Kai doubted the captain bought even a little bit of the story, but he didn’t flat-out call Kai a liar.
Instead, he nodded and said, “It just so happens we do have to run a shipment of...cargo...that direction. We could possibly take a small detour and drop you there.” He paused and looked from Hollyn’s head to her toes before continuing, “But we don’t do anything out of the goodness of our hearts—probably because we don’t have any goodness in our hearts.”
All the crew laughed low and menacingly at the captain’s joke. Kai tensed for a fight, but it was too late. Four crewmen were suddenly on him, and two grabbed Hollyn.
In the chaos, Kai shouted across to her, “Hollyn! Now would be a really good time to do your thing!”
But she shook her head hard.
Dammit!He’d walked right into this trap, knowingly, but he’d hoped Hollyn would save them.
He started to argue with her, but he never got the chance. He felt the blow to the back of his head, and everything went black.
Chapter 11
HOLLYN KNELT OVER KAI, shaking his shoulders. She whispered sharply, “Kai! Kai! Wake up!”
He stirred slightly, and she shook him harder.
“Hey. Hey. What the hell is going on?”
“You’ve got to get up. They’re coming back soon.”
Hollyn sat back as Kai raised himself to his elbows and looked around.
“Why didn’t you sing? We could have forced them to take us straight to the island.”
She thought he would understand, but seeing where they were now, she knew he’d hoped she would come through for them. He needed to get that her head was still scrambled. She couldn’t stop picturing the sharks ripping into the man in the water.
“I can’t be responsible for any more deaths.”
“I told you it wasn’t your fault.”
Hollyn hugged her hands tightly around her midsection. She looked up to the ceiling above. It was made of metal like everything else in this god forsaken place.
“If it isn’t my fault, why was he making his way to the bottom of the ocean? Oh, yeah! Pretty sure I told him to do just that, and he was under my spell.”
