by Diana Paz
But the words hadn’t left Kaitlyn’s lips before her fingertips snapped from her grasp.
“Kaitlyn!”
A high-pitched wail was abruptly cut short. Julia’s heart emptied. Kaitlyn had fallen into the water alone.
The man still clutched her arm. Julia struggled against him, swallowing hard against the lump in her throat. Through the mayhem she heard Kaitlyn’s small voice on repeat, pleading in her heart.
Please… don’t let me drown.
She needed help. Power. Someone who could annihilate everyone in here. Ethan’s image formed in her mind, but he still didn’t respond.
The man yanked her forward, hauling her back over the edge no matter how hard she thrashed. The blade she stabbed met with a curse, but whatever she had cut must not have been enough to stop him. With a fierce yank, her arm was wrenched behind her and the dagger fell from her grip.
“Ethan,” she yelled. Kaitlyn was probably already sinking to the bottom of the dark ocean. Angie couldn’t last forever in there, either. Julia needed to help them, but she couldn’t do this alone…
And she didn’t have to.
Her heart sank in time to her head as it fell forward in defeat. Indira, she called.
Unnatural silence immediately descended around her, cold and thick with imminent doom. Each moment that passed grew heavier and more stifling, until Julia felt as though she couldn’t breathe. She couldn’t lift her lashes. She couldn’t move.
And then the voice stole over her mind, a deadly whisper that pulsed with longing.
Yes, daughter?
Julia bit her lip. She already regretted calling Indira. This couldn’t be right. This couldn’t be the way. She expelled Indira’s sick, icy presence from her mind. She should never have called her. She could figure this out on her own.
Couldn’t she?
The dark, eerie silence fled, along with Indira’s presence. The cave returned to its previous state of chaos. A strangled, gurgling cry echoed through the cave. Harsh fingers bit into Julia’s arms as she was slammed against a rocky wall. The seashell fell from her fingers and made a clattering, glass-like noise as it bounced out of sight.
“No,” she cried, straining her neck to try and see where it landed. The man holding her yanked her forward. She had nothing that could help them. Kaitlyn was likely drowned. Angie might be close to dead too. Without her Sisters, she had no way of going home ever again. Without any magic left she couldn’t blast this creep in the face. In her sodden, heavy gown she couldn’t even knee him in the groin. Hot, hopeless tears welled in her eyes.
Kaitlyn’s words came back to her. You keep fighting until you break free, or until you’re unconscious or dead, but you don’t give up. Not ever.
A surge of power shot through her heart. “Get off me,” she yelled, pushing herself toward him instead of trying to get away. “Let me go! Let go!”
The man lost his balance, but he didn’t loosen his grip on her for a second. “I found one of ‘em,” he called at the top of his lungs. “Hear me voice? Follow me here and let’s burn the witch!”
She shoved at him again, yanking herself so forcefully that they both fell to the cave’s sharp, craggy ground. He wouldn’t let go as they skidded down the harsh decline. Waves crashed beneath her. The edge of the path crumbled at her back.
She only needed to rock herself over and she would be able to fall into the water, but the man refused to let go. His body crashed over hers, smothering and hot. There was nothing to see in the utter darkness of the cave, only the feel of his breath and his heavy body, the scent of his sweaty filth blocking out the salt of the ocean. She heard footsteps and voices come closer.
She bucked against the man, biting and scratching, doing everything she could to inch her way closer to the edge.
“Yer magic ain’t working anymore,” he laughed.
The sharp drop-off met her back and she pushed herself to the side, hard. A stab of satisfaction pierced her as the man wobbled. With every ounce of strength left in her body she shoved at him, propelling herself over the edge.
She could feel the moment the man let her go… she could hear his harsh curses but could barely figure out what was happening as she dropped like a stone into the water below.
~ Chapter 26 ~
Kaitlyn
She was falling.
Kaitlyn didn’t understand what was happening other than that she was falling, her hands empty, her body speeding into roaring darkness.
The water hit her back, momentarily stunning her. She sank deep into the surging blackness. Her body remained limp from the shock of impact but soon, without conscious effort, she lurched and writhed, panic taking over.
