Baited

by Crystal Green

Taking a step forward, Kat thought that maybe the front was working.

  But he only gripped his knife harder and charged forward again, gaze burning into her.

  Thirty yards away.

  She gripped her knife, too. Ready.

  “We can talk without the knife.” Kat’s throat was so dry she barely got the words out. “Remember how it used to be, Chris? You’d tell me about sharks or diving or whatever you were studying in school.”

  He halted again, then cocked his head. Something flickered in his eyes. Memory?

  Her blood was a wild drumbeat. “Drop that knife, Chris.”

  He inspected the blade, like he was seeing himself in the shine of it. What was reflecting back at him? What kind of patterns did his own face make?

  When he looked up again, his eyes were back to the shudder-inducing emptiness that made her start sliding out her knife.

  “Where’s Nestor?” he asked.

  A tiny black bomb exploded in her stomach. “Chris, you don’t want to come nearer to me.”

  “And where’s Gramps?” His knuckles went white around the knife’s grip.

  “Duke’s safe. Put the knife down and I’ll take you to him.” Yeah, if she could knock him out with the wood and restrain him.

  Or maybe the knife was her best option now.

  “You’re lying,” Chris screeched abruptly. Then he calmed a little, his voice still agitated. “He’s still by the fire. Did you kill him?”

  “I told you, no. Put your knife down and everything will be okay, Chris. Come on.”

  His face scrunched, his hand quaking and whisking the blade against his leg.

  “I’m sorry, Kat, but you need to give him to me. This is justice. It’s the way the world should work.”

  Hell, no, she thought.

  A beat passed, one in which neither of them flinched. Then, suddenly, his eyes widened, and he darted forward, clearly intending to bypass Kat to get to Duke.

  Maybe she should’ve let him get by her, then allowed the entire group to gang up on him. But a burst of adrenaline destroyed all common sense, and she whipped out her own knife while raising her other hand to bring the block of wood down on the back of his skull.

  But she missed.

  With a nauseating thud, she caught his cheek instead.

  The contact brought him to the ground, his knife flying out of his grip. Huddling into himself, he touched his face. It came away dampened by blood.

  Slowly, he raised a shattered gaze to her.

  All Kat could do was brandish her weapons at him. He wouldn’t get to her, no, never again.

  He obviously sensed that, his face tightening into a betrayed scowl.

  “I’m gonna kill him first,” he rasped. “Captain Ashton. I’m going to carve him up like—”

  Rage exploded in her chest, making her cry out as she dropped the wooden block and raised her knife.

  Not again. She wouldn’t have Will taken away again—

  Sucking in a horrified breath, he exploded out of the sand and took off toward the stand of trees to their right. Without thinking, she sprinted after him, not knowing what she was going to do when she caught up—only knowing that he couldn’t get away this time.

  Janelle and Nestor, she thought, arms pumping as she gave chase, where are you? Hurry!

  Her lungs squeezed together, rattling, and every bone seemed to be chafing the underside of her sore skin. Her head pounded in time to her heart, making her dizzy. But she was too determined. Too frightened to fail.

  Janelle…Nestor…?

  Kat closed the gap, straining with each stride. Even with the damp ground, he was fast, but she was, too, honed by surfing and diving. She was still an athlete, injured or not.

  She pulled to within two feet away. Last chance.

  With a burst of strength, she rocketed to Chris’s side, then angled her body to slide into him.

  Bam! He spilled to his knees, tumbling over the ground, coating his body with mud.

  The trees cleared a little to reveal a drop off to a cove of water below. As that low cliff loomed in front of her, Kat tried to skid to a stop, but she had too much momentum. She tripped, lost her knife and ate mud. But in a flash she was on her knees. Tracking Chris, her back to the cliff’s edge, she fought a cough that was jiggering her lungs and reminding her of her weakened condition.

  He was holding his ribs, hunched over, panting, mud caked over him. A look of wounded puzzlement marred a face that had once seemed so innocent.

