Maybe Roger had told him what to do if anyone had vanished?
As if fate itself winked at Angeline, suddenly the drumming hum of the yacht’s engine came to life with a soft jerk.
This answered the question about Hank’s location: He was on the bridge. Maybe, he really wasn’t looking for her. Angie could use this to her advantage, and yet the chamber being the yacht’s bridge would also be very small. He would see her coming. Maybe he was waiting just for that. It could be a trap.
However, the yacht starting to move which reminded her of the fact they were heading somewhere. Somewhere they would expect them. Or at least Maelstrom. The clock was still ticking. She still needed to save him.
Letting the scalpel slide out of her palm, Angie clenched her hands into fists, as she tried to convince herself of her determination to kill this man. She had shoved one into his death already. Putting a scalpel into the body of a man wasn’t much different, was it?
Angeline couldn’t shake off the feeling she was running into an obvious trap, like some stupid horror-flick blonde who ran up the stairs instead of right through the front door. Yes, she had a scalpel, but that wasn’t really a weapon, was it? Would the bolt cutter be any better?
What she really needed was a gun. She should have searched the cabin for a flare gun. Angeline scolded herself as she continued to sneak toward the stairs leading up to the bridge, still pressing her back against the cold metal behind her. She should have prepared herself instead of heading into her doom.
Angeline stopped and took a breather. She needed to calm herself down and focus. If she became more and more crazed with every step she took towards the bridge, she would fail.
Taking another deep breath, Angie continued to slowly walk her way to the bridge, hoping Hank would still be there. When she was halfway up the stairs, a single thought struck her like a cold piercing blade: What if there was another crew member still alive? She had never seen the man steering the yacht.
No, she shook her head. He would have stood in front of Maelstrom’s tank if he hadn’t thrown himself into the water.
Jesus, Angie, stop this! She railed at herself. You need to do this now before he leaves the bridge.
The first thing Angeline noticed as she reached the top of the stairs was that there wasn’t any light in the small cabin of the bridge. She took another careful step while searching the inside of the chamber, not seeing a silhouette. Just as she feared. What she hadn’t expected though as she moved further was stepping into several glass shards.
It was a trap.
Instead of crying out in pain, she lifted her injured foot lightly, before she kneeled on the other. Tears had instantly shot into her eyes, but she refused to weep, tightening her grip around the scalpel.
Angie had to be fast. Hank expected her to come for him so he would be there, hiding, waiting. He could leap at her any time. She needed to pluck the shards from her foot as fast as possible. Placing the injured foot on her knee, Angie did her best to remove the shards with her weaker hand. They were so thin, she had difficulties grasping them.
In her head, Angeline could hear the clock ticking. Maybe she had won a bit of time because she hadn’t made a sound. Maybe Hank was waiting for her to stand up again. The piercing pain shot into her eyes every time she removed a shard, clouding her sight.
Hastily, she rubbed her eyes with the back of the hand that carried the scalpel. Angeline would fight through the pain, but only if she could see.
Angie didn’t expect to have the time to remove all the shards she had in her foot, but that didn’t make her mission any easier. She couldn’t go any further because she was barefoot. Hank probably did the same on the other side of the bridge.
If she had worn shoes, the soles probably would have made a noise with them. Was Hank waiting for that? Did he forget Angeline didn’t have any shoes?
It had been a smart move anyway because now she couldn’t move fast but only with great care and consideration. Maybe she should just go back to the tank and call out for Hank. Would he do as she wanted him to? Her experience told her otherwise. Angie believed Hank was planning and calculating his own moves with the possibility of her still being alive. He was making sure he had an advantage. So, Angie had to deduce, he might want to kill her.
Dammit, she almost cursed aloud.
As a ray of light cut through the darkness in front of her, shock electrocuted her body. Angie’s body acted without thought. She got onto her feet and ran down the stairs, cut foot or not. It hurt, but if Hank saw her, she would be the hunted one again.