She had never experienced such utter darkness. It warped her mind and nearly sealed her fate within the forceful, swirling current that surged and swelled. Help! She wanted to scream, but the burn of salt water in her throat choked her. The weight of her gown pulled her down. She was no longer herself. She became an animal desperate to survive.
No, she thought, kicking her legs as Angie had taught her to. She kicked with all her strength, forcing her feet to move against the dress and the watery death that awaited her if she let panic take over. Kick damn it. Kick!
Her face broke the surface and she gasped, swallowing enough water to make her cough uncontrollably. Her body sank again and she kicked and moved her arms, her mind poised on the sharp edge of hysteria. Her head erupted from the surface again and she gulped air and choked on more salty water. From some outside source, the current rose rapidly, spraying across her face as it crashed against the walls of the cavern. She kicked harder, tearing at her dress in an effort to free herself but the current dragged her back down again faster than she could gain any semblance of stability.
The powerful force of the current was too strong. She sunk fast this time. Her ears popped from the water pressure as she thrashed about in the obscurity, until she felt the last remnants of sanity bury themselves beneath a feral burst of panic that sent her into jerking spasms. Her arms reached for a salvation that wouldn’t come.
The violent energy used up her body’s final stores of oxygen. Her struggling motions slowed. Dimly she realized that in a moment she would take in a breath of water, choking off any hope of survival.
Her body sank like a piece of coral, drifting down at the whim of the inky sea’s merciless current. She slowly blinked, her eyes adjusting to a bright glow that made no sense in the total blackness of the underwater abyss. Maybe she was already drowned. Maybe there was a God after all, and the glow was the eternal light she was supposed to follow into the afterlife. A childhood prayer surfaced from the recesses of her mind.
Oh my God, I am heartily sorry for having offended thee...
She felt so calm. So sure of herself. Her hand reached out for the soft, golden glow beneath the water, her black-painted fingernails gleaming against the light emanating from a seashell that lay at the bottom of the cave floor.
Seashell.
Her eyes widened.
This was why she no longer felt panic. She didn’t need to breathe. The pressure from the water’s depth didn’t bother her. She snatched the shell and pushed off from the rocky bottom, swimming with ridiculous ease now that she held the seashell in her hand. Where was Julia? She shut her eyes and built her magic within her, waiting for the mark on her arm to burn hot before thrusting out her palm. “Illuminate,” she cried, the word nothing but watery bubbles and gurgles beneath the waves, but the force behind the spell was no less powerful. A sphere of light appeared in the center of the underwater world, casting brightness throughout the reaches of the undersea cave. And near the far wall, she saw a body.
With the seashell’s powerful glow surrounding her, she darted quickly to the small, lifeless form. Julia didn’t have much stamina, and with how forcefully the current stormed through this cave, it was no wonder—
But the body was smaller than Julia’s.
Oh no… she realized, gathering Angi
e in her arms. Angie was so strong. If anyone could have made it through the cave okay, it was her. But here she was, unconscious and nearly drowned.
Kaitlyn pressed the seashell against the smaller girl’s chest, her gaze intent on the golden light that would send oxygen to her limp body. Angie made no movement and Kaitlyn quickly began kicking for the surface. “Angie,” she cried when she broke through the water. “Angie, you’re going to be okay, do you hear me?”
Angie didn’t respond, but with the seashell pushed against her chest, she had to be receiving oxygen. With a hard swallow, Kaitlyn built up what little magic she had left and sent it to her in an effort to give the girl her strength. How many times had Angie saved her from drowning? Kaitlyn could hardly count them all. And now Angie had been in the water too long, the violent waves within the cavern sloshing her tiny body so forcefully she hadn’t been able to hang on.
She tried to form a spell, but her throat burned as hot streams of fluid spilled down her cheeks. “Restore,” she finally managed. Weak bursts of healing magic trickled to Angie’s lifeless body. “Restore,” she repeated hoarsely.
