GJ was done with this shit.
Neriah had bitten her, and now she had stolen Eleri. Neriah had trailed the Calypso on the open water, probably checking in and letting Miranda Industries know where they were at every moment. She’d probably killed the other two scientists and raided their labs. If Neriah’s story was solid at all, Gelman and Patel had mistakenly trusted her.
The photos in her apartment. . . GJ thought back to when she and Noah had poked around. Those photos showed Neriah on yachts, large-scale research vessels, and boats she couldn’t afford. She probably wouldn’t have friends who could afford them, either. Not if she was really in research.
And the tanks? The diving equipment? GJ hadn’t known at the time, but after being on the boat, and after seeing what was around Miranda Industries. . . Neriah’s equipment was far too expensive for her “poor student” status.
GJ had missed it all.
Neriah had helped kill Allison, and now there was nothing to stop her from killing Eleri. After all, Eleri had shot her at least twice.
“Noah!” GJ called out before she drove underwater again as she spotted a shape underwater racing toward the two women. She prayed it was him. As she broke the surface again, taking another deep breath, she spotted his head nearby and took her first relieved breath. But she knew they weren’t out of the woods yet. Not even close.
Reaching out, she grabbed him, shaking his arm, to get his attention. “Noah, the animals!” She had no special powers. Despite her bluff in the compound, she had only her brains. “What can you do?”
She wanted to ask politely, but there was no time for polite. She demanded an answer and then spoke over him. “There are fish! There are sharks here! Do something.”
She shook him so hard, he had to push her off. “Give me a minute.”
“We don't have a minute!”
GJ dove back under the water and kicked as hard as she could. But she was chasing a sea creature, and she didn’t even have snorkel and fins. Her disadvantage was as monstrous as Neriah’s goals.
Luckily, Neriah wanted to taunt them, so she let GJ get close.
Holding Eleri’s head up, she let GJ see her friend was still unconscious.
There would be no help coming from Eleri and her spells. There would be no help coming from Donovan. He was barely breathing, and he functioned only on land. There was nowhere he had any ground to stand on. The only weapons they had were GJ’s brains and Noah’s unknown skills.
At any moment, Neriah might turn and zip away. She could easily steal Eleri, disappearing with her into the depths of the ocean, where GJ and Noah could not follow. Not without fins, not without tanks. Not without a miracle.
Brains, GJ thought. She had brains. And that was all, so she had better start using them.
Stopping maybe three or four yards away, GJ treaded water as Neriah held up her friend. A wicked green hue tinted her skin, and a sharp grin crossed the wide, sharp teeth.
Eleri had once described this as GJ’s superpower. Now she hoped it could save her friend. “Neriah, how did you hide this from Hannah and Allison so long?”
Another grin. Maybe it was hard to talk with those ugly teeth in her mouth.
“How did you hide it from Jason? He thinks he’s your best friend. That's pretty impressive. . . Or does he know?” GJ pushed, trying to draw the creature into a conversation. To keep her from disappearing with Eleri.
“He doesn't know anything!” The voice came on a hiss, a whine, high-pitched enough to hurt GJ's ears.
Fighting her natural reaction, she didn't flinch. “You managed to hide this from your best friend. For how long?” She tried to sound incredulous. It was a stupid game, and surely Neriah was too smart to play along.
“Two and a half years.” The voice strung out the S of “years” in a long, snake-like hiss. Her eyes were wide, large, black. She was not a selkie. Selkies were like seals—GJ had looked it up—but she didn’t know what Neriah was.
“You filmed Allison's death, didn't you?” GJ asked. “It was pretty clever, parking that video in Missy Maisel's email. Did you expect us to find it?”
Her arms moved back and forth as GJ held her space in the ocean, fighting to keep the waves from building the distance between them. If anything, she wanted to get closer. Perhaps Neriah would notice. Perhaps if she could shorten the distance between them, she could make a lunge and grab for Eleri.
“Do you want to come and get your friend? Come closer, little agent.”
Ah, so that was the game. That was why Neriah wasn’t running off with Eleri. She must think she could get them both. Maybe she could. But GJ inched closer. “Was that the plan? For us to find it?”
“You weren't supposed to. But I suppose now you think you're clever.”