The only thing Angeline hadn’t thought about was her injured foot being slippery now. As she reached the floor, her cut foot slipped away, and she collided with the hard ground beneath her.
This time, however, she didn’t lose her weapon. Angeline fell stretched out on her side with a firm grip on the scalpel. The downside was finding herself in the cone of light coming from the top of the stairs. Hank had found her.
A part of Angie expected Hank would address her, maybe command her to stay still and give up. Maybe he would tell her what would happen next since he felt like he was in charge.
Angeline didn’t expect to hear a clicking noise that instantly made her use her stretched out position and roll to the side before the bullet hit her. So, instead, it ricocheted.
Without truly understanding how, Angie managed to get onto all fours and crawl behind some casks that were also tied down on deck. They most certainly were holding additional, illegal cargo. For now, they were her cover.
That bastard had a gun. Of course, he did.
“Running will only postpone the inevitable,” she heard Hank say now. “I truly don’t want to needlessly torture you. Just get out here and let me shoot you. It’ll be quick.”
At least that ray of light from his flashlight told her where that prick was. Angeline definitely would not make the mistake of answering him. Although she desperately wanted to make some harsh retort.
Hank still knew roughly where Angeline was. So, she still needed to move away from where she was currently hiding. But where to? There were only two ways out from behind these casks: towards the back of the yacht, where the tank was located and to the front. Angie knew to go across the railing was no option because there was nothing she could place her feet on. Especially not with her bleeding foot. Angie had learned this the hard way.
Thinking of her involuntary experience from just a few minutes ago, she was sure the sirens had left, which she found strange. Why would they leave one of their kind behind after coming to its aid? Or had Maelstrom already left with them without either Hank or her knowing? Without him saying goodbye.
The pang that thought caused made the decision for Angeline, even though going to the back brought her closer to Hank than choosing the other route, she had to find out if Maelstrom was still there.
Angie had no idea what she would do if she found out that the merman was gone. Did Hank have any reason to kill her then? Did he care? All his comrades were gone. Roger was gone. Maybe he was simply out for revenge. In the end, it didn’t matter. Angie knew she would have to kill him to get back home.
But did she want to get back home?
Even if she knew how to navigate with this yacht?
Although Angeline had spent many hours on her parent’s yacht, her mother wouldn’t allow her dad to show her the ropes. She knew how to steer boats of all sizes, but true navigation out on the open sea was absolutely foreign to her, and she hated that.
With her friends, they always chose targets lying at anchor, so they could vanish quickly. They had just started. Angeline had planned for them to use her parent’s yacht in the future because she believed it would be better for the sea creatures to be freed in the open sea. Now, that would never happen.
Angeline knew she would have to distract Hank before leaving the safety of the casks, but the only thing she could use to do so was the scalpel, and she would never, ever let go of that.
&nbs
p; “I know you are behind those casks,” Hank ripped her out of her thoughts. “Just come out of there, and I’ll do it quickly. I give you my word.”
Angie stayed silent and did not move an inch. She hoped Hank would believe she already had sneaked off when he hadn’t seen her. Or maybe Shark-face would come looking for her.
The truth was, she was trapped. Even worse yet, she had brought a knife to a gun fight. There was only one way. It was probably even riskier than trying to run. It was the same way she had gotten onto this damned boat in the first place: through the water.
The only difference now was the yacht was now moving, and Angie wasn’t sure if she could keep up with its speed. Worst case was, she would go into the water, and the yacht moved off. Angeline would be stranded in the middle of nowhere. If she were lucky, she would die of hypothermia before she starved or died of thirst.
It was hard for her to fight her need to sneak a peek at Hank, hoping to find him making a mistake so she would get the chance to escape and with that, another chance to kill him before he could kill her.
“Why do you want to kill me?” Angeline decided to ask because he already knew where she was.