They needed to find dry land. She looked around in the newly illuminated cave. The rising tide slapped viciously against her, but with the seashell in her hand it hardly mattered. She could tread water as easily as walking across a room now. She absorbed oxygen through the water itself, no longer a prisoner to the air.
In the increasing roar of the advancing tide, she heard a high-pitched yell followed by a harsh splash, one that was out of sync with the rest of the cave’s sounds. She spun around. “Julia?”
“Over here,” Julia wailed, her voice sounding small as it echoed against the walls and the water.
Kaitlyn reached her quickly, and as soon as the seashell’s glow touched her, Julia’s features smoothed. “You found it,” she said, treading water easily despite her gown. “And Angie, too.”
Julia reached out, touching both Kaitlyn and Angie’s arms as her eyes slid closed. In the same instant, the rising tide came to a stop, and Kaitlyn realized she had frozen time. Everything grew silent, except for their breaths. Kaitlyn watched Julia in the silvery light of her illumination spell. Her lips and lashes glistened with drops of water. When her eyes opened, she looked directly at Kaitlyn and her eyes shone with something she didn’t recognize.
“You found it,” Julia repeated, her voice trembling. “You saved us all.”
Julia’s hug was so unexpected, Kaitlyn almost dropped the precious seashell. She blinked against the rush of heat spilling from her chest and eyes.
“Thank you,” Julia whispered, letting her go.
Kaitlyn swallowed tightly, wishing she had thought to hug Julia back. “You would have done the same for me,” she managed, unsure why her voice seemed so raspy and quiet.
“Have you seen a way out?” Julia asked, her voice strangely dense and without echo in the time-frozen cave.
“No, but the water rushes into the cave from this side here,” she said, swimming backward to the spot where the water had been the most ruthless.
Julia followed, staying within the domain of the seashell’s light. “I’ll dive down and check,” she said, slipping beneath the surface before Kaitlyn could respond.
A moment later she reappeared. “There’s a huge passageway down there. It goes deeper and I couldn’t follow it without getting too far from the seashell, but it’s the only opening I saw.
“All this water has to come from that passageway, then,” Kaitlyn murmured. “As long as we have the seashell we should be okay, right?”
Julia nodded, taking her arm. “Illuminate,” she said, creating her own sphere of light to replace Kaitlyn’s fading one.
They dove down together, Kaitlyn holding the seashell right against Angie’s chest the whole time. The passageway went much farther down before it finally curved up, but she and Julia didn’t stop swimming until the water grew pale and clear.
When they surfaced, Kaitlyn smiled, not caring about how her scar must be twisting her face. She couldn’t remember a time when her heart had felt so… joyful. She laughed at the thought. Joyful heart, it sounded so cheesy. Something Angie would say.
The object of her thoughts moved feebly in her arms, coughing and turning her head. Her lids remained shut.
“She’s breathing,” Kaitlyn said, crushing the limp girl against her chest. “She’ll be okay.”
“Let’s get her onto the sand,” Julia said.
“Unfreeze time first?” Kaitlyn suggested. It was easier to swim without the current, but the last thing they needed was a demonic onslaught.
“Not yet,” Julia said, her brow creasing as she helped Kaitlyn bring Angie onto dry land. “The crown is still inside. With the pirates frozen, I can go right back around to the entrance of the cave and find it.”
“Bad idea.”
“But—”
“Just listen to me for once. I want the crown as much as you do, but if we leave time frozen, the creatures will find us.” She glanced down at the still-unconscious Angie. “I’ll be alone here, you’ll be alone in there.” Kaitlyn schooled her voice, trying to get rid of the condescending tone she recognized creeping into her words. “Do you really think that’s a good plan?”
“Brian is going to turn Scylla without our help. You saw it happen.” Julia’s brown eyes, normally a little spacey, turned decisively toward the cave. “I need that crown. If we don’t get it now, we never will.”
“No one’s saying that you don’t get the crown. I’m just saying unfreeze time so creatures don’t come after us. I’ll make us all invisible. Angie and I will be safe, and you can maneuver around the pirates without being seen—”
“Are you out of your mind? They almost killed us.” Her eyes lost their determined edge beneath increasingly peaked brows. “What about the vision you saw. We died on a beach. We died from pirates. Not creatures.”
