Chapter 9
The Coast Guard arrested Vale before noon.
He demanded immunity in exchange for Sophie’s treatment.
Natalie almost agreed.
I saw it on her face when paramedics carried Sophie onto the rescue boat. My niece’s skin had turned pale again. Every breath hurt her.
Vale watched from the deck with his wrists restrained.
“You have six hours,” he told Natalie. “After that, organ failure begins.”
Natalie crossed the deck and struck him.
An officer pulled her back.
“If she dies, I will spend the rest of my life making sure everyone knows what you did.”
Vale smiled through a split lip.
“If she dies, nothing else will matter to you.”
He was right about that.
And he knew it.
Thomas gave investigators the location of Vale’s hidden laboratory. Ruth handed over twenty-seven years of evidence.
It was enough to bury Vale in prison.
It was not enough to save Sophie.
We took her to Ruth’s house because Maris could not enter a hospital without becoming a prisoner herself. Federal officers promised protection, but after what we had seen, none of us knew whom to trust.
Sophie lay in a bathtub filled with seawater.
Natalie sat beside her, holding her hand.
Mira slept against Maris’s chest.
I stood in the doorway.
Natalie would not look at me.
“You think this is my fault,” I said.
“I think I begged you to help my daughter.”
“And Vale wanted me to hand him a newborn.”
“He said he needed a small sample.”
“You saw his cages.”
“I didn’t know about them then.”
“But you knew enough to send armed men after me.”
Natalie stood.
Her face was wet with tears.
“You want me to say I’m sorry? Fine. I’m sorry. I was terrified. I watched Sophie get weaker every day while doctors shrugged and sent us another bill. Then Vale told me there was hope.”
“He used you.”
“I let him.”
The anger left her voice.
That was worse.
“I looked at that baby and told myself she wasn’t human. I told myself she wouldn’t feel one needle. Then another. Then whatever else he needed.”
She covered her mouth.
“I became the kind of person Mom died fighting.”
I crossed the room and held her.
For a moment, she resisted.
Then she collapsed against me.
“I don’t want to lose her.”
“You won’t.”
“You can’t promise that.”
“No. But I can promise you won’t face it alone.”
Behind us, Sophie opened her eyes.
“Mom?”
Natalie rushed to her.
“I’m here.”
Sophie looked toward Maris.
“The moon.”
Maris lifted her head.
“What about it, sweetheart?” Natalie asked.
Sophie pointed toward the eastern window.
“Someone is calling me.”
Maris placed Mira in my arms and moved to the bathtub.
She touched Sophie’s forehead.
A vision passed through all of us.
A circular pool beneath the ocean.
Three stone seats.
A silver symbol carved into the floor.
Three daughters.
Claire, the firstborn child of sea raised by land.
Sophie, the child of land carrying the blood of sea.
Mira, the secondborn child who had never chosen either world.
The vision ended.
Thomas unfolded Evelyn’s journal.
He turned to the drawing.
“The pool is beneath Fort Jefferson.”
Ruth shook her head.
“That’s seventy miles away.”
“The moon rises in five hours,” I said.
Natalie looked at Sophie.
“She won’t survive the trip.”
Maris answered in a broken voice.
“She must.”
We left within twenty minutes.
The Coast Guard refused to transport Maris and Mira, so Ruth called an old friend with a fishing boat.
The sea grew rough as we moved west.
Dark clouds gathered along the horizon.
Thomas watched the compass.
“This storm wasn’t in the forecast.”
Kael surfaced beside the boat.
Neither was Vale’s second vessel.
I turned.
A white ship followed three miles behind us.
Vale Marine Research was painted across its side.
“How?” Natalie asked. “Vale is in custody.”
Thomas raised the binoculars.
“His son.”
Lucas Vale had taken control of the company after his father’s arrest. He was younger, more aggressive, and desperate to protect the research that had made his family wealthy.
The ship gained on us.
A radio crackled.
“Claire Bell, turn over the three specimens. My father’s legal situation does not change ownership of company property.”
Natalie grabbed the radio.
“My daughter is not property!”
Lucas answered calmly.
“She was created under a Vale-funded program. Legally, that question is complicated.”
She threw the radio against the deck.
The ship launched two speedboats.
Kael disappeared beneath the surface.
Seconds later, dozens of dark shapes followed him.
The first speedboat stopped suddenly.
A rope had wrapped around its propeller.
The second continued toward us.
Armed men raised tranquilizer rifles.
Ruth swerved.
Darts struck the cabin.
Thomas fired flares across their path.
One struck the front of the pursuing boat.
The men panicked and turned away from the flame.
Fort Jefferson appeared through the rain.
We reached a narrow section of water beside the old brick walls.
Maris lifted Sophie from the bathtub we had secured to the deck.
My niece was barely conscious.
“Where is the entrance?” I asked.
Maris pointed beneath the boat.
Natalie put on a diving mask.
“I’m coming.”
“You can’t breathe below.”
“I am not letting my daughter go without me.”
Thomas handed her a tank.
“I’m coming too.”
Ruth took the wheel.
“I’ll keep Lucas busy.”
“You could be killed,” I said.
She smiled sadly.
“I lost Evelyn because I ran once. I won’t run again.”
We entered the water.
Maris carried Sophie.
I held Mira.
Thomas and Natalie followed.
Kael guided us toward a narrow opening at the base of the fort.
Behind us, explosions shook the surface.
Lucas’s ship had reached Ruth.
We swam through the opening and entered a tunnel.
It descended deeper than the aquarium passage.
Sophie’s eyes closed.
Natalie grabbed her hand.
“Stay with me, baby.”
At the end of the tunnel, we found the circular pool from the vision.
Three stone seats surrounded the silver symbol.
Moonlight shone through a crack in the ceiling.
But someone was already waiting there.
Lucas Vale stood beside the pool with four armed divers.
He had found another entrance.
He pointed a weapon at Natalie.
“Put the children on the stones.”
Thomas moved in front of her.
Lucas shot him.
The dart struck my father’s chest.
He collapsed into the water.
“Dad!”
I swam toward him.
Lucas aimed at Mira.
“Next one won’t be a tranquilizer.”
May you like
The moonlight touched the first stone.
Sophie stopped breathing.
