But the door did not budge.
River looked bewildered as she looked from me to the door from the spot she was hiding in beneath the bed.
No hunters stepped through it. Not even after two minutes of waiting.
Is this some kind of a trap?
What in the world are they waiting for?
Even though I had no idea whether it was safe, I slid back down the walls and cautiously peered through one of the holes in the door.
I could hardly believe my eyes.
Strewn about the floor were the still bodies of half a dozen hunters. Each lay in the same position—on their backs, their eyes blank and wide open, gazing up at the ceiling. And their mouths… blood was trickling from them and pooling beneath their heads.
As I pushed the door open, River slid out from beneath the bed and stood next to me.
“What happened?”
“I have no clue,” I replied.
“They’re dead,” she said.
I approached the nearest man to me and felt his pulse, even as his blood called to me.
“Yes. Dead.”
I moved along the submarine, checking in other cabins for hunters. Then I climbed up the ladder and poked my head through the hatch. The submarines that had been chasing us had come to a standstill, and as my eyes fell to the water surrounding us, I spotted more bodies floating in the water.
I didn’t think that it was possible for me to feel more bewildered, but as I ducked back down into the submarine and entered the control room with River, it was to see that the window was no longer smashed. It was completely repaired, as if it had never been broken to begin with.
Chapter 17: Ben
I drained and stored the blood of the dead hunters lying in the corridor, then threw the corpses into the sea. I had been worried about what I was going to do for human blood for the rest of the journey. I didn’t need to think about that problem again for a while now.
River and I were still lost for words as we took a seat back in the control room and I started up the submarine again. I stared through the perfectly smooth glass.
I had no idea what had just happened, but when River’s and my tattoos started prickling as we dipped beneath the surface of the waves and continued our journey underwater, I couldn’t help but link the incident to the last bizarre experience we’d had—blood raining from the sky.
River drew the same conclusion.
“Something is following us,” she said, brushing her fingers gingerly over her tattoo.
But what? Neither of us knew how to even begin to speculate. It was all so bizarre. If it were really Jeramiah’s witches following us, why would they even bother? If they wanted us to return to The Oasis, they could magic us there by force. Why follow us around and play these mind games with us?
A slapping noise came from the back of the submarine.
I groaned internally.
“We still have those merpeople back there,” I muttered.
“What are we going to do with them?” River asked anxiously.
“Let’s go and take a look at them.”
Once we had gotten well away from the area where the hunters had been, I put the vessel back on autopilot and the two of us headed to the back of the submarine.
I opened the door of the cabin where we’d left the mermaid and merman. They were curled up together in a corner in the same fetal position.
I walked over to the male and nudged his slimy shoulder. He didn’t even look up at me, though he was clearly still alive.
“We can’t risk throwing them back in the water again. For some weird reason, they’ve decided they want to be inside our submarine. If we let them go, they might try to break through the glass again.”
“Then what?” River said, frowning. “We just keep them locked in here?”
“Yes. For now,” I muttered, leading her back out of the room and closing the door. “It’s their own stupid fault they climbed in here. I don’t have a lot of sympathy for them.”
They seemed docile, and they might even die on their own anyway. Those slimy creatures were really the last thing on my mind right now.
We spent some more time in the control cabin while I plotted our course for the rest of the journey, and then we headed to one of the cabins—whose door was broken thanks to the hunters—and sat down on the bed. She leaned back against a pillow, pulling a blanket up around her, while I leaned against the wall.
“Mermaids,” she muttered, still looking traumatized. “I feel like I’m ruined.”
I shot her a glance. “Ruined?”
“I wanted to be Ariel when I grew up… now that movie will never be the same again.”
I smirked. “You still watch that cartoon?”
She poked me in the shoulder. “Don’t judge.”
She heaved a sigh and we fell into silence. She moved closer to me on the bed. I slid my arms around her as she nestled against my chest.
When she spoke again, it was in a deeper voice. “I honestly thought that we were going to die in this room.”
I kissed the top of her head. “So did I.”
Chapter 18: Rose
After Caleb agreed to turn me, I promised not to speak of the subject again for the rest of our trip. And I kept my promise.
Our honeymoon turned out to be everything I could have imagined it to be. Having so much uninterrupted time with Caleb was bliss. Just the two of us, adrift in the middle of the ocean. We ended up spending longer at sea than we’d planned before reaching the first island, just because we were so wrapped up in each other’s company.