I Taught a Siren to Court... Then Became His Mate novel · Chapter 24 of 32

Chapter 24: Live

I was in the water before Margie got the binoculars back.

"Abbie! Daylight! Cameras!"

I swam along the foot of the bluff in my clothes, with my knife on my belt.

The station boat sat a hundred yards out, anchored, with a deckhand on the bow and a camera on a pole aimed at the net.

The floats bobbed in a tight yellow curve across the black mouth of the cave.

I filled my lungs and went under.

The net hung from the floats to the bottom, weighted with chain.

Behind it, in the green dark, something moved.

Jet came up to the mesh from inside and put his hand flat against it, and I put mine on the other side.

"Don't cut it," he said.

His voice came through the water as clear as the kitchen.

I shook my head at him, furious, and pointed at my knife.

"Abbie. Listen. There's air in the cave. I'm safe until dark." His fingers pressed mine through the mesh. "He wants you to cut it. In daylight, on his camera. Then he has you, and he has the cave."

I stared at him until my lungs burned.

"Go up," he said. "Go up and finish him."

I went up.

Margie hauled me out on the ledges and wrapped me in her sweatshirt and swore at me for most of a minute.

"He's bait," I said, when she ran out. "Barrows put him there for the pod. They'll come to the cave on the tide, and he'll sink the whole lot."

"Then he'd better not be on his boat when it matters," Margie said. "Come on. We've got work."

By sunset, there were seventeen boats across the mouth of the north cove.

Every one of them had a woman at the wheel.

Margie on the Second Wind.

The store owner in her late husband's boat, in a life jacket over her cardigan.

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