GJ tipped her head. “Not as clever as you. Did us finding the video trigger them sending you after us?” she asked, needing to stall, because damn, Noah should have made something happen by now. How long before Neriah lured her in close enough to capture her, too? How long before she caught on that GJ was toying with her? “You followed us on purpose? Were we supposed to see you?”
Then it happened.
Thank you to all the gods that Eleri worshipped! GJ thought, because Neriah’s head tipped back and she screamed, releasing Eleri.
Thank the gods for Noah, GJ thought next. Though she had no idea what creature he might have coerced into biting Neriah, he'd done it.
The sleek, scaled body jerked to one side and then the other, while Eleri slid out of her grasp and slipped beneath the waves.
It must be a shark, and a big one. GJ was diving forward, though she swam into red water. Eleri had saved her life more than once. If this was how she ended, it would be a worthy death. Still, she wasn’t willing to die easily.
The blood was likely Neriah’s—hopefully. She’d probably been bleeding all along from the bullet wounds. GJ herself had seen the blood before Neriah splashed off the dock, but those wounds obviously hadn't killed her. Maybe she had been gut shot.
Maybe this wasn’t Noah’s doing at all, but Neriah had been trailing blood the whole time as she stole Eleri away. Maybe GJ was swimming head-first into a bona fide shark attack.
But now, whatever had grabbed Neriah yanked her hard, eliciting a scream that could clear the water. Eleri was floating loose, but she was still much too close to the sharks. With the lunge that she'd been preparing for, GJ pushed underwater and came up beneath her friend’s lax body.
She couldn't tell if Eleri was bleeding. She hoped her senior agent wasn’t, but that didn’t change that there was blood in the water and all around them. She watched as a fin broke the surface, heading straight toward them. With as much skill and strength as she could muster, GJ kicked away, pulling Eleri’s heavy body along and watching as the fin veered toward Neriah.
Though Neriah seemed to have screamed the predators away, they were heading back.
And GJ thanked the gods again.
It was a hard swim. Adrenaline had replaced her blood. Everything pounded. A shark bumped against her and she would have pissed her pants if she had any fear left. But it didn’t bite and it didn’t try to yank at Eleri. Her ears ached from Neriah’s screams, but at least that hurt was good.
It took far too long to reach Noah, but he met up with her in an open space away from the sharks and the fighting sea creature. GJ had hoped the sharks would kill Neriah. Now she was grateful they were at least keeping the beast occupied.
“Wrong way,” he told her. “Shore’s this direction.”
Fuck. She’d wasted precious effort. But he, at least, was a qualified diver and a strong, trained swimmer. Apparently, GJ had been doing it all wrong.
“I've got her,” he said, reaching for Eleri, but GJ found it hard to let go. Behind them, thrashing at the surface, a shark had torn Neriah to pieces, and GJ noticed that the shrieking had gurgled and then stopped.
With a sigh of sheer, dead exhaustion, at last she handed Eleri over. A sloppy passing in the middle of the bossy waves, the transfer occupied her hands enough to keep her from raising her hand and saluting Neriah with one finger.
She was out of energy and about to stop and sink, but she swam toward the shore on sheer determination, trusting Noah to keep the sharks away from them. He'd already looped his arm under Eleri's and tucked her head up against his shoulder, keeping her face up and out of the waves.
GJ had not done that. Without a burden, she should have been able to swim, but it was all she could do to stay beside him. She counted strokes for something to keep her going, telling herself if she just moved her legs, she would eventually make it.
And she did. The sand bumped against her feet as she tried to stand when she reached Donovan. His large hands came out, one grabbing her and the other adding his strength to help pull Eleri to shore.
“Oh Jesus,” she whispered as she realized Donovan was naked. “Hold on,” she said, then rolled her head and asked Noah, “Is she breathing?”
“Yes,” he replied, somehow having managed to check her while swimming her back from the middle of the ocean.
GJ unzipped and reached into Eleri's pack, pulling out the one remaining bag—the clothes. She held them out to Donovan, lacking the energy required to toss it to him. “These are for you.”
Then she found a third or fourth wind and pushed her feet under her so she could help lift Eleri up onto the beach. But as she grabbed Eleri’s arm, her senior agent’s head lolled to the side and GJ saw her lips were blue, her eyes open and unseeing.
Noah had lied.