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“Where’s the fun in that?!” My father scoffed. “I want to steer this boat myself. Just open the doors and we’ll be off.”
Cael shook his head. “I’m sorry if you misunderstood, but when I said you could take a boat, I didn’t meanpermanently. Once you’re deposited on the island of your choice, the boatwill return on its own back to me. But the good news is, the coordinates will guarantee your course stays true.”
My father let go of the helm, turning to face him fully. “That wasn’t our agreement.”
“It was,” said Cael, “but it seems you failed to understand the terms.”
“You said Mara and I get to take a boat from the arsenal with only the two of us on board to wherever we may please!” my father said. “You never mentioned we didn’t get to keep the boat!”
“I never specified that youdidget to keep it,” said Cael.
“I did not consent to being confined to one island for the rest of my life!”
I looked between the two of them, stunned, though I realized I shouldn’t have been. I knew Cael all too well by now. I’d seen him go back on his agreements, but I never thought he’d do it to my father, the one person he’d always treated as an equal.
“These boats are far too valuable,” said Cael, “and we’ve already lost one. My terms are final. I will send you to your coordinates or you can stay right here.”
“No!” roared my father, crossing the deck and stepping back out onto the rocky ground. “You will not cheat me of your promise. I demolished my life here—for you! You know I can’t stay or they’ll execute me!”
“Then tell me your destination and I will send you there,” said Cael, the two of them only inches away from each other, both of their stances hostile. “It’s still freedom.”
“It’s not freedom,” said my father. “It’s banishment. I spent the first twenty years of my life that way and it’s not how I’ll spend the rest of them. I want to go far away from here. Somewhere new! I want to explore and discover and I need this vessel for that.”
They faced each other, my father’s stubbornness finally finding its match.
Graham came down to the water’s edge, facing Cael with the rest of us. “Let them go,” he said. “You have more boats.”
I nodded. “Do as you agreed, Cael.”
Cael didn’t look away from my father’s eyes as he answered with firm resolve. “No.”
In one sudden move, my father swiped the remote from Cael’s hands, shoving him back onto the rocky ground.
Cael’s golden quill fell from his pocket, clattering onto the rock.
He jumped back to his feet at once, pulling a black gun from his belt and pointing it directly at my father’s head.
“No!” I shouted, reaching toward him.
“Stay back, Mara,” said my father, his voice revealing no fear. He didn’t seem to believe Cael would hurt him, not when Cael had always seen him as a father.
But I wasn’t so sure anymore.
I leaned down and snatched the golden quill off the ground. The point was razor sharp, the closest thing I had to a knife. I tucked it into my boot before Cael could notice.
My father backed up with the remote still in his hands, stepping back onto the speedboat’s deck and over to the helm.
Cael started to lower the gun.
“I knew you wouldn’t hurt me,” he said to Cael. “We like each other far too much for?—”
The deafening crack of a gunshot cut off my father’s words.
I screamed.
Cael stood with his arm still extended and the gun aimed at my father, a look of horror on his face.
Blood colored the front of my father’s shirt. He looked down at it but didn’t seem able to make sense of what had happened.“That may be”—he coughed, sputtering blood—“the first time I’ve been wrong.”