  “Do you hate me, Kat?” he asked desperately.

  She was blindsided by the genuineness of the question. Damn her.

  Barely able to get the words past her wheezing, she said, “I don’t hate you, I hate what you’ve done. I’m trying really hard to remember the old Chris. That’s the guy I want with me right now.”

  “I can be the same person.” His lower lip trembled. “I’m still the same Chris.”

  God, she wanted so badly to believe him. It was painfully tempting to give in to him and pretend that none of this had ever happened. All she wanted was to go back to normal.

  But the Kat who’d seen the cut faces, the Kat who’d had to outrun fear through the trees and the darkness couldn’t put faith in any of the boy’s words. She’d made so many terrible decisions about trust in the past that she just didn’t believe in her instinctive judgment anymore. And for damned good reason. Shaken back to reality, she thought of Will for a second.

  Careful, she thought. One wrong word…

  “You can still be the Chris I used to know,” she said, voice thick, “if you give up and let me restrain you until the rescuers get here.”

  At first, the boy looked puzzled. But then he realized Kat wasn’t going to give in to him, just as Duke had predicted. His fists bunched. A muscle started to tick in his tightened jaw.

  When he exploded, the last of Kat’s hope died.

  But she reacted out of gut instinct, crouching over, hands in front of her, head lowered. When he came, she took him low, intending to lever his legs out from under him.

  But that deceptive, wiry strength of his threw her off balance. He bowled her over, and they both rolled backward.

  Before she could feel the earth disappear from under her feet, they were in the air, flying. Then, with a smack, liquid enveloped them and Kat’s mouth filled with the salty rush. Downward, through the blue, and they soon hit sand. About five feet of water pressed down on her.

  For a blessed moment, her ocean welcomed her back. Its blue serenity wrapping around her, it kissed her skin with sharp passion and comfort. But then, just as quickly, the fear, the darkness, rushed over her.

  The danger.

  That’s when Chris pinned her with his body, hands squeezing her neck.

  Escape…pushing at him. Get…me…out…

  Shoving up one palm through the water, she caught Chris in the face, pushing him away, then surged upward to break the surface. She choked and gasped, her body screaming with the agony of open wounds burned by salt.

  Air…air…

  She heaved it in like there was nothing else that would fill her up. But when Chris crashed up out of the water, too, she knew she would have to act fast.

  Sucking in a lungful, she swung back her arm at him.

  But Chris used the arm as leverage, bobbing upward and driving down on her shoulders to force her under. She’d anticipated the move and countered by quickly catching him in the chin with her elbow. Using her momentum, she turned the rest of the way, coming to brace her feet against his chest then pushed away to escape. But he grabbed her hair, yanking her back under with him.

  She had no idea how much air was still in her lungs, but it wasn’t much. Not when bubbles were escaping her mouth with each combat movement.

  Live, she thought, do anything to live.

  His arms flailed, trying to get a grip on her. She wiggled around, using the water she loved, twirling through it like a slippery mermaid.

  Inches away from the surfac
e, and he caught her ankle just as she wrenched free. A sphere of treasured oxygen blurbed out of her. Kat watched it pop to the waterline, where the sun wavered out of reach.

  He pulled her shoulders down, planting his shoes on her shoulders now to staple her to the sand.

  Kat grabbed at his legs, scratched at them.

  But it wasn’t doing any good.

  Out of control, she opened her mouth to scream, her body craving a breath it wouldn’t get. As she stared at the surface, water invaded her mouth, her throat…

  And then she went cold, the fear winning out, the wet sky crying for her. The memory she’d bravely fought for so long claiming her and triumphing in this final battle.

  She was nine years old again, held under by the pulsing fingers of that tide. Waves combed over a surface that seemed a million miles away. But any second, her dad would be here. He’d grab her from the water and rush her to the shore and save her.

  Any second now…

  Time ticked by, each instant forever etched in every shimmer of sunlight through water—water that had once seemed like a second skin…a skin now being torn off. Water had been her temple, her everything, but now it was crumbling around her, into her, and singing in victory. Finally beating her.