As he didn’t shoot, but let silence spread, she felt something like hope. Angie had learned better than to trust that illusion.
“Because if I don’t, I will always have to watch my back,” Hank answered after a moment of hesitation. “You would want to free him. I need to keep him. It’s simple as that.”
“Is he even still there?” Angie pondered, and Mr. Shark-face didn’t respond.
Angie pushed her luck, hoping Hank would check the tank and she ran towards the front of the yacht. No shots were fired. But Angeline didn’t wait to find out if Hank had realized she ran off. Instead, she moved further faster, running around the nose of the yacht. She completely forgot about the shards of glass she had been stepping on on the other side of the yacht, but luckily, Hank hadn’t scattered any shards where she now went. After passing the nose, Angeline found Hank still standing between the bunk and the casks, directing his flashlight towards the area where she had been hiding.
Angie now hid behind the cabin which was the yacht’s bridge. Between her and Hank were the shards she had stepped on before. And she still had nothing to cover her feet with,
“Girl?” Hank asked, uncertainty in his voice.
Maybe he had a feeling she wasn’t there anymore, but Angeline was angry about the fact the man hadn’t even memorized her name.
“You damn slut,” Hank cursed. “I will find you, and I will kill you. You hear me?”
Patience was a virtue, and Angie realized it as such. Shark-face was still directing his flashlight at the casks, and even though she had no way of getting to him in a way she could slit his throat, Angeline still had an advantage: he didn’t know she was at the bridge. Carefully, cautiously she moved back around the nose and entered the bridge at the side where there were no shards. The engine was still running. The course was set on auto-pilot, and there was the key, sitting in the ignition.
Angie didn’t think twice. She turned the key and pulled it from its place, instantly running off to the casks, counting on Hank to take the shortest route to the bridge as he was wearing shoes.
Her destination was clear: the tank.
The situation, however, didn’t turn out as Angeline counted on. After running down the stairs back to the loading area, she found herself in the middle of a cone of light.
Hank hadn’t moved.
Angie froze. She could hear that ripping sound of a gun being fired. She waited for the stinging pain, or the ripping pang, or however it would feel to be shot point blank. Angeline expected her knees to give in beneath her due to the pain, or for her body to be thrown backward. It wasn’t like that.
The flashlight dropped to the ground. Alongside it went the gun. While the flashlight rattled, the gun went with nothing but a heavy thud.
Hanks wide stare of terror met Angeline’s gaze of disbelief. He had frozen into a statue. Long arms were wrapped around him tightly in an adamantine embrace. And at his neck, sunk into his flesh was what Angie could only identify as a head. It was a strange, utterly distorted image of what she had seen a hundred times in vampire movies. The only difference was Hank wasn’t drained of life or blood. He was in sheer agony, as a part of his neck was ripped off his body. Blood pooled from the crater that was once the left side of Hank’s neck. It took only a few heartbeats for his body to turn limp in Maelstrom’s arms. And he did so as the merman stared at Angeline with a mouth smirched with a black substance she knew was blood.
Maelstrom didn’t let go of Hank’s body, his strong, long arms held tightly to the human’s body, his fingers digging deep into the dying flesh. Angie knew what would happen but she still was unable to tear herself from the sight, as the male siren tore the human body into two halves. Those two halves slumped to the ground to each side of Maelstrom’s form.
He never spit out the piece of flesh he had torn from Hank’s neck. Probably because he swallowed it.
Angeline couldn’t move. Her body was painfully frozen. In that very moment, she experienced how a mouse must feel in the presence of a snake or cat. She was the prey and he the predator.
Only then, the realization sunk in, that Maelstrom was standing, literally standing on two feet. His tail was gone, and in its place were two long and strong legs. That he as completely naked was just a side note to Angeline, at that moment. Maelstrom’s silvery hair was still clinging to his face, falling to his shoulders. His face was still unearthly beautiful, his eyes were still two black holes daring her to get lost in them.
