Page 169 of Bewitched By the Sea Monster
“I’m sorry, Pippi,” he whispered.
My butt kerthunked against the deck. And an ocean of worried faces swarmed me, people asking, with full sincerity, if I was alright. If I’d been hurt. Most were strangers, but I recognized some of them.
“She’s covered in blood.” Elisabeth knelt and fussed over the state of me.
Dazedly, I stared at the crimson splotches decorating my clothes.Not my blood.
Not all of it, anyway.
“Get her some water.”
“Grab a blanket too.”
I panted. Panicked. As I shifted my eyes between all the unfamiliar gazes, trying to work up the strength to force the words past the ball of dread that’d lodged in my throat.
“I need to get his head secure again to finish the rune!” Rune shouted.
“Move! For feck’s—I said MOVE!”
I blinked sluggishly, as Onyx barreled her way through the throng of concerned people and zipped to my side.
“Back up,” she snarled at them when they pressed in, trying to fiddle with me. “Back up!How many feckin’ times must I repeat myself?”
And they did, because the cutting command in Onyx’s voice was the sort you obeyed without question.
“Pippi, is it?” Onyx crouched by my side.
I didn’t answer.
I couldn’t.
At that moment, with so many emotions and voices gunking up my head and heart, I barely remembered my name.
“Pippi? Yes?” Onyx shook me roughly.
“I…Yes.”
Alistair’s desolate keens filled my head. The bleats of a suffering person begging for the end.
“I need ye to look at me, Pippi.” Onyx slapped my cheek. “Look at me!”
I did, but her face swam meaninglessly before my eyes.
“Do ye love him?”
“I…”
“It’s a yes or no question,” she said. “But yer heart hasta answer it. Not yer head. Do ye love him?”
“Yes,” I said. With no hesitation.
She smiled, bitterly. “Then they can’t hurt him. Not anymore.”
“Theyarehurting him!”
ZZZAAAAPPPP!
White light exploded over the ship. A blinding, all-consuming flash that wrenched the sight from my eyes—there wasnothinganymore, beyond the bleached haze. No shadows. Or colors. Or shapes. Only an endless sea of white.
