a shadow fell over her head. Puzzled, she lifted her gaze.
Above her, the open skies seemed to have turned into night in a blink. Darkness emanated from thick, storm clouds gathering above, hanging inches over the sea line below them, appearing to be shadowed mountains in the distance.
“Really?” Reesa muttered next to her. “We’re going to have a storm, on top of this. Happy Monday, right?”
She wasn’t looking at what Angie was seeing. At the shore, the water had drawn back, leaving the seafloor bare and exposed for the world to see.
And in front of the illusion of mountains, water rose until a liquid wall formed. Angie had to turn her gaze from one shoulder all the way to the other to see it from end to end and sucked in a sharp gasp.
The massive, fast-approaching wave moved, its crests touching the heavens.
A tsunami—its apex painting the skies leaden gray as it rushed for the school, and the surrounding buildings.
It looked like the massive wave that Serapha had once created to smash the docks—if it was double the size.
Cassia and Varin. It had to be.
When it was Serapha alone, the tsunami was terrifying.
With Cassia and Varin combining their Goddess-given magic? Spine-chilling.
But was the earthquake their doing too? How?
This had to be their revenge against wronging their people, for capturing them, for attempting to murder Kaden—for assassinating Serapha, and for capturing and killing more mer.
The ground stopped shaking, thankfully, and Angie only heard Reesa’s squeak of terror before the two sprinted back up the hill.
The storm winds raged and whistled and sang to her, an eerie, ominous melody, and a deadly siren’s song.
Angie screamed as loud as her lungs would allow her to whoever was in their vicinity “Tsunami!”
A commotion rose from the tens of students and professors around her.
Her own booted feet squished and slammed against the muddy ground as she fought to keep her balance. She couldn’t stop looking back and watching the tsunami advance.
The waterwall slowed as it approached the shore, but kept rising, straightening up before its final strike.
The tsunami reached the surface and stormed forth, consuming everything in its path. The buildings on the ground level shattered and cars swept out to sea, including hers. A group of Angie’s peers on the ground level were swept up into the waves and vanished.
Underneath the tsunami’s crest, a massive ship appeared, as if emerging from behind a watery drape.
Smaller ships surrounded it. As it drew closer, Angie made them out. Yachts, small fishing boats, kayaks. The massive ship was a cruise liner.
And it was coming for them on the hill.
She couldn’t stop. She had to keep going and get as high as she could.
The sea was closing in fast behind her. Empty bottles, cigarette butts, plastic bags and metal caps dropped to the floor; the giant wave emptied its trash as it moved.
Angie’s breathing hitched, her breaths shallow as she picked up speed. Sweat poured from every open pore in her body and mixed with the salt spray and raindrops. Her clothes clung to her.
Reesa and her peers screamed and cried, sounding like a buzzing, nonsensical cacophony in her ears.
The tsunami slammed down on them.
She flung herself forward, landing on her chest, pulling Reesa with her, the breath stored in her lungs knocked out of her. The yachts and kayaks hurled over their heads first, crashing into the school buildings that were still standing.
The cruise ship came last; its hundreds of thousands of gross tons rammed into the graduate school, the combined weight with the tsunami causing it to break through the brick building.
A degraded torpedo broke through the smaller, fine arts building behind her and landed by Angie’s shoulder. She whimpered, commando crawling away.
Above her, following the colossal wave, came chunks of a shipwreck. Broken hulls and masts commingled with pieces of the cruise ship, and slammed into the remaining buildings.
A waterfall crashed down onto her head when she tried to stand, throwing her back to the ground.
Trapped under the water’s immense pressure, she curled into a ball and dug her toes into the muddy ground, trembling as cold water soaked her like a heavy barbell had been dropped onto her back and neck.
Around her more screams and yells and cries filled her ears, and the sound of rampant footfalls. She peeked out over her arms shielding her head.
The skies had brightened with a dim light, and the storm receded, leaving in its wake the sopping, wet ruination of a runaway train fleet smashing headfirst into the school.