9 – Breathless
Angeline didn’t dare to move or breathe as she stood there staring at Maelstrom who was now standing on two long legs with two strong feet. His limbs appeared to be a little longer than they should be. This wasn’t what she was pondering about, however. Angie had no idea how it was possible for him to have changed into a human within what only could have been minutes. It was her feeling dizzy which reminded Angeline she still needed oxygen to function and so, she could figure out this awestriking magic. The thing was, she simply couldn’t.
Maelstrom was still standing there, now almost at seven feet tall, naked, staring at her, with Hank’s body torn in two at his feet, blood pooling around him as if that man was a never-ending source of it. In the cone of light Hank’s flashlight was still casting, the dark-red blood built a stark contract to Maelstrom’s seemingly ashen skin. It reminded her who or rather what she was currently facing: a predator preferring human flesh, so lethal it had become nothing but a myth.
When Maelstrom started moving Angie couldn’t. She wasn’t even sure if she wanted to, so torn she felt. A part of her screamed inside her to start running, the other to meet him in the middle. What Angeline knew for sure was this beautiful inhuman creature would now show its true colors. It was just a matter of heartbeats. She felt like a deer in the headlights, like a hare facing a snake, a breathtaking beautiful snake.
Angie begged silently and desperately for her fears to be wrong and for what she had felt with him to be true, for him feeling the same, while seconds passed in hours.
“Angeline,” she heard him speak.
In truth, it was more than a croaked whisper, but she could hear his alluring voice in her head, saying her name in a way that made tears fill her eyes.
Of course, everything about Maelstrom was just to lure her in, to make her a willing prey, but a part of her heard something more in his voice. Something she could only name as emotion. Maybe he really felt something for her. Maybe he even cared for her. Enough to let her live.
But was it enough for him to stay with her?
That question made the tears break from her eyes and flee down her cheeks. And in exactly that moment, Maelstrom’s hands cupped her cheek and pulled her towards him
He kissed her; gently and almost insecure. That simple movement washed away all of Angeline’s fears and caution. S
he closed the remaining distance between them and reached up to his face, pulling his head closer to her.
Angie didn’t care for the fact that her feet now too were standing in a puddle of blood. But she cared about Maelstrom suddenly lifting her up, and away from the blood, making her straddle his hips; and especially the fact of him pressing her down against his hard cock. The pressure against her clit and pussy made Angie realize she was already wet with need.
“The cabin,” she spoke against his lips which only allowed her to do so reluctantly.
Maelstrom did understand her, however, moving with a steady step, almost as if he had spent his entire life on two legs. But right now, Angie couldn’t muse about this fact because she could only think about the cock between her legs and the mouth on her lips. What she now gave thanks for, was for whatever was in the male siren’s saliva, it was the same chemistry as when she met some hot guy. And still, she had never lost her mind over someone.
There were just some things chemistry couldn’t work its scientific magic on. Some kinds of attraction simply went deeper than that. Angeline was sure of it. Because she experienced it right now.
It was that kind of gravity making her switch her mind off voluntarily.
As Maelstrom put her on the table and started brushing aside all the items sitting there, Angeline saw movement from the corner of her eyes. Instinctively, she turned her head to see what it was, and she stared at her own reflection in a small mirror above the sink next to her. Her mouth was smeared with something dark. Angie’s stomach turned, when she figured it must be Hank’s blood, transferred from Maelstrom to her because he had kissed her. Before she knew what, she was doing, she watched her tongue dart out of her mouth, licking her lips. She had no idea if it was reflex or something else.
Angeline had tasted blood before. Her own from biting her lower lip accidentally. This blood, smeared on her mouth, didn’t taste any different. And, to her own eyes, despite her knowing the truth, she looked as if she had hungrily consumed a chocolate lava cake. Why the hell her mind made that comparison, she had no idea. And she didn’t get the chance to follow that thought any further.
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