The Girl With Ten Claws (The Adventures of Benedict and Blackwell)

by E. Earle

  Brynn’s teeth were gritted in a grim smile as he pulled the oar and then took mine. “Here, let me.”

  I barely had the energy to argue with him and sat down to the base of the boat, holding on for dear life as it rocked back and forth.

  The current dragged us further into the depths of Croyde Bay, its cliffs towering over us in their black hostile state, disapproving and mocking of the mortals who dared travel through their waters. The lighthouse glimmered ahead, its light being the only kind thing in this world.

  Soon the little lights on the docks were nothing but hazy fireflies bobbing up and down as the water surrounded us.

  My boots had thankfully kept the water out, and I thanked their leather state. I couldn’t say the same for Gabriella and Olivia as they huddled next to each other, their designer boots and heels completely impractical in our surroundings.

  I imagined their little toes freezing and then falling off one by one, my eyes closing in the delicious imaginings of their agony. It was short lived as a wave near toppled us over.

  I screamed and held on as Brynn sought to regain control of the boat.

  “Hold on!” he shouted as another wave poured over us. My breath froze in my lungs as artic water smashed down against my skin like a slap. Shrieks came from the other side of the boat, the waves filling my ears as they continued to pour over us, relentless in their torment. Brynn’s shouts for me to hold on filled my insides as my fingernails dug down into wood, willing my body to move with the water, willing my body to survive.

  Liquid filled my mouth and nostrils as I choked on salt and hit my head on the side of the boat. Dazed, I fell back to watch another wave crash above us.

  “You said you knew these waters!” screeched Gabriella flinging herself forward onto Brynn. “You said you knew the right course!”

  Brynn smiled like the devil, a manic danger flaring in his face that almost scared me. “I do know these waters,” he grinned.

  Gabriella stared at him and then pulled out her gun. “You took us through these waves on purpose!” she snarled, fixing her hands around the trigger. “You’re going to fucking regret this, O’Connell!”

  The lump of metal was enough for me to lose my mind. Another wave leapt up, and as it did, I lunged at Gabriella, a roar ripping through my throat.

  Her eyes widened in surprise for the two seconds it took to knock us both overboard.

  The water swallowed our bodies as we fought over the gun. It slipped from my grip and was lost in the current. Black pressed against my eyelids as Gabriella frantically clung onto me, sinking my body further beneath the waves. I fought to swim upwards but her nails slashed down on me liked a rabid animal, keeping me down.

  I kicked back at her and for a moment, my head broke the surface, just in time to see Brynn diving overboard. The image was fleeting because my head was under again.

  My muscles burned as my exhausted and frozen arms fought to keep myself from being dragged down. Another second passed and the boat had been swept further and further away, Olivia’s screams an echo against the seawater pressing against my eardrums.

  Water rushing into my nostrils as my fingertips became the only thing touching the surface. My boots were coal weights around my ankles, as my legs flailed in the water. Another wave crashed down against the surface, my coat a dead man’s weight against my back as the current pushed me down.

  I stretched upwards, seeing some reflection of the moon above, my fingers frozen in a claw as if I could grab onto that orb and pull myself up.

  It was over.

  My stomach twisted, and regret poured out of me as the last breath was released out of my lungs. I never got to see my nephew’s first birthday. I had never tried to get any of my writing published. I hadn’t opened Old Marley’s. I hadn’t told Calloway I had forgiven him. I hadn’t told my sister how much I loved her. Or my parents. I hadn’t told Brynn he was my best friend.

  How much I respected him.

  How much I…

  I hadn’t told him…

  Fingertips touched mine just as my last ebb of faith waned. The surge of hope that rose up in me was as violently secure as the hand that suddenly gripped mine.

  Brynn’s face was the first thing I saw when my head broke the surface.

  I opened my mouth to laugh, but a wave crashed down on us, sending me back below the surface. Brynn pulled me up immediately, holding me up by under my arms.

  He shook his head. “Relax, Ellena,” he said. His face was white as he fought to stay above the surface. “Lie on your back, relax. We need to get out of this current.”

