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I nod. Come on Miranda, say something else. I’m afraid to look behind her to see how Joanna is doing because I don’t want her to notice, so I have to keep her talking. I ask, “What is your end game here?”
She shakes her head, and her shiny hair shimmies behind her. “What do you mean, end game?”
“Your final goal. By getting my friends here, what are you hoping to accomplish?”
She laughs, but the forced sound is mirthless. “The end goal was to get you here, Guardian. So that I can exact my revenge.”
“Okay. Did you want them here alive like this? Because I thought sir—”
“No, I didn’t want them here alive like this!” She screeches as anger flashes across her face. “I wanted them to drown, like my victims of old, back when I could do what I wanted. But my sister ruins all my fun! She saved them like the perfect goodie two shoes she is. I would have been perfectly happy if everyone who loves you drowned in the sea.”
Ouch. That kind of hurts to hear.
“Sorry to disappoint you, Sweetheart.” Joanna’s dry, cracked voice cuts through our conversation from much closer than the cage.
When Beatrice rotates on her seat to face Joanna, I pounce. I am in mid-air, er, mid-water, and everything seems to slow down. (Not just seems, I’m floating through the water instead of flying through the air, so I really am moving slower.) Joanna’s eyes go wide as I attempt this tackle. Thankfully, Beatrice notices the change in my predecessor’s expression. The siren snaps her head back to look at me over her shoulder and glare at me. Perfect. Joanna almost has her back.
As I swim toward her, the water pushing against me slows me down. Beatrice raises both of her eyebrows, revealing the whites of her eyes. Her irises glow dark blue as she pulls up the corner of her burgundy mouth. I suppress my own smirk.
The closer I approach to her, the water reduces my speed until I’m floating toward her like a ginormous bubble that she intends to pop. Oh, just wait until I burst her fucking bubble.
She rises from her perch, her fin pushing her upward so that her eyes are level with mine, and chuckles. She actually laughs in my face. I bite my tongue and focus on the fact that Beatrice isn’t paying attention to Joanna. The moment I remember I’m under water, not flying through the air and at gravity’s mercy, I kick my legs to dive left. But Beatrice is a part of the sea. This is her home. This is her turf, or surf. Before I move half an inch away from her, she turns her whole body away from Joanna (yes!) and flicks her tail fin (oh, shit!).
Her long tail must be solid muscle because, as it slaps me, I feel like I’m being body slammed by a rhinoceros. Or Ludo. No wonder they were such a good pair. They’re both so muscular and athletic. The sex must have been spectacular.
Luckily, the density of the water prevents me from torpedoing all the way across the ocean, although I still go pretty far, belly up, from the force of that tail knocking me backward. I throw my arms out like a deranged starfish to stop my displacement and get my feet back under myself.
As I swim back toward the fight, Beatrice locks her eyes on me and licks her lips as she waits for a second chance to hurt me. Joanna, however, slides slightly to the right, just behind Beatrice’s back. The shinning orbs overhead reflect off the sword hidden behind her back. With me only twenty feet away, Joanna lunges for Beatrice, with the blade still clean and shining. But that’s okay. This is only phase one: Distract and wound Beatrice. Phase two: Get blood. Phase three: Finish the job.
Unfortunately, we’re not off to a good start. Beatrice deftly swishes to the side, causing Joanna to slam into the door of the cage, which swings closed but is not locked. With a clatter so loud I can see the sound waves move through the water, Joanna drops the sword. Red swirls dissipate into the water from a scrape on her head. Didn’t Mazu say something about sharks? Double shit.
Joanna teeters on her feet, looking like she may pass out. I hold my breath, praying Joanna rights herself, because the last thing I need is the only person fighting on my team down here to suddenly not be conscious.
I inch my way forward, holding my breath because I am not close enough to be a part of this fight. If I hadn’t been knocked so far away we could be tag teaming her right now. Beatrice grabs Joanna in a rear bearhug and pulls her away from the cage. Joanna must still be very disoriented because instead of grabbing Beatrice’s hands and spinning to knock her attacker off her, she kicks off the ground and loses any leverage she even had. Then again, even though this technique was one of the first self-defense moves I learned, I’ve never had to do the techniques in the ocean. The physics are probably off.
Beatrice drags Joanna away from the cage, and I have to make a fast decision: Do I go to help Joanna, or do I take the opportunity to grab the sword? Not a difficult choice to make really. I take one last look at my predecessor tangled up with our foe. I know what she would do, what she would want me to do.
I focus my attention like a laser on that blade and kick my legs as fast as a motorboat’s engine whirrs. Nothing else matters right now but getting that sword in my hands. I will worry about the next step when I get to it. I use my arms to pull myself through the thick water. With only a few feet left, I dive forward, like I’m going for home plate, my arms scrape along the grimy seabed, kicking up a cloud of sand that clouds my vision and stings my throat. Even in the gritty haze, the hilt of the little sword slides under my fingers. I wrap it in my palm and push myself to my feet.
I glance back and see that Joanna and Beatrice are still distracted, locked in hand-to-hand combat with spurts of waves whooshing around them, Joanna, on her feet again, moves as quickly as if she was on land, but Beatrice still moves faster than I’m comfortable with.
Quickly, I crack the door of the cage open just enough to shimmy inside and pull it shut behind me. I look at them, my husband, best friend, and best friend’s husband. Who can I bring myself to stab for this?
I would expect Rory to be the easiest to me in the moment. I have the least connection to him. But that also makes him the hardest choice. Eliza would be pissed at me. He’s supposed to be the furthest removed from this whole Guardian business, but he’s also the one Beatrice has tormented the most from the moment Eliza went missing.
Eliza…I can’t hurt her. She’s like a little sister to me. And as for Jake, he’s Jake. He’s my husband, the father of my children the love of my—
“It has to be Jake,” Mazu says as she swims into the cage. “It will work best if you use your mate’s blood.”
The answer is always Jake. Poor Jake. I can’t believe I have to stab my one-and-only. Even in the ocean of salt water my tears start flowing. “Is there no other way?”
She shakes her head. “This is it. But you only have to coat the blade. You do not have to kill him.”
Grateful for that tiny bit of good new, I glide to where my husband sits.
Sitting cross-legged on the ocean floor, he stares straight ahead. I position myself so I am kneeling in front of him, my hands on his knees. I look into his blank face. Again. I know I have to do this soon, that it’s only a matter of time before Beatrice sees where I am, what I’m up to.
I lean forward and kiss his lips, then his nose, then his forehead. I whisper, “I am so, so sorry about this.” I pull my hand back. The hilt of the knife is at my belly as I plan to plunge it into my husband’s.
