Chapter 21
INGA
Inga’s past few minutes had been miserable. She was sure Luke had been shot, but she couldn’t examine him without risking both of them falling out of the boat. Meanwhile, Tor had tried making a run for the shore, but the powerboat cut them off and herded them further out to sea.
The waves were staggering, washing over the gunwales and nearly swamping the boat.
Inga could no longer see the shore as the storm closed in around them.
As she clung to Luke’s limp weight, and Tor struggled to keep the boat from capsizing, the powerboat pulled alongside and matched their speed.
One of the soldiers grappled the boats together with a metal device that clamped to the side of theirs.
“Hey!” Inga yelled as two of them began to climb into the smaller boat.
The only thing on their side was that the soldiers were struggling with the waves as much as they were.
The two boats, now clamped together, were being tossed around like a child’s toy on the pitching, heaving sea.
One of the soldiers nearly fell overboard while trying to climb between the two boats, and had to scramble back into the powerboat as his comrades grabbed hold of him.
Inga risked letting go of the gunwale to grab an oar one-handed and began trying to fend off the other, who had one foot in their boat.
Luke woke up with an all-over convulsive jerk. Before Inga could say or do anything, he sprang to his feet in the wildly tossing boat. Growling like a bear, he seized the soldier threatening Inga by the front of his tac vest and flung him overboard.
“We have to get this off!” Inga yelled, prying at the metal clamp.
“Got a better idea,” Luke growled, and before she could stop him, he leaped between the boats.
Tor was still struggling with the tiller. “We’re going to sink if this keeps up, and take them down with us,” he yelled at Inga.
Inga thought that the soldiers were in a lot more danger than the shifters in Tor’s boat. Still, she’d rather not lose yet another family boat if she could help it. She went back to struggling with the metal device clamping their boat to the other one.
Luke, meanwhile, was moving with incredible speed for someone she was still halfway convinced had been shot.
He struggled with the remaining soldiers in the powerboat.
The pilot was too busy to help. Luke tossed one overboard, and knocked the gun out of the hand of another.
The fourth and last was trying to help the fifth guy, the original man that Luke had flung into the water.
Inga finally managed to get the clamp off. Their boat swung immediately away from the other one. With the waves flinging both vessels around, they couldn’t have stayed close if they’d wanted to. And suddenly she had the horrifying realization that they were now separated from Luke.
“Luke!” she screamed desperately.
The distance between the two boats grew by the second. Luke was badly outnumbered, unarmed, and in danger of being overwhelmed. If he would only shift—but he couldn’t, she recalled; he didn’t dare.
She stood up in the boat, spreading her legs, and shucked off her rain slicker.
“Inga, sit down!” Tor yelled at her.
“I can’t! I’m sorry, Tor!” she shouted back at her brother.
She decided not to bother taking off most of her clothes; they would probably be flung out of the boat anyway.
“Don’t try to follow me. I’ll be fine. Get back to shore, wait out the storm, and come back with Dad and anyone else you can round up. ”
“Inga, wait—”
Inga didn’t listen. A great wave slapped the boat, and as the bottom rose under her feet, she let the motion carry her over the side.
Her shift happened in mid-fall. There was an instant of uncomfortable constriction as her clothes tore off her, and then she hit the water with a tremendous splash and came up as a bear.
In bear form, she was perfectly comfortable with the chill and the wet; it felt nice.
But even for a polar bear, these waves were hard to swim in.
Inga steeled herself and struck out in the direction where she could still glimpse the powerboat.
She lost sight of Tor and the small skiff almost immediately, and hoped he was heading in to shore.
To do anything else in this storm would be suicidal.
She hadn’t realized how much work the waves would be for her bear form. The powerboat nearly ran her over, and she slapped a paw over the railing and heaved herself aboard, shivering with exhaustion as water streamed off her shaggy fur.
Luke was down on his knees with two guns pointed at his head, but having a bear climb over the railing was sufficiently distracting that while Inga managed to get herself on deck, Luke was able to take down one of his captors and disarm the other.
Inga flattened the last man standing with a whack of her furry paw, leaving only the pilot, casting terrified looks over his shoulder but unable to take his hands off the pitching boat’s controls long enough to do anything about it.
“Is that Inga or Tor?” Luke asked, panting.
Inga gave a gruff snort. She had no way to tell him. But Luke gave her side a tentative pat.
“Inga, right?” he said. She nuzzled his face, which seemed so small to her right now.
And then she became aware of something huge looming over them. Inga looked up in alarm.
Once the boats had ungrappled from each other, the powerboat pilot had taken them back to the ship. Now the boat bobbed along its side, and lines were being flung down.
A sharp pain stung her furry shoulder. She was startled at the unaccustomed sensation; few things could penetrate a bear’s thick fur and hide.
Seconds later, a tingling feeling and a chilly feeling spread across her body.
Oh no, she thought, tranquilizer dart ..
. Her bear snarled and raged inside her, but there was nothing she could do.
Her legs folded, and she crumpled to the powerboat’s deck.