  I obeyed and he carried the weight of us both, swimming with a strength that I knew couldn’t possibly last. The boat became a dot in my vision, my body numb now to sensation.

  “We’re too far away from the shore,” Brynn said between breaths. “The current is too strong to swim against. There’s only one place we can go.”

  “Where’s that?” I murmured, the waves getting gentler. The boat was nowhere in sight on the other side of the bay, the roar of the violent waves now far enough for me to be able to hear birds.

  “Pirates Peak.”

  “But, Brynn!” I struggled from beneath him and kicked out, finding some last reserves of strength. Surprise hit me as I managed to survive oncoming waves. “You said it was too dangerous!”

  He shook his head. “I know a way in,” he said, his lips a shade of blue. “We’ve got no choice. We can’t stay out in this.” His teeth chattering, he touched my shoulder. “Do you trust me?”

  I stared at him a second longer before nodding.

  A look of determination covered his face. “I’ll get us out of this, I promise,” he said. “But no matter how tired you get- promise me you’ll keep going.”

  I nodded again, tears burning my cheeks.

  Pirates Peak was a hostile point in the water ahead, foam encircling it like a fort. I didn’t know how we were going to manage it, but if Brynn said he knew a way in, then I trusted every word he said.

  “Let’s do this,” I shivered.

  We swam hard. Brynn was a born swimmer, and yet the only stroke I knew was breast stroke. He stayed by me regardless, knowing that I was pushing myself as hard as I could. I switched it up by doing back stroke, trying to allow my body to float, but often I found myself wanting to sleep.

  “Remember Dori, Ellena,” Brynn said. “Just keep swimming!”

  I almost choked on the tears and laughter that came out of me all at once. He had sat with me waxing his board as I watched Finding Nemo last week. It always reminded me of my parents living in Australia.

  “Just keep swimming,” I sobbed, my arms now indifferent to the cold that buried its way into my pores. “Just keep swimming…”

  Just keep swimming, just keep swimming, just keep swimming, swimming-

  We fought on, until Pirates Peak was a very real thing before us. A thin strip of light was edging on the horizon and it represented all the hope I had in the world.

  Yesterday’s hell was finally over.

  Now for today’s.

  “Follow me, Ellena,” Brynn panted. “It’s ok; you need to trust me on this.”

  I had no energy to argue, I just followed him towards the five spikes coming out of the ground. As we came closer, my hopes of ever getting onto dry land vanished. It was impossible. The shards pierced through the water, overhanging over its domain.

  Climbing was impossible.

  A sob curled up and died in my throat.

  I turned to Brynn, hearing him call my name, and suddenly he was diving underwater by the first peak. I watched him vanish with horror, my arms waving in the water to keep myself afloat, waiting for him to come back up.

  He didn’t.

  I started to scream his name. I wasn’t sure how long I had been screaming it before I started to cry.

  He was gone, and I would die out here.

  Follow me, Ellena.

  His earlier instructions hummed suddenly in my
head and my sobs dried up. I stared at the foam where he had vanished and took a breath. If I was going to follow him, that had to mean everywhere.

  Filling my lungs, I plunged beneath the waters and swam hard, preparing to feel hard rock crunch again my skull. My arms, taking on a new lease of life pulled huge strokes and I pulled myself through, and still no rock came.

  I opened my eyes, and seeing only blackness began to panic. Air escaped my mouth as I sought to kick myself back to the surface and suddenly hands took hold of me.

  “Ellena!”

  My legs gave out and the relief of seeing Brynn’s frantic face before mine was all I could take.

  “You bloody bastard…” I panted. “You just vanished and-”

  He didn’t wait to hear the rest before he started to drag me through the foam. It was five seconds in before I realised that we were sitting on a hard surface.

  “Oh God…” I gasped. “Did we make it?”

  Brynn smiled at me, and suddenly crunched my body to his in a painful hug.

  “I thought you were dead!”

