Page 149 of Kai
“Goodbye, sweet girl,” Cece whispered, her face streaked with tears.
“Thank you for your service,” I muttered, hoping I wasn’t saying goodbye to Cece right now.
A loudswooshstartled me. It disturbed the surf somewhere at my ten o’clock. The roar of a rocket motor igniting rumbled in my ears. A second later, an explosion lit the skies.
***
Cece
“Get down!” Kai dropped over me and covered my body with his.
My cheek hit the surfboard. Pinned beneath him, I glanced up. A burst of fire illuminated the cobalt horizon. A blotch of fiery red splotched the sky and stained what little remained of the night. Before I could take another breath, a secondswooshbroke through the surface and another explosion followed, this one larger, louder, angrier, punctuated with metallic screeches and bursts within bursts.
Kai covered my head with his hands as heat blasted over us. A scorching surge roared in my ears, popped my eardrums, and echoed in my chest. The ocean rippled violently. Wave after wave rocked the surfboard, undulating beneath us with a fury that felt a lot like indignation.
When the heat subsided, Kai propped up on an elbow and narrowed his eyes at the sky. I peered up from under him. It looked like a planet had ruptured in the universe above us. As if in slow motion, the fiery conflagration fell down to the sea. The ocean hissed when the fire hit its surface. Smoke billowed even as the Pacific licked the burning wreck.
I rasped. “What the hell?”
Kai pushed up to his feet, his shrewd gaze assessing the wreckage burning at a distance. I lifted on my knees, unable to take my eyes off the blaze. Fire on water. It was quite a sight. I would’ve thought it impossible, and yet there it was. A random thought raced through my head. Kai was water, and I was fire, and yet somehow, we’d both survived.
I couldn’t wrap my mind around what had just happened.
I mumbled. “How…? What…?” I didn’t even know what to ask. “Is thatSerenityburning?”
Before he could answer, I caught sight of the catamaran. Her mast was down and her sails looked shredded, butotherwise, she was still afloat. Just when I thought the danger was over, small swells rocked the surfboard.
“Keep low,” Kai warned, going to his knees and bending over me.
The swells became larger. Bubbles disturbed the surface, and the water fizzed somewhere to my left.
“Hang on.” Kai stretched out his arms and held on to opposing edges, balancing the teetering surfboard. The ocean rushed beneath us. My heart hadn’t recovered, and yet my pulse sprinted even faster, swishing in my ears and teaching me that terror had no limits.
I clung to the board as well. A bulge formed in the ocean. The bulge moved beneath the surface until…
Swoosh.
The huge fin of a black creature broke the surface, lifting from the water before it slowed down, revealing the first hints of an enormous, elegant body that was much bigger than any whale I’d ever seen.
My jaw hung. What was I looking at?
The metallic sounds and the streamlined rumble that reached my ears dissuaded me from my first impression. The rising sun outlined a tower, not a fin. Multiple antennas topped the tower. I wasn’t looking at any kind of whale. I was looking at a man-made machine.
“A submarine?” I squeaked, frowning at the sleek lines emerging from the ocean.
“That’s an affirm.” Awe widened Kai’s eyes as he sat up on his shins. “An attack submarine, to be clear.”
“Are you shitting me?” The shrill in my voice strummed my eardrum and echoed over the sounds of the ocean. “The NWOownsa fuckingattack submarine?”
Kai kept his focus on the new threat.
“We’re doomed.” Rubbing my tired eyes with one hand,I pushed to my knees, and leaning my back against his front, slumped against Kai. His arms came around to hold me. After defeating Levine, and dodging boats and helicopter attacks, we’d survived. But a submarine?
It was just too much!
Kai couldn’t go on like this. The wound on his chest was bleeding. He had to be in agony, and I was a rattling wreck.
“We can’t fight a fucking submarine.” I smacked my tender hand on my lap and instantly regretted it. “We can’t outrun that thing.”
