“Believe,” Bran repeated. “We’ll bring them home safe.”
“Retreat isn’t surrender.” Doyle turned the boat. “We’ll get them.”
She woke muddled, her head aching, her hip tender and sore. For a moment, a blessed moment, Annika thought she’d had a terrible dream. But as she tried to reach out for Sawyer, she felt the kiss and flow of water all around.
The sea, the men, the blood, the sharks.
As she struggled to clear her mind, make her body move, she saw yes, she was in the water. But the water had glass walls, and a closed glass top. Like a box.
And she had no clothes. Though she didn’t have the ingrained modesty of land people, Annika understood that to have been stripped without knowledge and consent, to be trapped without covering in a box of water, was a deep and terrible violation.
She pressed her hands on the glass, looked out.
The cave. She believed it to be the cave, though there were changes. Lights and counters or tables, and machines. And men with guns.
Her heart leaped, then froze when she saw Sawyer.
They had chained him, his arms over his head. Blood stained the bandage on his shoulder. They’d taken his wet suit so he wore only the trunks, and they’d chained him so his feet barely met the floor.
His head drooped, and she recognized he was still unconscious. Alive, she comforted herself. She could see his chest move with his breath. They were alive, and she had to get out, help him.
She lifted her arms to try to shoot light at the glass, hoping to break it, but saw the thick black covering over each cuff. Though she pulled, tried to tear, she couldn’t remove it.
And when she shot light at the glass, it was weak, too weak.
So she beat her fists against it.
“There’s our little mermaid.”
The words slithered through the water like eels, had Annika whirling, searching for the source.
He walked into the chamber, a small, thin man who made her think of a snake. He wore all black—a shirt with sleeves rolled to his elbows, pants with a thick black belt and silver buckle. His hair, black as well, slicked back from his face, leaving the cruel lines of it unframed. Sharp brows, a thinly smiling mouth, long, hard eyes of a shocking, nearly beautiful pale blue.
“We couldn’t remove your bracelets—not without slicing off your hands. Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that.”
There was a singing quality to his voice. It might have been beautiful, like his eyes, but for the coldness of it. He stepped up to the glass wall, studied her.
“How do you breathe? No gills that show. It’s fascinating. But we have people who will figure all that out, one way or the other. But where are my manners? I am Eli Yadin, and I’ll be working with you and your companion. The work can go easily, or not so easily. This will be your choice. Mr. Malmon will be here directly. He’ll be very pleased to meet you.”
Yadin glanced at Sawyer. “Both of you.”
She turned her back on him, curled up. A small defiance, but all she had.
“I can see you’re a bit upset. I’ll leave you to sulk for the moment. It’s time to wake up your friend.”
She whirled back, her hands in fists, her fists pressed to the glass. Ignoring her, Yadin picked something out of a tray and broke it under Sawyer’s nose.
Sawyer coughed, wheezed, jerked. Though the movement had the stain on his shoulder spreading, he tried to swing, tried to kick out.
Yadin only laughed. “Ah, the defiance of youth! It’s so much more entertaining to work with someone who has it. Yes, we have your lovely friend,” he added when Sawyer’s gaze fixed on Annika. “In a habitat created just for her. The others deserted you.” His voice softened, all but crooned. “Ran away to save themselves. Left you and her to die. Or worse. It will be worse, so very much worse, unless you give me what I want.”
“Do I look like I give a fuck what you want?”
“Oh, so young, full of that defiance. And handsome.” He scraped a nail lightly down Sawyer’s bare chest. “For now.”
He went back to a counter, lifted a tray, tipping it to show Sawyer what it held. When he got no reaction, he turned the tray toward Annika.
She saw knives, so many knives, and things that gleamed silver and sharp and would clip like scissors. For a moment she went mad, beating against the glass, kicking against it, screaming so the sound came through the tank and its speakers in a high, thin wail.