Back at Little Big Rock, I sprawled on the beach, staring down the barrel of Sam’s gun. A wave rippled along the shore and an orb wobbled weakly through the air.

Sam said, "National security."

He pulled the trigger and the gun bucked violently in his hand. That’ll happen when there’s a diamond-hard ball of freak-stuff jammed against the barrel.

Sam screamed and staggered and fell, cradling his bleeding hand. The shot throbbed in my ears and a needle of pain lanced into my arm.

One of the orbs detected Ed clambering toward me, so I crawled through the beach grass then past the dangling roots of a tree clinging to the cliffside above. Into a shallow pool of saltwater, crunching snails under my knees, turning in the muddy darkness, waiting for a bullet.

I heard Sam say, "I need a medic."

"Goddamn, you’re ruined." Then the quality of Ed’s voice changed, talking into a microphone. "Sam’s hurt."

"Get me--" Sam gasped. "--help."

Ed listened for a moment. "Damn, Sam. I’m sorry."

"What? What did she say?" A pause. "What're you--wait, no!" His voice snagged on a barb of panic. "Ed, don--"

There was a sickening crik, then the sound of a limp body hitting wet sand.

Ed sighed. "She said we can’t afford deadwood. Sorry, bud."

Something froze inside of me. Killing a stranger--killing me--I understood. I'm not saying I approved, it wasn't on my list of Fun Day Trips in Mayne, but at least it made sense. But killing your friend, your partner, so you didn’t have to drag his body to the boat? That was--

The boat!

I needed to get past Ed to the boat.

I needed to reach Dewitt before they disappeared him.

Huddled in the damp, I forced myself to breathe slowly. I focused on the orbs and waited for Ed's footsteps to come closer. Inhale. Exhale.

There were no footsteps. There was no sound but the tide and my shaky breath. Ed had left me curled behind the roots, like I wasn't even important enough to kill. It took three lifetimes to crawl from my hiding spot, and when I did, I heard an engine cutting through waves, a light outboard.

I was already too late.

I ran three steps before I fell, my balance shot, the pain in my temple flaring. The sand stung my knees and palms. My vision blurred with tears--of pain, of terror, of desperation.

I crawled toward the beach ... and saw the dim outline of a Zodiac reach the yacht.

Ed clambered aboard and they gunned away.

In ten seconds, the ship was gone.

I flopped onto the sand, sobbing like a child. The orbs floated around me. One slipped through the armhole of my T-shirt, the others down the collar, then lodged back into my chest with a psychic 'click'.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

I rubbed my tear-streaked face. Driving off a cliff then crawling to the rescue. Some hero.

When the world stopped spinning, I stood and staggered to the truck. Totaled. Stinking of gasoline and burning radiator fluid. Then, more slowly, I crossed to Sam’s body, lying at the base of the cliffs like he’d fallen. His neck was broken, his hand was a bloody mess. Acid rose from my stomach into my throat. I gagged, then started limping toward town.

Twenty minutes later, Gustav pulled his beside me on the old logging road. "Where’s Dewitt? His folks said--" He squinted at me. "What happened?"

"They took him. They took him on a boat, they--"

"They what? Who?"

"The guys, the hunters."

"What guys?"

"From the inn. Plus a few more, I don't know--on a boat--they’re like military or maybe they're not, they took him and they shot me and I followed and--"

"Lark! Slow down. Take a breath."

He opened the passenger door so I stumbled around the pickup and fell into the front seat, aching and spent and horrified at my failure. When I saw Gustav's 9 mm on the seat between us, I realized that Mr. and Mrs. D must've told everyone about the gunshots. So the Rock was on high alert ... too late for Dewitt. I wanted to cry again, but I took a shuddering breath and tried to organize my thoughts.

"Four men, I think," I said. "Uh, at least. Or five. And one woman, I heard someone say 'she'--they kidnapped Dewitt, I don’t know. Took him off the Rock. One of them’s dead on the beach."

"Talk me through this, Lark."

"Okay." I breathed. "First I saw Shandra--"

"Talk into the CB," he told me. "You there, Trish?"

"I’m here," she said, over the speaker.

As we sped back toward town, I told them everything I remembered. I was finishing when we jerked to a halt outside the General Store. "--then he killed his buddy and left him there. Broke his neck."

"To look like an accident," Trish said, over the speaker.

"Why bother, after Lark saw them?" Gustav asked her, then said, "Wait, hon, we’re here."

We found Trish at the counter in the office, bent over pile of CB transmitter parts and the wreckage of the satellite phone.

"Why kidnap Dewitt?" she asked, not raising her eyes from her repairs.

"I don't know," I said. "And why now, all of a sudden? They’ve been here for days."

"They shot the radio, not Mr. D. They made that guy’s death look like an accident. They’re trying to keep this quiet, at least quiet-ish."

Gustav nodded. "But Lark interrupted them."

"Thanks to Shandra," I said. "Without her, Dewey would've just have gone missing."

"Where is she?" Trish asked.

"Miss Corene’s house."

"Bring her to the dead guy on the beach," Trish said. "Maybe she'll feel something, learn where they took Dewitt."

Gustav shook his head. "She's too fragile for that. Touching a dead guy."

"She doesn’t have a choice," Trish said. "We’re losing Dewitt. Every second we waste, he’s farther away. Get her."

I started for the door.

"Not you," Trish told me. "Doc’s coming to patch you up. Gustav, go."

He left and I said, "We need to catch that yacht."

"We can’t," she said. "They sabotaged all the boats except for the skiff, and that couldn’t catch cold in winter. I’m trying to raise the Coast Guard--anyone--but they’re jamming the radio."

"They can do that?"

"Doesn’t take much," she told me. "They’re not close, that’s why the CBs work short-range. I need to suppress the carrier and jury-rig single-side band."

"The Daugherty’s have single-side." Then I remembered the state of the Daugherty’s CB. "Oh."

"Yeah."

Well, that explained the gunfire. Sam and Ed had been keeping us from contacting the mainland.

The bell at the front door jingled, then Dr. Willoughby bundled me into the back room for bandaging. When we returned to the office, Gustav was telling Trish, "She's not with Corene, that's all I know."

Trish frowned at me. "We can’t find Shandra."

"Try her mom," I said.

Gustav shook his head. "Her mom hasn’t seen her."

"She's hiding in the woods," Trish said. "Like she does."

"How long before the transmitter’s fixed?" Gustav asked her.

"Three hours."

Gustav swore. "What do we have that’s seaworthy? If they get Dewitt onto the mainland, we'll never see him again."

"The JetSki," Jonathan said, from the doorway. "They missed one of the JetSkis."

"Okay," Gustav nodded. "So we chase them--"

"Chase them where?" Trish asked. "These crapsacks are long gone."

"The Bankheads say they're heading for Fort Dolores," Jonathan told her.

"How do they know?" Trish asked, but she wasn't really asking. I’d never been sure if the Bankhead brothers were changed by the Storm, or just possessed some innate fishermen’s understanding of the sea, but they knew the bay with a preternatural confidence.

"Who’s best on the JetSki?" Trish asked.

"Me," Jonathan said.

"Get within cell reception of Portland and call for help."

"What about Dewitt?" he asked.

"If they took him to Fort Dolores," Gustav said, "they’ll hear a JetSki coming from miles away."

"Maybe not," Trish said, and looked at me.