Chapter 43
Forty-Three
Angie grabbed Mia’s hand and they sprinted inland.
Sometime in the last five seconds, the maelstrom had doubled in size, a violent tornado consuming everything in its path. Water levels were rising much too quickly, consuming the rest of the gangway, the smaller buildings in its path, and the handful of workers caught in it.
Their screams as the sea harpooned them into her watery grip haunted Angie.
It was strengthening. Still moving toward them.
More buildings crumbled in their path, the maelstrom shattering their very foundations.
Their staff break house. The outhouse that had held Cyrus and the other mer, and nearby storage shed.
The building where they held a staff meeting what seemed like a lifetime ago. When Luke and Eva were still alive.
Angie was breathless. She didn’t loosen her grip on Mia’s hand, but they couldn’t outrun the furious tides that charged at them, like aggressive whitetip sharks chasing down its prey.
“I can’t run anymore. I’m exhausted,” Mia whimpered from behind her.
“We have to keep going. We’ll get sucked in and drown.” Angie panted, her legs like jelly.
The water reached them, and Angie pitched forward with Mia in tow, narrowly escaping the frantic spinning tides that would have sucked them both in.
She tripped on a piece of driftwood, and her knees smashed into the pavement. Losing her balance, she pulled Mia down behind her, one arm across her stomach. Stabbing pain raced down Angie’s shin, and she winced.
They’d made it halfway into the docks. As inexplicably as it had appeared, the maelstrom seemed to settle, the waters receding.
The world slowed, bleary voices coming through in buzzes. Angie stayed on her bruised knees, hands to her head. Her head spun and spun, breaths catching in disbelief. A high-pitched ringing struck her ears, a perpetual siren that all but deafened her.
The voices came together into a coherent noise. Male voices. Bàba and Nick’s, in the midst of a cacophony of others.
“Shut it down! Shut everything down, NOW! I repeat, CEASE ALL OPERATIONS.”
“Everyone, pull back! Get out of the docks!”
Frantic footprints stampeded past her, and a hand gripped her wrist, pulling her to her feet.
“That includes you, Angela and Mia!” Nick’s sharp voice cut into her ears, and she snapped out of her daze, allowing him to pull her up by her forearm.
His palm grazed a deep scrape on her arm from when she fell to the ground earlier, and she gritted her teeth through the searing pain.
“Are you two okay?” Bàba joined them, helping Mia up.
Nick let go of Angie once she was upright, running ahead to corral workers on the dock’s outskirts.
“Y-yeah. I’ll live,” she whispered, quickening her pace to join the others. Mia gave him a silent nod of assent. “Where are we going?”
“Home.” Bàba lengthened his strides, his grip firm on his older daughter.
Around her, people lay hurt and groaning on the ground, others were dead, clothes and hair doused with water and clinging to the ground.
Debris littered the docks. Wood planks with their sawtooth edges, crumbled buildings, and in the distance, boats and yachts floated upside down, some in pieces trailing out to sea.
Angie stopped walking when she came across Ian and Marc’s dead bodies, Marc lying on his back, and Ian lying on his side. Both appeared to have drowned, their eyes wide open and glassy, and foam trailed from Ian’s mouth. As if the sea had swallowed them, and then spit them out in disgust.
Workers around her were screaming, scattering to help the injured, searching for their colleagues and friends. Angie struggled to make out the other terrified, frantic raised voices around her.
She couldn’t. It was a blur.
Bàba and Mia left her behind when a group of men toward the dock’s entrance grew rowdier. Angie stepped on the small wooden bridge overarching a narrow body of rushing water as she moved closer to the crowd.
A violent splashing and a scream beside her caught her attention, and she stopped to look. If someone had fallen into the water, or the mer had crept closer to shore, in the middle of the docks—
A piece of thick rope lassoed around her ankle and tightened. She lost her balance and shrieked as the floor rose up to meet her. Several workers heard and ran back to grab her.
One man’s fingers grazed Angie’s as a large net landed on her head, enclosing her and sweeping her off her feet. Her chest smacked the bridge’s edge, and she cried out, limbs flailing as she crashed into the water below. Voices above yelled her name, and she clawed at the net to no avail.
Her screams faded into incoherent muffling once her head went underwater. Saltwater rushed into her open cut, and her lips parted in a soundless scream.
The net slipped off and a pair of strong arms wrapped around her from behind, pinching her shoulders into her chest. “You almost escaped. Stupid landwalker.” A disembodied voice came from next to her, thin lips pressed against her jaw.
The marks on his arm stood out to her. No matter how she struggled, the sentinel’s ironclad hold prevented her from budging.
Her lungs protested, and her chest ached.
The merman dragged her further to the depths.
When she accidentally swallowed a mouthful of water with a frantic breath, the merman pinched her chin between his thumb and forefinger and turned her face upward, his mouth descending on hers.
With no other choice but to drown, she accepted his kiss, and he breathed down her throat.
When he pulled away, her lips were sore. His kiss was rough and forceful, laced with hatred. A sharp contrast to Kaden’s sweet and passionate kisses, laced with love.
The palace came into view, and abject fear struck.
Her captor took her around back, through the palace. Two sentinels swam up to join them, grabbing each of her legs, fully restraining her.
A carved out, large rock face entered her gaze, covered with sea glass circles, like a rocky honeycomb.
They stopped along a row of prison cells, and he threw the sea glass door open, shoving her inside face-first and slamming it shut again. Angie threw her hands out before her face smashed into the opposite wall.
“The landwalker leader’s spawn.” The merman’s lips curled in contempt.
“By order of Mer-Queen Serapha, you will answer for your attempted murder of Prince Kaden. And dishonoring your end of the agreement you made with her.” His brows drew together, obsidian eyes drilling holes into her, and Angie cowered.
“We will return when we have word from her.”
Attempted murder? Dishonoring their agreement? No, no, no!
Then he was gone, leaving her alone and pressed against the glass door, pounding in useless desperation.