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In her periphery, Miriam saw Macy go under.
Dammit!
Quickly, and with the efficiency of training and experience, Miriam played through her options. She couldn’t dive for long, and even if she could, she wouldn’t be able to see in the murk below. Usa was in a rage, defending her mate, exactly like the Irish tales. Diving in to help the poachers was reckless and stupid. Usa may have been docile before, but now she only saw red, and she couldn’t discern friend from foe. She wasn’t a dog, for god’s sake. She was a wild animal.
Usa wouldn’t listen to reason, but she would be driven by instinct. Miriam reversed course and pushed as fast as she could towards the tarp floating in the water. If Usa surfaced with Macy, Miriam didn’t see it, focusing instead on her path, praying that her plan would work quickly enough.
She dodged helicopter debris, ignored another body floating in the water. She didn’t let up until she came to Kawa’s covered body. She pawed her way beneath, able to surface and breathe under the tarp. The hot, fetid air flooded her throat, making it hard to breathe normally, but it was enough. She wouldn’t suffocate.
She made her way to Kawa’s lifeless body. Usa would be able to detect underwater sound from very far away. Miriam took another deep, foul breath, dove under and slammed her weight into the carcass. She punched and kicked it. Over and over. Molesting the corpse of a cryptid had never been on her shortlist, but now it was the only thing Miriam could imagine that might give Macy a fighting chance.
When she could hold her breath no longer, she burst upward, back under the tarp for another strangling breath, then down again to continue her assault.
Come save your damn mate!
The currents beneath her suddenly swirled, yanking down on her legs. Usa had come.
Miriam kicked back to the surface, this time away from the corpse, making her way towards the edge of the tarp. She stopped short of the surface when something tugged on her leg. Not Usa. Not painful. Unable to see far in the murky water, she reached down to her ankle to find a rope tangled around it. Miriam thrashed instinctively as if she could kick it off, but found herself instead wasting precious energy.
She stilled her mind and felt the rope in her hands, memorizing the strands, studying where they crossed, forming a mental map that she could use to untangle herself the same way she might untie a knot.
The pressure in her chest started to burn, distracting her, though she kept her focus. Drowning would help no one. She twisted one particular crossing. Then another. She felt again. She was making progress. She worked her way through and around the rope, using her hands and her foot until it finally broke free.
She reached for the surface, as if her hands could breathe for her if they made it first. They couldn’t. Her temples pounded, her head dizzy. She couldn’t make it. She was going to pass out.
Air flooded into her lungs as she broke through the surface of the lake, her lungs and throat spasming. She coughed and gasped.
“Mir!”
Macy’s voice echoed behind, but Miriam never got a chance to spin before teeth clamped down on her shin and pulled her back under the water. Her lungs almost immediately felt depleted, not having recovered. Macy had survived, though. At least there was that.
The speed at which Miriam traveled through the water boggled her mind. If not for the crushing pressure on her lungs and the oozing blood from her leg, she might have spent the time marveling at the sheer evolutionary magnificence that had allowed such a large creature to move at this speed through water. But instead, she pounded her fists against Usa’s thick fur, hoping for some sort of miracle. Hoping that the blood frenzy would wear off enough for Usa to retreat.
Miriam lost all sense of direction. She didn’t know if they moved up or down or laterally. Usa didn’t seem to want to eat her outright, as the bite force of the initial clamp-down hadn’t changed. It was almost as if Usa meant to drown Miriam, which seemed like a morbid way for an animal to kill its prey. But then, Miriam had seen no evidence that Usa wanted to eat any of the humans thus far, so it made some kind of sense.
Up. She thought maybe they were moving upward. Miriam’s eyes burned as she tried to make out anything she could. The murky water was almost black, but she knew it wasn’t entirely so, as the edges of her vision were darkening. But the center of her sight started glowing, brighter and brighter. Yes. They were definitely moving to the surface.
Miriam had already pushed her lungs as far as they would go. Though her chance of escape seemed close at hand, Miriam’s body gave up, no longer able to survive on adrenaline alone. Her vision narrowed until she could see nothing at all, then her awareness started to get fuzzy.
Then—brightness. Air in her lungs. She hit the ground hard, skid across it and slammed into a tree. Her eyes struggled to adjust. She felt the thud before her eyes managed to focus on Usa, in front of her, slumped to the ground.
Dead?
No. Her midsection moved. Out. In. Out. In. If not dead, then what?
A man stalked out of the woods, a grin on his face.
Miriam leaned her back against the tree and tried to force herself to get up, but her body would have none of it. Her lungs begged for more air. She felt dizzy, and, worried that she might pass out again, she allowed herself to collapse at the base of a tree. The man ignored her, instead studying the huge, unconscious otter on the ground. He circled around it, his grin only widening.
She couldn’t find her voice. She couldn’t find her wits. She couldn’t decipher what would happen next or what she should be doing. She closed her eyes. Her mind wavered, danced, told her stories about situations that weren’t the ones in front of her. Dreams, maybe, that she pushed away. Her eyes didn’t want to open, but she forced them to, looking up just in time to see the man towering over her. Before, he had been her height, if not shorter, but from the ground, he looked overbearingly large.
His smile turned into a frown as he shook his head.
“What am I going to do with you?” he asked, confidence dripping from every word.
Miriam figured he didn’t want an answer.
This was a man who expected to win every fight. To control every situation. To rule over every domain. She’d only met him briefly, and though she didn’t fully trust him then, she’d accepted that he was just an affable pilot who had a vested interest in helping Abby. Miriam no longer accepted that narrative.
She wanted to ask whether he intended to kill her, but she found no point. If he meant to do that, then he would. She’d lost this fight. This expedition. She had never really had any control of it to begin with.
He didn’t make any moves to hurt her. The only weapon he had appeared to be a rifle, one she recognized all too well. Her father, Skylar, had had an arsenal of the very same tranquilizer guns. They were effective at bringing down even the largest prey. A shot from that would certainly knock her out, but wouldn’t kill her. Well, probably not. Unless her heart slowed too much. Certainly a possibility.
Her mind forced her to focus on these mundane details as if they meant something. As if they would help her in this moment. But they wouldn’t, and they didn’t.
The man stepped a few feet away, pulled a radio from his pocket and began talking to someone on the other end. Miriam tried to follow, but could only focus on bits and pieces. He was calling for help, asking for specific supplies. Before he ended the conversation, though, her mind took her far away from the woods near Misty Lake, where she danced somewhere between the worlds of sleep and wakefulness, aware of her location and her situation, but unable to take any action.
Her ribs, though. They hurt like hell.
