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“Shouldn’t you be circling to recruit joiners for your cause?” Kane threw my words back at me.
Why am I still standing here?
“They’re not interested,” I growled.
He waved his hand in the air. “Their money spends just as good as anyone else’s. And money is better than boots on the ground.”
“Someone has to get in the trenches.”
“And that someone is you, I take it.”
“Yes.”
“You’re missing a golden opportunity, Barn. If I were you, I’d have a cool million collected by the end of the night.”
I gripped my glass so hard I thought it would crack.I have a name. “Is that so? Then why don’t you go do that for my littlecause?”
Everyone thought I was a joke. That the work I did was meaningless.
“You’ve gotta give me something to sell, sweetheart. Who’s next on your list to save?”
I pressed my lips together. He was making fun of me. Who was I kidding? He had been from the minute I met him.
Suddenly I felt protective of the next crusade, as my mother called it. What if he tried to thwart it? He’d do it, just to screw with me.
“Don’t call me sweetheart.”
“I don’t think that’s going to work to get them to open their wallets.”
How was he so smug?
Every time I was around him, it was as if my cells were in a frenzy, colliding and bouncing off one another in a frenetic rhythm I didn’t know how to handle.
“I’m going to the Antarctic. Whales are being slaughtered at a vicious rate. Certain countries aren’t abiding by the global ethics rules. I’m organizing a campaign to stop it.” I tried to shove the images of innocent whales being harvested in the name of research out of my mind. Their majestic beauty turned the waters into a sea of blood as they were cruelly harpooned.
I’d seen photographs and videos that had moved me. But witnessing the whalers snuff out a life in person . . . I rubbed my chest as streaks of blood dotted my vision.
“What are you going to do to stop it?”
The question shook me from my dark place. It wasn’t insincere. That mocking tone was gone. He was curious.
“I’m going to track the whaling fleet. If they try to take one whale they aren’t legally allowed, I will rain down the fires of hell on them.”
I didn’t know exactly how I was going to do that. Only that I needed a sturdy ship and a crew. Maybe several ships. And weapons.
No.
Violence was never the answer.
Peace. Only ever peace.
“Daddy’s giving you a ship. What else do you need?”
“Crew. Food. Supplies.” I shook my head. “I don’t know.”
He was quiet a minute as he stared out at the party. “Passion is important. But you need a real plan. An executable one.”
I’d recruited a few people from other groups I’d worked with who had experience at sea. They’d helped me form a list of things we’d need, safety protocols, and ways to track the whaling fleet. But I hadn’t figured out exactly how I was going to stop them once we encountered them. It was tricky. I didn’t want anyone to get hurt. Not even the whalers. But my crew would be at risk . . . I didn’t take that lightly, even though the core group I’d recruited shared my passion.