  Dad, where are you? she thought. Why aren’t you here to help me?

  But then she saw him. His dark eyes, his short hair, his browned skin. He was standing above her, his arms reaching down to save her in painfully slow motion.

  And just as Kat anticipated being lifted to safety, he stopped, stared.

  It wasn’t her dad anymore. It was an image of Duke.

  And he was watching her die, eyes blurred from the fever that had warped him.

  Darkness crept over the edges of her vision, water and Chris’s hands, his feet heavy against her body…she could no longer tell…Killing her…taking everything away…

  She flinched, grasping the feet on her shoulders and stamping her to the sand.

  He and Duke had robbed her of everything. Life. Trust.

  Her ocean.

  This is mine, Kat thought. I’ve battled it, damn you. I’ve beaten it so many times before. You can’t take it away, because I’ve worked too hard for it.

  With a final burst of fury, she ripped the ankles off her shoulders and pushed her palm upward until it connected with something soft that made Chris ball into himself and drift away from her.

  Time sped back into itself, becoming the fast motions of a demented second. She shot to the surface, taking in air, kicking out with her legs to keep Chris at bay.

  Breathe, kick. Breathe, kick, kick.

  Her lungs were burning, but she wouldn’t stop. Not even when he surfaced, too.

  Breathe, kick, kick, kick.

  When her mind cleared, she lunged at him, twined her arm around his neck, wrapped her legs around his middle and squeezed with all the strength she had left. Chris gagged and fought, but she was so notched with adrenaline that she burned almost superhuman now.

  She squeezed more, taking a deep breath, and Chris fell below the water.

  Survive, Kat thought as her ocean slipped over her again, warm and welcoming. I’m going to survive whether it kills Chris or not.

  But then, as sanity returned, she realized what she was doing.

  Chris’s breath was a stream of rising bubbles, his arms gone limp.

  She unwrapped her legs, pulled him up, and tugged him toward the shore with an arm around his collarbone.

  She could move her arm a little higher…one more big squeeze around his neck…and he’d be gone.

  But that was the island talking, the crazy impulsive drive to live, the mentality of someone who’d been scared witless during her time on this scrap of killing land. Putting an end to Chris wouldn’t erase the murders. It wouldn’t make less victims. It’d just make more killers.

  Even though every street-nerve was telling her to take Chris down, the part of her that wanted to escape the island to a better life wouldn’t allow it.

  You’ve got value, Duke had told her in his clearer moments. And no matter what he was now, she believed the words.

  She dragged Chris to shore a woman who’d taken back her ocean. A woman determined to take herself back, too.

  It wasn’t until Kat returned that she found out Janelle and Nestor had failed her.

  “We thought we should stay with Duke and defend Will,” Nestor had said when he and Janelle had met Kat on her way back. “It was a split-second decision.”

  Kat couldn’t argue right now. She’d spent the last of her energy collecting the few strips of material that she’d lost during the battle with Chris and restraining the passed-out boy. But she hadn’t been able to search for her knife—getting her quarry back to the fire was top priority. Luckily, all her screams had attracted Janelle and Nestor so they could relieve her of Chris-duty before she even got out of the woods, but it was too little, too late.

  As they took the limp teen from her, it was all Kat could do to traipse back to the camp and collapse near Will. She’d rail at Nestor and Janelle later, after…

  God. She couldn’t even find it within herself to check where the boat was anymore.

  Will had cuddled her head in his lap and stroked her wet hair, avoiding any questions for the time being. He knew what she needed. Peace. Just for now.

  “I knew you’d do it,” was all he said as they waited for their rescue.

  As if to make up for deserting Kat, Dr. Hopkins had taken Chris away from the fire to separate him from Duke when the teen awakened. She crouched near him, holding a kitchen knife near his throat. But Kat wondered if she had guts enough to use it.

  Meanwhile, Nestor was kept from both Duke and Chris, so as not to enrage matters. He’d taken up the mirror-flashing tasks, useful for once.

