“I won’t lose you because of him. I won’t let this monster be our end.”
He spits at the Forgery’s feet and walks back inside.
“We’re disembarking early,” he says to the group. Everyone is silent, not a word exchanged. Even Sammy refrains from saying something clever. “I don’t care if we’re questionably close to the lookout point; we need to get off this boat before they overtake us. Tomorrow, the moment there’s enough light in the sky to see the shoreline, we’re gone.”
Isaac nods and as Owen stalks off, Emma slips outside with her medic gear to tend to Jackson.
FIFTEEN
THE SUN IS BARELY UP. The clouds hang heavy and ominous.
“Snow,” Xavier predicts.
But we all feel something far worse.
The boat on our tail is most certainly an Order vessel. It is gigantic, dwarfing our ship even at a distance. It is close enough that we can see the Franconian emblem on its side with binoculars—a red triangle with a cursive f in its center—but not near enough to make out anyone on board.
Isaac guides the Catherine toward what he’s picked as our departure point. If the cold wasn’t enough to remind us that we’ve been traveling north, the return of snow is. A thin layer covers what I assume is a sandy beach, and lines the branches of the few trees in the distance. A craggy outcrop of rocks to our left is clear of snow on account of the crashing waves. Isaac claims the rocks jutting from shore will offer us some protection; the Catherine will be able to maneuver into far shallower waters than the large Order vessel without hitting bottom.
It starts to flurry as Xavier loads the lifeboat. It is small, unable to support more than five in weight, which until now has never been a problem for Isaac. He claims he rarely fishes with a crew larger than four. Between our team and all the gear, it will take two trips to get everything to land.
We are on the deck, preparing to make the first run, when we hear a distant rumble. It is faint at first, like a rainstorm strengthening behind the shoreline trees, and then three cars break into view. I realize instantly what has happened. The Order boat has pushed us exactly where they want us.
We drop immediately, stomachs against the deck. I hear the vehicles come to a halt, followed by the opening and closing of doors.
“Isaac Murphy!” comes a man’s voice from shore. He must be using something to amplify his words because he sounds as though he stands on deck. “Captain of the Catherine. Show yourself.”
I hear the door of the wheelhouse slide open, and then Isaac’s heavy footsteps on the bridge’s exposed deck.
“Glad to see you’re finally willing to cooperate, Mr. Murphy. Now drop anchor.”
“Afraid I can’t do that,” Isaac calls out. “Anchor chain rusted out a few weeks back and I ain’t replaced it yet.”
“We’ve got records from a week ago stating the Catherine was in perfect working order,” the man continues. “Now, a person skipping inspection when they leave port makes me think they’re hiding something. Water, for instance. Water they might have bought off AmWest scum and are now looking to make a profit on. If this is untrue—if you’ve done nothing wrong—then you have no reason to fear us.”
“It’s got nothing to do with fear,” Isaac shouts, “and everything to do with how you ain’t got proof I’ve done something wrong. This is my ship. You can come aboard when I invite you, which’ll be never.”
The Order member lets out an amplified sigh. “Drop anchor now. This is the last time I will ask.”
“This is my property, bought with my own earnings, and you ain’t got no right to board it whenever you damn well—”
A single shot is fired. Birds flee from the nearby trees and I hear Isaac collapse.
That didn’t just happen. It couldn’t have. But when I look up toward the bridge, Isaac is slumped against the walls of the wheelhouse, motionless. Blood trails the glass window above him.
I mutter a curse, hear my father do the same at my side.
From the shore there are shouts. “Get the raft. We’re boarding and dropping anchor ourselves.”
“Like hell you are,” Sammy mutters.
Everyone looks at my father. He gives a single nod, and we scramble into position. Bree fires the first shots at the shore and my ears start ringing. There are no more than a dozen Order members on the beach and even though they fire back, we take out half of them easily. The rest crawl behind their vehicles for shelter. They shoot at us when they can, but the Catherine is a formidable piece of armor.
Sammy runs off, only to return with rags soaked in something that reeks.
“Diesel,” he says. “From the engine room. Think you could get one of these inside a car?”
I nod, not sure how a smelly scrap of cloth will help us, but after he wraps one of my arrows with a rag and strikes a match against it, it goes up in flames. One of the cars is set far out of range, but with a good shot, I just might be able to reach the others. Bree and Sammy cover me as I stand and take aim, fire. The arrow goes clear through the closest car’s window and buries itself into the seats, slowly burning the car from the inside out.
“Let’s get another,” Sammy says, and we repeat the process.
I send the second car up in flames and soon the Order members are running into the open. Bree takes them down like it’s target practice.
There’s a blast on the beach, so intense it sends me to the floor, arms over my head. When I recover, I find the first car I fired at a mess of flames and smoke, its windows blown out. Sammy whoops triumphantly.
“Did you know that would happen?”
He winks and ducks to the deck as the second car explodes. He readies an arrow for the final car, despite the fact that I think it’s beyond reach. Before I even can take aim, there is a monstrous noise from below. The Catherine lurches. We go sliding. I’m forced to let my flaming arrow drop into the ocean.
We are still in open water, far from the rocks that bordered the beach, but we must have run over something. The collision shifts the Catherine and she starts drifting into deeper waters, heading closer to the Order vessel at an awkward angle.
Just then, something strikes the walls of the wheelhouse, one of the few parts of the ship built with wood. It goes up in flames. I whip around. The Order vessel is nearly upon us, and apparently firing something as threatening as my burning arrows.
“Let’s move!” my father shouts.
Xavier, Bo, Jackson, and Clipper climb into the lifeboat. I grab Emma and shove her in as well. She barely fits, with all the gear already in the boat.
“What about you?” she asks, eyes wide.
“I’ll come later.”
Sammy and my father swing the boat over the water and start lowering it down by the pulley system. Emma refuses to let go of my hand.
An explosive noise erupts behind us. It is followed by a terrible screech as something fired by the Order vessel blows through one of the Catherine’s metal rigs used to haul fish from the ocean floor. The rig topples overboard, ripping itself free from the deck as it falls. The Catherine rocks violently and we lose our footing. Emma’s hand is ripped from mine. The lifeboat drops nearly to the water and jams.
“Cut the ropes.”