Page 22 of Drift: Willa & Koy
Bruin waited for three silent, agonizing seconds before he finally charged in my direction, crossing the space so fast that I barely got my dagger through the air before he was knocking me off my feet. The edge of the blade grazed his arm before it slipped from my fingers and the ping of it hitting the floor was the last sound I heard before his fist came down on me.
Bright light erupted in the dark as the blow struck my temple and I cried out, a sob breaking in my chest.
“Help!” I screamed as he jerked me to my feet, and as I drew another breath to scream again, a hand was shoving something into my mouth. A cloth. The bitter taste of tung oil made me gag as he dragged me through the door onto the dock. The other figure stalked behind me as I kicked, desperately reaching out around me for anything I could catch hold of.
The ship decks overhead were dark, the wind covering the sound of the men’s footsteps as we passed each slip. Hot tears stung my eyes as the stars in the sky blurred, making me dizzy. No one was coming, I realized. No one was coming for me.
Bruin stopped walking before he hooked his hands beneath my arms and the other man grabbed my feet, lugging me to the edge of the dock. I couldn’t see what they were doing, but I could hear it. The clink of chains. The snap of irons as they closed around my ankles.
It hit me all at once what was happening here. He wasn’t going to just kill me. He was going to tie me to the reef. Leave me there to drown so the sea creatures could pick my bones clean.
The sound of my scream was muffled in the oil-soaked cloth as I thrashed, nails scratching every surface they could find. Bruin was cursing, pinning me to the dock with all his weight until I couldn’t draw breath, and then I heard it. Actually, I couldfeelit.
Footsteps.
The reverberation of a steady beat shook the wooden planks beneath me, but Bruin didn’t seem to notice, his focus on the irons. I tilted my head back, but the docks disappeared in the dark, an inky black bleeding through the air as a cloud moved across the face of the moon. It wasn’t until the light flickered back that I could see him.
Koy.
Again, I screamed, and Bruin finally looked up, eyes going wide when he saw him.
“Shit.”
Frantically, he dragged me closer to the edge and I clawed at the dock, fingers desperately catching each crack in the wood as I slid. But he was too strong. I was going over the edge a second later, and as soon as the splash beneath me sounded, I knew. It was too late.
I saw Koy’s face for a split second before the weight began to sink, pulling me under so fast that I barely had time to suck in a breath. I plunged into the cold water, blinking as the salt stung my eyes, and the bubbles raced up in the beams of moonlight that cascaded around me. My hands raked helplessly through the current as the surface drew away from me, and my ears popped before the weight hit the sandy bottom and I halted.
I kicked at the chains, clumsily pulling the cloth from my mouth before I reached down, trying to find the clasp of the iron. He’d only gotten one fastening around my foot, but I couldn’t get it free. The opening was just small enough that I couldn’t wiggle my heel past it.
Another pathetic cry escaped my lips, sending another stream of bubbles racing up to the surface, and I reached out, hoping I might be close enough to the submerged dock posts to reach. But there was nothing. Only the sound of the waves breaking against the barrier islands and the pounding of my heart.
The light shifted over me, followed by a muted splash, and a figured dropped through the water toward me. Pain bloomed in my chest when I recognized Koy’s shape coming closer. He sank past me, pulling at the chains until he’d reached the bottom. Then he was yanking at the iron, trying to wedge my foot out of the loop.
It was no use.
I went still, suspended in the darkness, the glittering pool of light above like a rippling puddle as Koy floated up to meet me. My muscles instantly went weak; every bit of the survival instinct that had been coursing through my veins was gone now, replaced by an inexplicable numb feeling as his hands found my face.
My lungs squeezed, my arms weightless, and the pain left my body the minute I could feel the warmth of his palms. I stopped fighting the gravity tugging at my feet and he pressed his forehead to mine, meeting my eyes. He was waiting for something.
I couldn’t make out his face, but suddenly I understood what the tenderness in his touch meant. That moment of silence. My foot wasn’t coming out of that iron unless he broke it. It was that or drown.
His fingers grazed over my cheeks, finding my jaw so that he could tilt my face up toward the moonlight. He waited for me to nod, and when I did, I pressed my face into his palm, closing my eyes.
He let me go, pulling himself down again until he had my foot in his hands, and before I could change my mind, his hand wrapped tightly around my ankle. I pinched my eyes closed as the sharp pain dug into the back of my heel, and he didn’t stop, prying the metal relentlessly against the bone until that pain was shooting up my leg, into my hip. The moment it cracked, the sound tore through me with a white-hot heat that made me feel like I was on fire inside.
Then I was floating. The lack of air was no longer detectable in my chest. The ache in my ears and throat were gone. I drifted toward the moonlight as my mind all but wiped every single feeling from my body. And when I broke the surface, I gasped, filling my lungs so fast that I was sure they would explode.
Koy came up beside me as I choked and he pulled me alongside him toward the dock, where Ailee was waiting. Bruin and the man were gone, and a few crew from the ships littered the harbor as they watched. Koy’s labored breaths were hot against my ear as he pulled me, dead weight, from the water and lifted me into his arms. Then I could hear the sound of his footsteps again, like a heartbeat that brought my own back in line.
I curled into his arms, pressing my face into his neck, and I cried. I wept, a deep, ragged sound breaking me in places I didn’t think could crack. His arms tightened around me, holding me to him, and his words were hot against my ear, the only thing I could feel.
“I’ve got you.”
NINE
I woke in Koy’s hammock, wrapped in the smell of him.
Sweat dotted my skin everywhere the light touched it, and I turned my face instinctively toward the window, where Koy was leaning into the wall, watching the sea. His gaze was calm, missing the tautness it usually carried, and for a moment, the version of him I first met flashed through my mind. His long, damp hair blown into his face, his black eyes like onyx. He was someone different now. I was, too.