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Chapter Thirty-Two
Aziza
Princess.The word punched my heart, while the voice split the back of my skull like a sharp knife. I turned to face the man I’d thought was dead. He stood there, having hauled himself up from the water in the tender garage, drenched and angry. Which made sense given I’d ruined his chances with the Ozma Emerald, shot him with a speargun, dropped him four flights into the ocean, and killed his two buddies.
Behind my back, I tossed the last rope securing the tender. “Go, you have to hurry. Save Kai. I’ll be okay.”
“Listen to her if you want to live. She’s going to be just fine here with me.”
I didn’t hear the tender fire up, but I wasn’t about to turn my eyes off of the asshole with the gun. He hadn’t moved, either, if the blood pooling at his feet from the spear wound was any indication. He might be alive, but he was wounded. On his dominant shoulder no less. His shots would be shit.
“He needs me alive,” I assured the crew. Though at this point I doubted I was much value to anyone anymore. “Hurry! Kai doesn’t have much time if there’s internal bleeding.”
“We’ll send help, Zee,” Lars promised before turning the engine over and speeding off.
“Now, Princess, why don’t you ease on over here and get comfortable.”
I fixed my eyes on the Ruger semiauto trained on my forehead, not my heart. If he raised at all with the kick, the 9mm bullet would sail over my head. And considering I’d harpooned his right shoulder, chances were solid he’d flinch. He should’ve been aiming for my chest. Bigger target, bigger chances. Still, I held my hands up in surrender as I plotted my escape. From the corner of my eye, a ways out still, I spotted something swimming toward us in the water. My Sharky…
Without a single doubt, I stepped backward off the deck, shouting, “You want me, come and get me!”
A couple of shots rang out and I ducked under the waves and swam, this time away from the yacht and toward the open water. When I resurfaced, the man was stripping off his boots and anything else that would weigh him down. Then he dove toward me.
That’s right, come and get what you deserve.
I swam a frolicking circle, feeling like a mermaid. I enticed him like a siren out away from the boat, staying just close enough to him to give him false hope of catching me. I ducked and surfaced a few times, laughing as he struggled to find me. The adrenaline coating my exhaustion made me loopy, but this wasn’t a game to me. This was survival.
He bobbed, treading water. So tired already. So pissed. “Get your ass over here!” he screamed.
But I was exactly where I’d always been, swimming with the sharks. My shark. I reached out to stroke my gloved palm across his back as he passed beside me, just below the surface.
Blood was in the water. The current around me thrashed with the excitement of the kill. And I laughed as the man’s eyes went white and wide with the realization that we weren’t alone in the big, blue sea.
In truth, I’d never been alone. Dead or alive, Coop had always been with me. And now was no exception.
The man scrambled to swim, but his body jerked back. He screamed as the sea swallowed him whole. Then his head bounded back up. I didn’t stay to watch and didn’t listen for his pleas. I only swam hard and fast for the yacht.
Once on the swim platform, I scrambled to grab the Ruger he’d left behind. Then I darted, slipping up the stairs, up and up and up, until my legs finally gave out. I crumpled into a corner on the sun deck. As I waited for death to come, I summoned Coop’s spirit to stay with me. Imagining him as I used to do.
“Hey, Presh.”
I let my head drop against his shoulder and closed my eyes.
“Just you and me now.”
Coop
As I came to, I stared at a clear blue sky. My lips were salty. My whole body ached, dry and wet all at once. I bobbed, floating on the waves. For minute peace surrounded me. We’d made the dives, the emerald was up, and I’d survived.
Then I remembered fucking Jim had tried to kill me with a goddamned flare gun and left me for dead. He must’ve taken off with Zee. I heaved my body over and coughed up salt and water. With long strokes and wide kicks, I propelled my body forward. My purpose hardened me. Churning my arms, I paddled through what remained of the speedboat’s wake with only one goal in mind. Aziza.
I couldn’t use the comms to let her know I was alive, or to tell Nik to watch his back. I wasn’t sure who might be listening and I’d need the element of surprise. I also needed every precious second to get to the Zamarad before it started moving. Then I remembered the missing explosives.
Grunting, I hauled ass, fighting my way through the chop without a single thought to sharks, bullet wounds, brain tumors, or anything else that dared to stop me. Getting to Zee before the yacht exploded was the only thing.
The aural migraines nearly blocked out the vision in my left eye, but slowly the yacht grew bigger. As I got near, I shrugged out of the rebreather, fins, mask, everything that would only get in my way of boarding the Zamarad and getting to Zee before it was too late.
The tender was gone. Blood smeared over the white swim deck and in the water a body slapped against the ship with the waves. Jim. Another man was tied off by his leg with one of the boat’s ropes. He wasn’t anyone I recognized, not crew or staff. Where the hell had he come from and who had slashed his throat?
