Hands. Hands shoving. Holding. Smashing her head into that rock. It was them she fought, not just the water, but they were only a flash in her awareness before they were gone or she was gone or the world itself was gone.
Forgive me. She screamed it to God, because she knew He was listening. Meant it too for her family, for Beth, for Oliver, for Libby. Perhaps He’d let them know—Oliver had a line directly to Him, it seemed. Surely the Lord could whisper her apology to him for them all. Forgive me for all I’ve done. All I didn’t do. All I . . .
Black pain. White distortion.
Hands. Hands grabbing her, and she hadn’t any fight left, couldn’t make her arms swing or her feet kick. Tas had always said she had salt water in her veins. She had it now in her throat, in her nose, in her belly. If it had always been a part of her, why did it burn like fire?
The water around her lightened, turned to air, but still it was black as tar and held her limbs no less captive. She couldn’t open her eyes, couldn’t draw breath. Couldn’t hear anything but the rushing in her ears.
Pressure on her chest. Heavy, too heavy. Forceful. It shoved down to her very soul. Past her heart and the island rock and all the way to the salt water beneath. It came surging up, bringing her surging with it. Coughing, spluttering, gasping.
Still dark as midnight, but she could blink against it now. Grab at the hands that grabbed at her head.
“Benna! Benna, speak to me. Are you all right, my love?” Those hands probed straight into the heart of pain, making the black flash to white again.
She screamed, or tried to, though it came out as a scratch in her throat more than sound. Tried to turn away from the hands. Casek’s hands.
Casek’s hands?
It took her a moment to piece together why that was wrong and what would have been right. What had come before the rock and the water and the black and the white and the certainty that it was her last minute to beg forgiveness from the Almighty.
The cave—she’d stalked into Piper’s Hole well ahead of Oliver and Libby and lowered herself down to the rocks and the pool, ready to get on with the night. Hoping to battle someone, truth be told, so she could expend some of this frustration that had built up inside like steam in a boiler. She’d been moving toward her prearranged position, had fished the electric torch from her pocket to aid her in the tricky maneuvering.
Then the hands, fast and hard. Grabbing, shoving, crashing. Water, swallowing her up. She coughed again now for good measure and tried to convince her eyes to see an outline of Casek instead of her own pain. “Caz?”
Her torch was still on, somewhere. Its light ricocheted off the cave’s walls until it found them, though he was still more silhouette against it than features. He was kneeling beside her, a great hulk of worry.
Then she was part of that hulk, as his arms closed around her and dragged her against his chest, still heaving from his dive into the water after her. Or maybe his fear of losing her?
“Mabena.” His one hand stroked her hair, avoiding now the place where pain lived, and the other held her pinned against him.
She saw no reason to argue about that, given how solid and warm and secure he felt after the salt water’s deceptive embrace. In fact, his shoulder, as she let her forehead rest against it, was her new favorite thing in the world. “I’m . . . all right.” Probably.
“Mabena!” This cry came from farther away and carried with it pounding feet and a new beam from another torch that made her wince when it flashed over her face. “Casek! Get away from her!”
She didn’t know how it looked to Ollie, exactly. Though she could imagine, when viewed through his eyes, that bad was at the top of his perception. She’d screamed, and he came in to find his lifelong enemy crushing her against him. Still, it took a surprising amount of energy to hold up a hand to halt his assumption. “It’s not—” More coughing interrupted her, though only briefly. “Wasn’t him. He saved me.”
Saved her. She squeezed her eyes shut against that awful reality. She, Mabena Moon, had needed saving.
“You expect me to believe that? That he didn’t—”
A crack sounded so loud as it ricocheted with the light that Mabena thought for a moment her skull had given up and split in two. Her ears rang, shouts rang, everything rang. Then water again, though her head didn’t go under this time, just under the cover of the rock ledge. It took her a moment, through the muddle of her own head and the chaos of it all, to realize the crack had been a gunshot, and that Casek had dragged her to the safety of the water again, his arms never letting go of her.
And he fairly vibrated with rage. “Did you just shoot at me, Tremayne?”
“Don’t be an idiot, Wearne!” Ollie’s shout sounded even farther away now. He must have retreated back to the entrance of the cave, presumably with Libby. “Who’s there? Show yourself!”
“Oh, I don’t think so.” The new voice made Mabena go still with its very wrongness. It had a clipped London accent instead of rolling Cornish vowels—but not educated London, like Libby had said her attacker had used. And it was punctuated with another crack, followed frighteningly by the ping of bullet off rock and the hiss of it reflecting into the water. Too close. And how close had its rock target been to where Oliver and Libby must be hiding? She shivered and wrapped herself more tightly around Casek, closer to the protective shelf of rock.
“You islanders just won’t learn, will you? I didn’t think it needed to be said again to come alone. Do I have to teach you the same lesson I taught your young friend? I will not be crossed!”
Your young friend. Johnnie.
“I didn’t bring them!” Libby’s voice trembled its way into the cave too. “The cave isn’t exactly a private location, you know. I don’t see how—”
“So these others are just random neighbors?” A cruel laugh echoed through the cavern, skipping over the water to Mabena like a stone. “Don’t bother lying to me, Elizabeth. I’ve seen you with her. And really, I don’t care that you have someone helping you. As long as you have the silver.”
Something struck rock. Clinking like coins, softened by a pouch. Libby must have tossed the purse she’d brought with her down to the rocks. “There’s your precious silver. Come and get it.”
“Do I look like a fool? You’re going to pick it up, my pretty one, and bring it here to me. By yourself. While the giant in the water and his dripping spitfire join your brother outside the cave.”
Mabena wished a sliver of light could reach them here so that she could see Casek’s face. See what he thought of this, what he intended. As it was, all she could do was hear the rumble of his words in her ear. “We’re going to do what he says, Benna. He’s shifted a bit—he could shoot us here, if he wanted to.”
She nodded, wishing she could keep the trembling from her body. What if he thought it fear rather than the shock of the injury, the cold of the water? The idea of Casek thinking her afraid . . .
He rested his forehead on hers for a moment, sucked in a breath, and tucked her to his side. Even with only one arm, his strokes through the water were sure. She helped him as much as she could, but her limbs were still weak and shaking.
If ever she met that stranger when he didn’t have a gun in his hand, she’d delight in cracking him on the head.