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Zaina curses under her breath, backing against a barrel in an attempt to hide.
We’ll be trapped if we’re herded down to the brig, so I grab her arm, pulling her toward the stern. Madame stalks across the deck toward us, her features unreadable.
“At least you remember your training,” she says, bitterness lacing her tone. “Though I’m not sure what it’s gained you, except more punishment.”
She snaps her fingers, and Damian slithers up next to her.
“Perhaps I will give Zaina to you after all, until she can appreciate how merciful I have been.”
Like hell she will.
I look around frantically.
A likely death in the sea, or certain torture? Weeks of it. My sister at Damian’s hands. But seeing Mel again, and our husbands? Being used against them all for the rest of our lives or until she kills us, or forcing them to grieve us?
Despair settles into my bones, thicker and more potent than the fear from before.
Then I see it.
A spot of turquoise in an otherwise navy sea.
A spark of hope. A single chance to get out of this alive.
“Do you trust me, Zaina?” I ask under my breath.
She nods without hesitation, which is probably more than I deserve.
I could be wrong. Maybe thehul gilis still in my system. Maybe it’s not her after all, and probable death is back on the table.
I glance back to where Madame has frozen several yards away, but I know she won’t be standing still for long. Her violet gaze narrows as she considers us, not daring to believe we’ll do it.
At least, that’s what I’m counting on because this is the only chance we’ll get.
“Then jump,” I whisper, tugging her back against the stern.
Zaina looks over at me, honey-colored eyes wide with disbelief.
“I can’t,” she says. There is real remorse in her tone, but no doubt at all.
My fearless sister will not be able to force herself over this ledge. She truly, genuinely can’t.
But I can.
“I’m sorry,” I mutter, just in case we die.
Then I turn as quickly as I can and shove my sister with all my might into the place that’s haunted her nightmares for as long as I’ve known her. It costs me precious seconds because Madame is nearly here now.
Grabbing the cork block beneath the rail, I hurl myself after my sister, narrowly escaping familiar claw-like hands.
Madame’s shriek of rage follows me all the way down.
CHAPTERSIXTY-SEVEN
ZAINA
I’m drowning.
My body sinks deeper beneath the surface, panic washing over me as surely as the water does. The waves from the ship flip and turn me until I can’t begin to guess which way is up.
