Connor took in Rick, the dogs, and Austin’s small body. “Move, Austin,” he said. There was no point in Austin taking a beating when this was a fight he wouldn’t win. Austin met his eyes before he stood and moved aside.
Rick clucked his tongue in disappointment. “Maybe next time, sunshine,” he mocked. He knelt next to Connor, reaching behind him with the key. Connor’s arms came loose from the ground, but chains still covered his arms. “We could have had a lot of fun, you know.”
Without even looking at him, he took Connor by the shoulder and hauled him to his feet. Connor groaned, sharp aches shooting throughout his body. He didn’t get the chance to take stock of it all as he was dragged out the door and down a plain hallway. They walked up a flight of narrow steps and stepped through a door that led outside. Austin trailed after them, and when Connor glanced back, he was putting on the hoodie that had been his headrest in the room. The look Austin cast at him was packed with worry and trepidation.
The night sky greeted Connor as he stepped through the doorway, and salty ocean air washed over them. A high wind had kicked up, and the waves on the sea were tall. He scanned the full length of the ship; it was massive, like a cargo hauler or a cruise ship. His gaze snagged in the middle of the decking. A container of glass and steel, filled with water, stood in the centre of the deck, and part of it disappeared into the middle of the boat.
A fresh wave of fear blossomed in Connor’s gut. That was a cage. And there was only one thing they could possibly need Connor for to trap.
“Bring him here,” his dad called.
Connor dragged his gaze away from the cage to see his dad toiling with equipment near the edge of the deck. As they approached, he saw Arthur was there too, adjusting scuba gear.
Connor’s heart beat loudly in his throat. “What’s the plan, exactly?” He packed as much scepticism and scorn into his voice as possible. “Lure him in and dart him? He won’t come near you.”Please, god, let Adonis keep his distance. He had stayed away from the lab after being spotted. He could stay away now. “As if that glass could hold him, anyway.”
“It’ll hold,” his dad said. “It’s held his kind before. Ready?” he directed the question at Arthur.
“Ready.”
Rick dragged Connor forward a few more steps. Arthur approached with the scuba tank, and he and his dad strapped it onto Connor. They set the tank over his chained arms and secured the straps over his chest.
“I need my arms free,” Connor said. “If I’m diving, I need my arms.”
“You won’t be doing any swimming,” his dad said.
Connor tried to meet Arthur’s eyes, but he kept his gaze pointedly away from him.
“And if the mouthpiece falls out? I need my arms.”
As his dad tightened the straps on his chest, Connor noticed the bruising around his nose. A memory of slamming his knee into his dad’s face as they grappled in the car flitted through his mind. The sharp look his dad gave him said plenty. He wasn’t being given any more freedom than necessary. Connor wanted to curse at him. Scream,fuck you, and spit. So what if his dad took a knee to the face? Connor was trashed.
“Here we go.” Arthur dragged an anchor with a chain attached to the end to the side of the boat. Rick pulled Connor to it. Arthur began to bend down next to Connor’s legs, but his dad grabbed his shoulder.
“You move your legs while we do this, you’ll be going down there unconscious,” he threatened.
Connor kept painfully still, believing it. They clicked the locks around his legs into place with a thick padlock. He stared at that anchor attached to the end of the chain.
“You’re dumping me into the middle of the ocean.”
Nobody answered him.
His dad took the mouthpiece for the gear and jammed it into Connor’s mouth. He couldn’t object anymore, afraid that nobody would put it back in if he spat it out before they threw him overboard.
“Wait,” Austin said. He stood in front of Connor and reached up. He put on snorkelling goggles. Connor whined at the pain of pressure being exerted on his face. He had to have some severe bruising there. Austin tore strips from a roll of duct tape hanging from his wrist and secured the mouthpiece to his face. And despite everything, Connor was grateful for it.
Austin returned the duct tape to his wrist and tested the mouthpiece by wigging it. He then put his arms around Connor, going onto his toes to press his face into his hair. “Survive this, okay?” he whispered. “Survive, and I can get us out while they’re busy with their new subject. Please.” Austin lowered back onto his heels, looking up at Connor with worry swimming in his eyes. “Grit your teeth on the way down.”
Rick hauled Connor to the edge of the decking. He pushed the anchor tied to Connor’s feet overboard and unceremoniously shoved Connor out after it. Connor hit the water sideways, and all the equipment tied to him jerked up as he hit the water. His mouthpiece yanked hard to the side: if it hadn’t been taped so securely to his mouth, it would have come out. He floated in the water for a second, and then a sharp tug at his feet pulled him under.
Connor tried to breathe through the panic as he descended into the dark. The water pressing in on him was a heavy pressure that grew colder and more oppressive as he descended. It took every bit of self-control he had to actually breathe. To get air into his lungs before he blacked out from raw panic.
His descent came to a sudden stop. The anchor hit the ocean floor and, weighted by his equipment and chains, Connor hit it next. Two lights floating in the water illuminated the sandy ground he’d landed on. Connor looked around the anchor, identifying the checkered pattern in the sand as net squares.
Don’t come. Please, don’t come.
Connor didn’t think that Adonis could be caught so easily, but his dad said that the cage on the ship had held one of his kind before. That meant they had caught one in the past.
Don’t come. Don’t come.