  Soon, Kat felt well enough to sit up. Noticing that the fire could use some attention, she went to it, picking up the last of their dried wood, and fed the flames. It put her in direct eyesight of Duke, who made a feeble motion with his bound hands indicating that he needed a drink.

  Coughing, she prepared a coconut with one sharp edge of the broken mirror and undid his gag. After he finished, he shook his head, refusing to take the canvas bit back into his mouth. Kat relented because she figured Chris was out of hearing range and couldn’t be influenced by Duke anyway.

  “Please,” he said, “just let Chris go. Look at him. He’s as peaceful…as a lamb.”

  “He wasn’t a half hour ago.” Kat coughed some more, shivering, sapped.

  Again, Duke’s eyes turned dark. The mean, diseased Duke. “You,” he bit out. “Dammit…you break my heart.”

  She steeled herself, knowing that this wasn’t the same man she’d first met. Or was it? Had his tumor only brought out the worst, most manipulative parts of him? How much had she really known about him, anyway?

  A project, Duffy had said. You’re just a project.

  “And you damn well break my heart, too, Duke.” She set the coconut on the ground.

  “I’m not the one…who made a slut of myself in front of everyone with the captain.”

  She held up a finger in his face, shutting him up. “You were all hot to see if Will and I would get back together, some sick thing you had in mind—”

  Duke closed his eyes, anguished. “I never wanted him to have you, Kat. I’m the one…who loved you. Would do anything for you.”

  Anything. She couldn’t listen to him anymore. His anything involved murder and bribery, things she hadn’t ever imagined being a part of.

  She couldn’t forgive him.

  She glanced over at Will, who was reclining listlessly against a few life jackets. He was watching them. She smiled, but he remained stone-faced.

  Was he afraid that she would discard him and ultimately give in to Duke? If that was the case, they didn’t know each other very well at all.

  With a crumbling blow, she wondered if they ever would.

  When she looked back at the older man, s
he realized that he was still hoping she’d come around. And why not? This was Edward Harrington III, a powerhouse who was used to getting what he wanted. It must’ve been killing him to know she was the one thing he wasn’t entitled to.

  Maybe, if he’d stayed the man she thought he was, things would’ve turned out differently. She could’ve remained fond of the integrity she thought he’d possessed, the support he’d always given her, the love he’d shown his grandson. But all of that had been false.

  All of that had washed away with the tide.

  Duke’s eyes got a little lighter, the hazel from their days of sunsets and surf.

  “Kat…forgive me,” he said thinly. “It’s hard to…realize that there’s only one person in the world…who loves me unconditionally. And that person…is being taken away.”

  “You both earned it.”

  “Do you know what your love…could’ve earned?”

  Here it was. The manipulation she’d expected. But she could take it, no problem. She’d taken so much worse.

  Kat pressed her palms together. They still stung from the salt water. “Just shut up, Duke.”

  Okay. Truth be told, she was afraid that, if he didn’t, her very human greed might rear up again. She might see the money falling from the sky, covering her in luxury. Maybe she wouldn’t be able to withstand the temptation of saying three emotionally meaningless, yet oh-so-gold words to him.

  I. Love. You.

  But then she realized that she’d seen greed in its worst form, and there wasn’t enough freakin’ money in the world. And one look at a vulnerable Will only confirmed that.

  “You could’ve…had it all.” Duke sighed, the sound of a white flag whispering in a breeze. Slowly—he seemed to be losing energy by the moment—he said, “But I understand. You’ve…always been too truthful and stubborn…for your own good. Yet I see you struggling…you need the money. Don’t deny it. So think about this…Chris needs a defender…when we get back—”

  “Never.” Brusquely, Kat got to her knees, looming. “I would never lie about what you and Chris did, so don’t you even make an offer.”

  Silence. His gaze was hopeless. She’d crushed something in him.

  All he’d wanted was to hear some words, Kat thought. From me…from his family.