Chapter 9: The Net

"Inside," I said. "Into the pool, right now."

"Sorcha, I can fight."

"You can't fight in my father's trousers. Go."

Velun looked at the white lights on the beach, and his face changed.

He didn't argue.

He ran, barefoot and stiff-legged, down the dock to the boathouse, and I heard the splash from where I stood.

Maya came out of the cottage with her car keys.

"What's happening?"

"Brent's got a net crew at the inlet mouth."

"Then we're going to go and stand in front of them."

"We're what?"

"We're going to stand in front of them," Maya said. "Like normal, furious women."

I grabbed the heavy flashlight from the hook by the door.

I called Gus on the way down the path, and he picked up before the first ring finished.

"Get every boat in the harbor," I said. "Every one. Every light. Tell them somebody's netting the inlet."

"Hon, it's nine at night."

"They won't mind."

"I'll make them not mind."

The line clicked off.

The beach road ran along a stretch of black sand and driftwood, and Brent's truck sat at the end of it with its tailgate down.

His crew had backed a flat-bottomed boat into the shallows.

Two men in dry suits were stretching a heavy net across the narrow mouth of the inlet.

They worked hand over hand, fixing the weights to the sand.

The net was coated with something dark, wired along its edges to a battery pack on the boat.

Brent stood on the sand in a rain jacket, directing with a flashlight.

His PR director was at his shoulder, holding up her phone.

He saw us coming, and his shoulders dropped, almost relieved.

"Sorcha. Maya. You shouldn't be here."

"That's my father's inlet," I said.

"It's a public waterway, and this is a licensed survey. We're studying the seal population."

"At nine at night."

"Seals are nocturnal."

"They are not."

"I'd stay back from the net," he said. "It's electrified. For the seals' protection."

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