24. Helsa
HELSA
I drove my elbow back.
He made a sound — low, guttural, not pain exactly, more like irritation — and tightened his grip further and kept moving.
His arm across my midsection was immovable. I had been testing it for the last three minutes and immovable was the correct word.
"Stop," he said. The voice was wet, as if a shark could speak.
I drove my heel into his shin.
He didn't slow down.
I had watched Rhaek fight a monster in the flatlands, had been close enough to feel the air move under my nose. That had been controlled. Purposeful. But the fight on the hill just a few minutes earlier had been neither of those things.
It had been two creatures who had both emerged from the seat, both refused to lose, tearing at each other with everything they had. And I had stood there watching with my mouth open and my feet refusing to make a decision .
I had almost gone into the water too. The calculation had been instant: the water, the crossing, Rhaek on the ridge. Three things to overcome.
I had looked at the water and the answer had come back equally fast because the shapes moving just below the surface were not ambiguous.
Fins. Long. More than one. Circling the base of the hill with the patience of apex predators.
No, thanks.
At least there was a chance of survival with these marauding males.
So I had run around the crest of the bone reef hill. By then, the creatures had stopped fighting and come after me. And now here we were.
He had bruises rising along his jaw, dark against the grey-green of his skin.
A cut above his left eye still leaking. Welts across his forearm where the Withholder — that was my name for the thing following us — had gotten hold of him and not let go.
He was a mess and he was still faster and stronger than me.
"Stop struggling," he growled.
"Just as soon as you let me go!" Not bad, I thought, as quips went.
He ignored me though, of course.
The arm tightened. Not enough to hurt. A warning.
I thought about what happened after the warning and drove my elbow back again.
He made the grunt, lower this time. I felt it in my sternum even through the arm clamped across it. The gill slits along his neck flared once, twice. The rhythm of something managing its temper.
Good. I wanted him managing his temper. I wanted him working for every step of this .
The water was on three sides. The tidal spire was ahead of us, dark and narrow, rising from its collar of rock. The cave entrance at its base sat above the tideline — barely. The high water mark was the giveaway.
This was not a safe zone. Not for an oxygen breather like me.
Somewhere with one exit.
My only chance was to escape his clutches and run back toward Rhaek. He would save me. He alone would protect me.
The arm did not loosen.
I twisted anyway. Got my teeth into the edge of his forearm and bit down.
He stopped walking.
"Are you finished?" he snarled.
I bit harder. I grimaced. Like eating dirty sushi.
“Have you had enough yet?” I said, opening my mouth for another bite.
He groaned and resumed walking.
I wasn’t finished. Not even close. But I was starting to understand the size of the problem.