Page 38 of The Hunted

A cannon fired. This time, it wasn’t from their ship.

Up in the crow’s nest, another call came down to make Eryx smile. “They’re in the nets!”

However, his smile didn’t last for long. The problem with the beginning of the season for storms was that the bursts of violent weather were more dangerous than even the spreads of never-ending storms.

At least that, they prepared for. Bursts … well, they couldn’t. And it all changed in a blink of an eye.

The ship rocked dangerously when a wave came in to take them thirty feet higher than they had been, before dropping them just as fast. Except when they came back down, the only thing Eryx saw was water.

Black water.

• • •

Arelle

Arelle’s biggest mistake had been diving deeper into the water when she realized her sister hadn’t returned back to the surface with her. If only she had stayed near the top of the raging sea, then maybe she could have skimmed over the net that seemed to rise up out of nowhere.

She blamed herself for this because she surely couldn’t put the fault on Poe, given her sister’s state. Had Arelle just paid more attention to their surroundings then maybe she might have noticed how all the sea creatures had seemed to vanish out of nowhere. A good sign that something was in the area which they didn’t want to be around.

Like a ship.

The net came up fast and caught Arelle off guard. She spun against the scratchy, woven lines but the more she fought, the worse she twisted into it. Until finally, the netting had her completely covered and all she could do was feel herself being lifted through the water.

“Poe! Poe!”

The net jerked hard to the left, giving Arelle ample view of her sister and the reason why Poe wasn’t answering her back. A good twenty strokes away under the blackened sea, her sister’s body had become so twisted into the netting that there wasn’t even an inch for her to move. The ropes cut into her sister’s tail and fin and with each pull from somewhere out of the water, the net turned again, tying her sister up more.

Arelle’s heart pumped hard.

Right in her throat.

“Poe … Poe, cut the net!”

Poe had her knife.

They all carried one.

Even as Arelle shouted for her sister to try and save herself, she knew it would be pointless. The sea raged too violently, only aiding in the spiraling knots that had become the net around Poe’s trembling form.

“Help me,” Poe cried, her fingers fisting into the netting around her face. Teeth bared and eyes wide, Arelle didn’t think she had ever seen her sister look so terrified. “Arelle, help me!”

Everyone had a sense of self-preservation. There was no denying that. It didn’t matter if one came from the sea or the land … when a dire situation arose, one only really thought about saving themselves.

There was no shame in it.

It was a natural reaction.

But for her, the instinct to help, if she was capable, always overtook the need to save herself. She had to do what she always did—the pull impossible to ignore, even though Arelle knew trying to help her sister might very well end with her sacrificing her own life. It was entirely possible that Poe wasn’t owed that, she still had to do what she could.

“Arelle, please!”

“I’m coming, Poe.”

She was.

Or she would certainly die trying.

The underbelly of the ship had finally come into focus a good fifty strokes behind Poe. With every pull and twist of the net, they came a little closer.