How long has he been at it? How long has he been yelling to wake me?
“It’s foul-hooked. Grab the net, Ellie, for God’s sake!”
I looked around the boat.
He swore viciously. “Bring me the fucking net! It’s in the side compartment there, with the gaff. Bring the gaff, too.”
I scrambled up onto my hands and knees and reached for the net. I gripped it with one hand, and with my other I pulled myself into a standing position. The boat pitched and lurched violently back and forth. Martin had let go of the controls. We were going in a circle, and the waves were beginning to hit us broadside. I clung to the targa bar for balance as I held the net out to him. But the boat tipped as a swell surged against the side. My support hand slipped. I dropped the net in order to grab for support with both hands. The net hit the top of the gunwale, then toppled overboard. It floated briefly on the heaving sea. Then sank.
The fish was now thrashing and fighting for its life at the side of the boat, bashing against the hull.
“Jesus. Gaff! Hurry, dammit!”
I got back down onto all fours and scrabbled to get the silver gaff. I handed it to him. He snatched the gaff from me and swung it down toward the fish. The boat tilted as another swell broadsided us and Martin lost balance and missed solid aim. The hook of the gaff dragged a trough through the back of the fish. Blood poured red into the water, trailing pink in the skeins of foam. The fish wriggled to free itself of the treble hook, which I could now see was stuck into the outside of its gill. Another swell hit and the Abracadabra yawed and pitched me straight into Martin. He stumbled backward, jerking the rod up as he struggled to regain balance. The treble hook that had been foul-hooked into the side of the fish’s gill ripped free. The fish dived. The hook jerked back into the air. And rebounded at Martin. He screamed as it came at his face.
Horror rose in my throat. I started to faint.
THEN
ELLIE
Two hooks from the treble hook lure had sunk into Martin’s throat. The fake purple squid designed to hide the hooks and attract fish dangled below the hooks in his neck. The rod and reel had gone overboard. They were being sucked down into the ocean, and the force was pulling on the line and on the hooks in Martin’s throat, tearing skin. He wrapped the fishing line around his hand in an effort to stop the line from ripping the hooks through his skin, but the rod was going deeper and the line was cutting into his hand.
“The knife,” he whispered hoarsely, terror in his eyes. “The knife. It’s on my hip—cut the line quick—quick.”
I stared at the blood welling around the line cutting into his hand. And a strange, dark, and evil seed cracked open somewhere down deep inside my subconscious. It began to unfurl and ooze up into my conscious mind . . . Martin is at my mercy.
“Ellie,” he pleaded. “Help me.”
I shook myself and reached for the knife hilt at his hip. I drew the knife from the sheath. The boat lurched, and I tipped toward Martin, blade in hand. I couldn’t stop myself or the knife. The sharp end of the blade sliced across his arm, slitting through his sleeve and cutting skin.
He yelled. The boat rocked back, and I stumbled backward and fell into the captain’s seat, the fishing knife still in hand. I stared at him, trying to balance my brain, feeling very drunk. I grabbed the targa bar, pulled myself up. I planted my feet wide, keeping my knees bent and supple so I could move and sway with the boat. We were going around in another circle, and the swells were broadsiding us again. One big wave could send us both overboard. There would be no one to rescue us. I needed Martin back at the wheel. I had to free him if I wanted to get home safely. I had to be careful, though, be both slow and steady yet work fast because the line was slicing deeper into his hand, and his arm was now dripping blood where I’d cut him. His complexion was white, his eyes glassy with fear.
I fought to bring the focus back into my vision, and I brought the blade up to the taut line at his neck, worried I was going to pitch forward and sink it right into his throat, and that dark seed, that inky secret part of me, could almost visualize doing it, wanted to do it. To punish him for terrorizing me.
I sliced through the fishing line. The rod suddenly whipped free as it was snatched into the sea and sucked into the deep, swirling, foamy blue. A wave hit the hull and the knife was knocked out of my hands. As it flipped backward, the blade cut across the backs of my fingers. The knife hit the floor. My heart thudded as I saw my own blood welling. It wasn’t bad. Focus.
Martin staggered to the controls and sank onto the chair, the lure dangling down from his neck. He reset the course of the Abracadabra so we now had the swell at our back.
“What . . . what does my throat look like?” he croaked. “Is . . . is it bad?”
I fought a wave of nausea and took a closer look at the damage. Bile surged into my throat. I couldn’t see properly because his neck was bleeding now. “Wait.” I wiped my bloody hand on my pants and reached for my backpack. I took out my sweatshirt and pressed it gently to Martin’s throat, mopping up some
