Page 82 of Wicked Tides
Seeing a gap in the masses, I took the chance to head toward the hold only to see David emerge on deck. Herding him up from behind was Dahlia, the dagger still in her hand. I half expected her to use it on him. To cut his throat in front of me would have been the perfect vengeance, but she didn’t. Instead, she shoved him toward Mullins with force just as he was rushing past them. Mullins quickly took him and started dragging him toward the Rose.
I marched toward them before I heard my name roared over the ruckus.
“Bone Heart!” Collin yelped.
I spun to see him with a pistol poised toward my head from across the deck. Just when the crowd shifted, he pulled the trigger. Fire lanced through my ear and I staggered, pressing a hand to the side of my bleeding head.
He’d missed.
I looked back up at him, my fingers tightening around my cutlass. As I was moving toward him, he began frantically loading another slug into his pistol. I wiped my bloodied hand on my shirt and shoved past stumbling combatants as the ship tilted further to one side. The floor was uneven and soon, we would not even be able to balance on it. But I only needed to kill one man. The rest could drown for all I cared. As they leaped and fell into the water, I knew very well that they’d all perish there before long.
I was near Collin when Dahlia came out of the clusters like a wraith, jamming her knife into his stomach. Her blow was met by the sound of his pistol firing again. Dahlia twitched just before she wrapped her other arm around him and dragged herself and him overthe side of the ship. I rushed to the railing just as they hit the water and disappeared beneath the surface.
“Cap’n!” someone shouted.
I looked up at James waving his arm at me from the Rose. The Widow was sinking and David was safe on the other ship. But not the young girl.
Dahlia would have brought her out of the hold if she had been down there. If she didn’t, it could only mean one thing.
I growled at the thought and quickly dove down into the water. Men were frantically trying to find purchase and were being shot down as they clamored for the nets hanging over the side of the Rose. I grabbed hold of one and climbed up out of the water but stopped to look back, waiting for Dahlia to surface. I wondered how deep she would take Collin. I wondered if she’d drown him, eat him, or slice him to pieces down there.
All around, men were thrashing in the water, realizing quickly that they were all about to die there. If any managed to survive my wrath, perhaps I would take them into my crew, but it didn’t look promising for them. I watched them fight each other to grab hold of anything they could until a dark shape burst from the waves, taking one of the men under quicker than I could process.
The air shifted. The water seemed to get colder. A thin fog suddenly rolled in like a beast coming to toy with its prey.
“Sons!” Meridan screamed from above.
I held fast to the netting as men were plucked from the surface and dragged beneath by shadowy hands. The chilling sound of clicking and shrieking filled the air, mingling with the blood-curdling screams of dying men.
“Cap’n!” Mullins yelled. “Climb!”
I stayed silent, watching when suddenly I saw her. She burst from the waves, her movements terribly off. She seemed desperate, using only one arm to push through the water. I absently reached for her.
“Here!” I called to her.
She moved toward me as fast as she was able, stretching out to take my hand. We were mere inches away when she was abruptly sucked down again
“Vidar!” James chided.
But I was not in my right mind. I sheathed my cutlass and I leaped off the netting into the water like all my years of honing my skills had vanished. I dove beneath the surface to see near darkness around me.
But it was far from silent. That deep, rhythmic clicking persisted loudly down there. The muffled cries of men in agony filled the water. The moonlight barely breached the surface, but one thing was visible. Dahlia’s black fins were iridescent amongst the blackness. The slight sheen of her lower body caught my eye and I swam toward her. I found her struggling against the long, wiry limbs of her captor, the dagger still in her hand. She was pushing desperately for the surface of the water. It was the only reason she hadn’t been dragged deeper like the unlucky men around us.
I was a good swimmer, but no match for her kind in the water. I knew that. I did the only thing I could and I reached for her. She reached up, her hand finding mine in the madness. I kicked toward the surface as she thrashed to break free.
And as if we’d been sent a blessing from the heavens, another figure darted into the frenzy. White in color and glowing like moonlit snow, Meridan swam by me and pulled my cutlass from my belt. In a blink, she’d thrust it into the neck of the attacking son. His clicking turned to high-pitched whining that nearly broke my eardrums
Quickly, Meridan hauled Dahlia and me to the surface and we pushed for the nets. Meridan’s legs emerged before she even got out of the water and she began scurrying up the netting.
“Climb!” my men were calling.
Dahlia, half-conscious, clung weakly to me as I lifted her from the water. I should have dropped her. It would have saved me. It would have saved my men.
But I didn’t.
I pulled Dahlia up and secured her in my arms as James and Mullins climbed partway down to aid us. Smalls was steering us away, pulling us from the sinking Widow and its debris.
I pushed Dahlia upward and as quickly as we were able, we passed her from man to man until she was onboard. And by then, she was not moving at all. Meridan jumped over the railing beside me and rushed to her sister’s side. She was lying on her back, her shirt clinging wetly to her form. Billy came running up with a lantern, shedding some much-needed light on Dahlia only to reveal the blood gushing from her side.