“Or creatures disguised as pirates. Plus, we weren’t invisible.”
Julia fell silent. Kaitlyn lowered Angie onto the sand before glancing along the dark, tree-lined island. The beach seemed deserted, but the vision she had seen of them being killed on the beach slithered through her mind. Had the world been frozen, or unfrozen? She couldn’t remember now. “If we leave time frozen, creatures might kill us… but if we unfreeze time, pirates might kill us.”
Julia’s gaze fixed on Angie. “I wish she were awake to tell us what to do. Angie would know what was best.”
Kaitlyn smoothed back the damp, blond hair of their fearless leader. She couldn’t disagree with Julia this time. Angie really did know best. She squeezed her eyes shut for a moment, trying to figure out what Angie would do.
“I think,” Julia began, pausing mid-sentence to gnaw on her lower lip, “okay, we never saw a vision of us dying by the creatures. But you did see one about us dying from pirates. Even if they were creatures in disguise, they wouldn’t bother with disguises if the world was frozen, so…”
“So, by leaving time frozen, we take pirates out of the equation altogether,” Kaitlyn finished, realizing Julia had a point.
Julia nodded. “I’ll head back around to the cave entrance to reach the treasure.”
There wasn’t much else she could say. She couldn’t go with Julia and leave Angie alone on the beach. “Go as fast as you can, and—” be careful. Don’t get hurt. Her tongue stuck to the roof of her mouth, her heart constricting as she handed Julia the seashell. “Just… don’t do anything dumb. Okay?”
Julia smiled and nodded. As her hand covered the seashell in Kaitlyn’s palm, she noticed the scar on the girl’s hand. It shimmered in the frozen sunlight, and for a moment the matching scar on Kaitlyn’s cheek felt strangely warm.
Julia frowned down at her hand before glancing sharply up at Kaitlyn. Her lips parted, but Kaitlyn cut her off with a gentle shove.
“Go,” she said. “Before creatures come.”
~ Chapter 27 ~
Julia
Julia cr
ept back around to the cave’s entrance. Her shoulders ached from the weight of her soaked dress. Her lungs burned with each breath from having breathed in so much gun smoke and seawater. All she needed was the crown. All three Jewels of Time in one… she remembered how it felt to wear only one of the jewels. The power had almost overwhelmed her. With all three, they would surely be able to help Brian.
The rocks angled sharply as she entered the gaping cave. The sight of time-frozen pirates startled her. Even knowing they couldn’t come to life, her heart remained lodged in her throat as she maneuvered past them. What if one of them was a creature?
Icy sweat broke out on the back of her neck. She didn’t have enough magic to blast anything. But, if any of them had been creatures, they would have followed after them into the water. They would have gotten to Angie before Kaitlyn had saved her.
She slipped on a slimy piece of rock, clumsy in her heavy gown. Her entire body tensed as she collided with a time-frozen pirate. He tipped onto her like a mannequin. For a second she stood still, her eyes squeezed shut. He’s frozen. He can’t come to life. He’s not a creature.
Telling herself this didn’t make it any less scary. She shoved him away. “Oh, gross,” she whispered, not bothering to try and save him from falling face-forward onto the rocky ground. He had tried to kill her, after all. If Kaitlyn were here, these pirates would be lucky to be left alive.
“Illuminate,” she said, flicking her hand to create a small, glowing orb. Eerie light cast itself upon the pirate’s faces. She swallowed tightly and kept her eyes on the path. “All right, crown. Where are you?”
Her voice echoed, high-pitched and ghost-like. Where are you… where are you… where are you…
Goosebumps spread along her back and arms. She hurried, careful not to trip into any other pirates. The pulse of magic began throbbing in her chest. A familiar ache built inside of her, one she recognized as the power of the jewels.
All she had to do was relax and let the jewels guide her. She closed her eyes for a moment, her breathing slowing down as the sweet promise of power reached out to her.