  He held me tightly as his body shook with mine. I held onto his arms, terrified that if he let go then I would sink back below into the water.

  He held onto my upper arms and pulled me back so he could look at me. “We’ve got to get out of the water.”

  I laughed hopelessly. “There’s water everywhere!”

  He smiled and then shook his head.

  That was when I saw it. The small stone building behind him nestled within the protective spires.

  We carried each other towards it, although I admit Brynn probably did most of the carrying. The stone beneath us was worn into a smooth concoction of pinks, greens and browns as sea urchins clung onto life.

  It made me think of Olivia and Gabriella, and I wondered if they had survived the waters Brynn had taken us through. The thought was soon gone when we approached the building.

  Small and made from the thickest cut stone I had ever seen, the door was still intact, with one small window. The wind howled at my back as it buried its way into my hair, freezing the salt into each cuticle. I wrapped my hands around my arms and lay my head against Brynn’s chest for warmth.

  We didn’t separate as Brynn shoved the door open, swollen with salt water.

  “What is this place?” I murmured, gazing inside. I was surprised to see a bench, a stove and two trunks. Brynn slammed the door behind us, cutting the wind from our backs.

  I sighed in relief and fell to the floor.

  “No, Ellena,” Brynn said, pulling me back up. “You can’t sleep yet. You need to get out of those wet clothes-”

  “Let me sleep first,” I begged, the stone floor the most comfortable pillow my skull had ever felt.

  Brynn hauled me up and sat me on the bench. “Clothes off.”

  Being as cold as I was, it was the last thing I wanted to do. I remained there in a huddled heap as I watched Brynn wrench open one of the trunks and pulled out some blankets and a sleeping bag.

  “What on earth…?”

  “This is Old Marley’s haunt,” Brynn said as he pulled off his coat. “He used this place like the old pirates did.” He flashed me a tired smile as he kicked off his shoes and then sat down to struggle with his socks. “He used this place to steal artefacts his brother stole and store them here, or illegally import antiques from other countries.”

  I shook my head. “I don’t understand.”

  “No, nor me,” Brynn admitted. “I just went along with him and did as I was told.”

  “You helped him steal?”

  Brynn pulled out an old army coat and swore when he found a box of matches. “No, I never stole,” he said distractedly. “I was the boat boy.”

  It clicked. “That’s how you knew how to get here…”

  Brynn nodded and then pulled off his jeans and t shirt. My eyes wandered as he wrapped himself in a blanket and dried off, pulling the army coat over his hand made toga/poncho creation.

  “Ellena, you won’t get warm if you don’t take them off.”

  I nodded knowing and started to fumble at my coat. Brynn stepped forward and helped me unzip it. It seemed from then on, I was pretty much useless. Instead of continuing to move to keep my blood circulation going, I had remained in a freezing ball of self-pity.

  Brynn said nothing as he pulled off my boots, socks and jeans. I didn’t even care when it came to my jumper and t shirt, allowing him to wrap me up in the last two blankets from the trunk.

  Brynn kept his eyes respectfully averted when I removed my bra and knickers, even though I really couldn’t give a damn what he saw at that point. I paused as I rearranged the blanket around my middle, feeling his eyes on my gunshot wound. My normal sense of panic was non-existent. I really didn’t care. I paused and allowed him to fully take it in.

  My breath caught in surprise as he reached forwards and touched it, his face changing as he did.

  “Does it hurt?” he asked, his voice sounding strange.

  “I don’t know,” I admitted. “I’m just so cold…”

  The wind screamed outside, whistling through the edges of the shutters that had been nailed secure. I shivered, fearful of the ocean dragging me back down beneath the foam.

  Brynn found a bunch of dirty magazines from one of the chests and shoved them in the stove. He broke up one of the chests into bits and used that as firewood. How he kept going, I don’t know, but I admired him for it.

  We pulled up the sleeping bag in front, and both squeezed into it, wrapped in blankets and army coat, using some potato sacks as a pillow.

  Wrapping his arms around me, he held my body tight to his, his skin almost scorching mine.

