Page 14 of Not So Stranded
He jumped at the sound of Hiaka’s voice, and then hustled over. “Shh! There are men on the beach.”
“Oh, um, are you going with?—”
Keeping his voice low, but full of the urgency making him feel like he might throw up, Kit said, “They want to blow up the creek to make it so they can get their boats into the lagoon!”
“Oh, fuck. Zenori, wake up!”
“I’m awake.”
And suddenly, Kit found himself dragged into the water by a whole lot of tentacles and positioned on Zenori’s back. “Holy shit, what’s happening?”
“We are escaping in the most efficient manner,” Zenori said as they headed for the creek.
Kit just let it happen, clinging to Zenori like a child as they allowed the current to take them where the creek met the sea. Which was when he realized that this was fresh water and that was salt water and— “How can you both survive in salt water and fresh water like this?”
Hiaka snorted a laugh behind them. “That’s what you’re asking right now?”
“Right.” Kit felt his face heating. “Sorry.”
Something pinched his butt, and Hiaka said, “Geek’s gonna geek.”
Kit chuckled and relaxed a little bit even as they entered open water. He was relieved, too, knowing that no one would getcaught up in what the pirates had planned for morning. But he had to wonder?—
“Now what?” Hiaka asked.
Zenori was doing something with their tentacles that let them bob along the surface even with Kit still holding onto their shoulders. “We find another island to put Kit on. The rest of our plans must wait.”
Their plans to breed. Damn, and the lagoon had seemed like such a perfect place for that. “I’m sorry,” Kit said mournfully.
“It’s not your fault,” Hiaka said, bobbing beside them.
“Well, part of it might be. They implied that they found a boat that others were looking for. Theoretically, that could be my boat.”
Even in the darkness, Kit could see Hiaka roll their eyes. “Okay, but they decided to blow up our island on their own.”
“True.”
“We could steal it.”
Kit looked at Zenori’s profile. “The island?”
“The boat. Your boat. We could steal it back.”
“Oh.” Kit tried to imagine how that might work but?—
“Oooo,” Hiaka said with clear delight. “You hang here. I’ll be right back.”
And they ducked beneath the surface and disappeared.
“Shit,” Kit said, “I don’t like them going alone.”
“Neither do I.”
They rose and fell on gentle waves as clouds covered and revealed the half-moon above them. It took a minute, but then Kit realized that Zenori was easing them around the island. They could see the beach and about ten people sitting around a fire, three more dark shapes a bit further away and seeming to be lying down. For people evading other people, they didn’t seem to be hiding very well.
Kit could also now see the two boats at anchor not far from the beach. The men had used a dingy with a motor to get to shore, but those were definitely two similarly sized trawlers. Unfortunately, he couldn’t tell if one of them was his from this distance and in the dark, but one could be.
A head popped up in front of them, and Kit gulped back a scream.
