Page 85 of Crashing Tides

There’s a strange rustling sound before the bag is ripped away.

“Oh shit,” says a guy in a ski mask. “You really fucked up his face.”

Now that I can see again, it becomes incredibly clear that my eye is swollen shut on the same side as my throbbing temple. Oh. I probably should’ve known.

A dim lantern provides just enough light to make out the figures in front of me. One is short and stocky, the other is taller, leaner. There’s something familiar about him, but his face is covered by a mask and I can’t place his voice.

“Don’t scream,” someone says. I think it’s the stocky one, who bends to tear the gag from my mouth in a hail of saliva and blood. He stares down at it in revulsion. “Fucking hell, this thing is disgusting.”

I cough. Pain rips through my ribs and I choke on a scream. Blood drips down my chin.

“Look at you,” says the taller one, arms crossed, condescending. “Not so pretty anymore, huh?”

Nausea boils in the pit of my stomach.

“That’s OK,” he continues. “We don’t need you to be pretty.”

I blink my good eye rapidly, trying to force my vision to adjust. I can barely make out the moonlight glinting off the sea. The full moon is tomorrow. Will Duncan think of me when he’s alone in his room, bored and frustrated? Or has he already forgotten I exist?

Wait a minute, I realize, heart sinking. If the full moon is tomorrow…

They were never planning on taking Duncan. Worse, they aren’t banking on him coming after me. If they were, they would’ve waited until he didn’t have opposable thumbs.

The sensation starts to return to my legs. The ground under me is rocky, cold, wet, smooth, like the floor of a cave. Am I in a cave?

I glance over my shoulder. Perhaps twenty or thirty feet behind us, at the end of a long tunnel, there’s a boat. It’s painted white, limned in moonlight, bobbing up and down in the tide.

“Here’s how this is gonna go,” the shorter one says. “I’m gonna untie your legs. You’re gonna be real good and not run off. If you run, you’re gonna slip, and you’re gonna fall into the water, and you’re gonna drown. Doesn’t matter what kind of freaky fish powers you have. You’re not getting your hands free, you’re not gonna be able to navigate and you’re gonna die. You stick with us, we’re just gonna take a little blood, maybe some scales. Got it?”

I nod slowly. None of this makes sense. I can finally feel the ocean with my magic, and it’s not close by. Not enough that I could just slip and fall in.

“Good,” he says. Then he bends over, right above my ankles and I’m horribly tempted to kick him in the face. To break his nose the same way he broke mine.

But he’s right about one thing—I don’t have the use of my arms, and I don’t have an escape plan. I could maybe start the boat’s motor with my teeth, but I don’t think I could unmoor it without using my hands. I definitely couldn’t do it quickly.

And there’s still alcohol coursing through my system. I can feel it in my movements, separate from the shock and agony. I’m still fucking drunk, which means I’m not as coordinated, not as fast as I would normally be. I have even less chance of pulling this off than usual.

So I let him untie my feet. Hatred pumps through me with every beat of my heart. I want to put my fist through his skull, but my hands are behind my back.

“There’s one other thing,” he says, pulling the ropes free, looping them over his wrist like he isn’t done with them yet. “If you run, we have to make our money back somehow. You know who we’re gonna go after, right?”

The expression on my face must not be enough, because the taller one grabs me by the collar of my shirt, hauls me up and off my ass. “Say it,” he snarls. If there weren’t a mask in the way, he would’ve spit on my face, I’m sure of it.

“Duncan,” I mumble.

He holds a hand to his ear. “I didn’t catch that.”

There’s something incredibly familiar about his voice, but I can’t figure out where I’ve heard it before. On television? Around town? On campus?

“Duncan,” I say. My voice trembles. My mouth hurts so bad. Pain radiates from my jaw to my teeth to my tongue, red hot.

“Right. Duncan Stirling. So you’re gonna do everything I say, aren’t you?”

“Uh-huh.” I nod. The motion hurts my head, but I can’t seem to stop until he grips my chin with his gloved hand and holds me still.

“Good. I knew you could handle this.” Then he yanks me to my feet, gripping my bicep with bruising force while I stumble like a baby deer. I can’t find my footing and nearly face plant into a rocky wall, but the shorter guy grabs me and shoves me upright. My ribs scream at the motion.

“Don’t ruin the goods,” he snaps.