  “I have to admit,” he said quietly as my eyelids flickered open and shut, “this is not how I imagined our first night together.”

  I turned slightly so I could face him. “And you’ve thought of our first night together?”

  His reply was a crooked smile, withholding of any real answer.

  I turned away and allowed him to hold me tighter, feeling safe at last. Heat was working into each and every limb, scorching each nerve ending into a world of pain as each cell came back to life.

  “I thought you were going to die,” I murmured, closing my eyes.

  A long pause stretched between us. Brynn’s breath was hot on my neck as he finally answered. “Me too.”

  I settled back into the blankets, the ocean waves a distant hum beyond the stone walls. “I’m glad you’re not dead.”

  “Me too.”

  Understanding of what was real and what was not starting to slip away as my consciousness began to fade.

  “Are we going to survive this?” I rolled so I was facing Brynn and forced my eyes open.

  Brynn smiled and pushed my salt hair away from my face. “Of course you are,” he said. “You’re the girl with nine lives.”

  I didn’t think. Closing the distance between us, I leant forward and kissed him.

  I felt the surprise rise up in him, but only for a moment. He pulled me towards him in a rush of heat, as if he was going to lose me, as if the ocean was going to rip me out of his grip any moment.

  “Ellena-” he said my name in a rush of breath, one hand wrapped around my body and the other cradling my head.

  I didn’t want words. I wanted him. I wanted him alive and with me. I tasted the salt from his lips and the hard thumps of his heart against my chest, and knew in this moment, the world could all fall away and it wouldn’t matter. This is what mattered. As long as I had this moment, I could die in the next.

  As long as I had this.

  As long as I had him.

  We fell asleep with our fingers intertwined with one another’s, our bodies battered, bruised and exhausted as we shivered in the dark. The fire although small, worked fast to heat up the small stone enclosure, doing its best to warm its guests.

  Although it wasn’t much, next to Brynn, it was the warmest I had ever felt.

  My G
randdad was sitting on the last trunk as I opened my eyes, the lines around his silhouette blurry with my unfocused vision. I blinked and he was no longer there, and I wasn’t even sure whether he had been. I sighed, closed my eyes and went back to sleep, aware that the embers of the fire were dying.

  When I awoke again, Brynn was talking to me but I couldn’t make out what he was saying. I watched his mouth move and tried my best to work out his words, but another blink and I was gone.

  It was the cold that woke me for a third time. I realised that the warmth had gone from within my sleeping bag. My body coiled up in mourning, trying to curl up closer to the figure that was stoking the dying fire. Loud cracks sliced through the sound of the waves outside as the figure broke up more wood.

  Brynn’s face was in front of mine, his hands touching my face as he repeated his sentence to me again.

  “I have to go,” he said, worry paling his face. “I have to get help.”

  My mouth opened but it seemed years before my voice worked. “No…”

  He started talking again, his voice making soothing and calm sounds but the same word croaked from my throat.

  “No.”

  Images of Olivia and Gabriella finding him and torturing him came to mind as my body sought to sit up. Brynn pushed me back down as I shook my head.

  “You’re not well,” he said to me. “I’ll be back- I promise.”

  His hands were heavy weights that I couldn’t fight against as he gently pushed me back down. I swore that my eyes closed for a second and he was gone.

  I cried.

  It seemed like a terrible nightmare that was never ending. Sickness rolled inside my body, a thousand insects crawling through my bloodstream and twisting my organs into withered husks of flesh. My tongue was dry and useless, and despite how cold I felt, a sweat broke out over my body.

  Shadows of a cat fluttered beneath my eyelids as I fell in and out of a fitful sleep, the waves crashing outside turning into visions of people trying to break down the door.

  The sea surrounding me transformed into a whirling vortex of fire, and suddenly I was trapped and ready to die.

  Memories of Tamworth filled my mind of my sister and me playing with Ben. Memories of my mother taking us to work with her because she had no other choice. Images of playing in the woodland where my grandparents lived. I always felt at peace there.