Page 34 of Summer L.A.W.

The Sea Witch shrieked. The light burned a hole through her rising wave, turning it to steam.

Lioness finished her drawing with a final, vicious stroke and tore it from the pad. Hurling the page skyward, she yelled, “Fetch!” The silver-tipped seagull caught the drawing in its beak, mid-flight. The sketch became real. A storm sigil, spinning like a saw blade toward the Sea Witch.

It hit her square in the chest.

The resulting boom flattened every wave within a hundred yards. The cutter dropped hard into the sudden trough. Crewmen cursed and clung to rails as metal screamed in protest.

Steam boiled over the surface of the ocean. For a heartbeat, no one breathed.

“Is she dead?” the captain asked.

Then the Sea Witch re-formed from the mist. She was ragged, furious, but smaller now.

“Not dead,” Crystal gasped. “Just angry.”

“She’s drawing power from the current!” Joell warned. “She’ll sink us to get more!”

Mason sprinted for the deck gun. “Permission to engage!”

The captain gaped, then waved him on. “Hell, yes!”

The cannon roared. The first round detonated a geyser beside the Sea Witch. The second hit closer, scattering her into foam, but every droplet slithered back together.

Crystal shoved past Mason. “She’s mine.” She stepped towards the rail, eyes glowing the same impossible blue as the storm. The ocean recognized its daughter. The waves slowed, listening.

“Back off,” Rayna hissed. “You’ll drown with her.”

“Maybe,” Crystal said, “but she started this in my neighborhood.”

She thrust both hands toward the surge below. Water leapt up, swirling around her arms, forming a luminous helix. The Sea Witch answered in kind, her own vortex rising to meet it. Two spirals collided midair, churning into a blinding column of light and water.

The cutter rocked violently. Mason grabbed a line, yelling her name. Crystal’s power howled through the storm, pure will against raw tide. For an instant, she saw the Sea Witch’s eyes flicker. Her black became a light blue, but only for a second. Then the shiny onyx color returned.

“You cannot master what you are,” the creature hissed.

“Watch me,” Crystal shot back.

The column exploded.

Salt rain lashed the deck. When the glare faded, only one figure floated amid the foam—Crystal. She looked limp but alive, and the Sea Witch was gone, her essence dispersing into a thousand harmless ripples.

The ocean calmed, as if exhaling. Mason vaulted the rail, hauling Crystal back aboard. Her pulse fluttered against his fingers, weak but steady.

Rayna knelt beside them, drenched and shaking. “Tell me that’s over.”

Lioness peered at the water; her short hair plastered to her cheeks. “Depends on how you define over. Because the ocean just whispered something back.”

Sahara lifted the compass. It still throbbed once every few seconds, slower now but not still. “She’s not dead,” she murmured. “She’s waiting.”

Mason pulled Crystal closer, muttering, “Then so are we.” He looked up at the captain. “Do you have a Medic on board?”

“We do, but we’re not waiting for round two. Bring her below. I’m taking us back.”

The cutter’s infirmary was too small, too bright, and smelled like bleach and diesel. Mason hated it instantly. He’d spent enough time in tight metal rooms at sea to know how fast they could turn into coffins.

He sat beside the bunk where Crystal lay still and pale, her hair a salt-drenched tangle across the pillow. Every few seconds, the ship’s hull groaned, and his stomach answered with its own twist. He’d seen plenty of bad days at sea, but never one that scared him like this.

When the wave hit, when she’d gone over in that blinding column of light, he’d thought— No. Don’t. He shoved the thought down as if he could bury it.