Net Force--Kill Chain by Jerome Preisler (e book reader txt) 📕

pushed herself up slightly, keeping her head low, mud sucking at her elbows. The rain blew cold and hard as she turned her face up into it, searching for the lobster boat.

She could no longer see the red glow. She could hardly see anything in the blackness. The shell beach was gone, devoured by the surging current. But the water was a tangible presence out there. Its sound filled her ears.

She kept scanning the darkness. Her head low. Her chin almost dipped into the muck.

Then she heard something. A recognizable buzz. Separate and distinct from the whoosh and boom of the waves. Straight out ahead.

Natasha stared, her pupils soaking in the meager, ambient light available to them. An engine, she thought.

And then she saw it.

The lobster boat was coming toward the island. Toward her and Bryan.

Straight on over the water.

Chapter Twelve

Chacagua Island

April 15, 2024

Natasha rose to her knees in the mud, keeping her head below the tops of the reed shafts. There was no reason to stay belly down. The lobster boat’s pilot wouldn’t be able shoot at them while he was steering toward shore.

She splashed over to Bryan, the reeds thrashing around her in the wind. He’d also gotten up on his knees, and she saw that his bandages were filthy and soaked. One look at them made her worry about infection. It was bound to set in unless they were changed. And she had no way to change them.

“I blew it,” she said. “Brought us around in a circle. And now he’s coming.” She realized she was sobbing. “I blew it.”

Bryan faced her in the darkness and rain. “It was a good idea.”

“Bry—”

“It was.”

She looked at him, tears on her face. She could hear the buzz of the boat’s engine against the louder noise of the waves.

“Screw my big ideas,” she said. “I don’t know what to do.”

“We should get back into the woods.”

“He’ll look for us there. So will his brother if he’s back on his feet.”

“Tasha...look down.”

She did. The mire had continued to rise and was now over four inches deep around her calves.

“This isn’t a typical storm. I think we’re having a tidal surge. A major one. It happened before, a long time ago. They called it the Saxby Gale. That’s when the island got to be uninhabited. When the Chacaguans abandoned it ... the ones who were left afterward.”

“What are you saying?”

“I think all this is going underwater. We need to get as high up as possible.”

She didn’t reply. The engine sounded deeper and louder.

“Lobster boats are slow,” Bryan said. “The water amplifies sounds. It makes things seem closer than they really are.”

Natasha wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. She realized he’d noticed her listening.

“So much for your patented obliviousness,” she said.

“Tasha, we can make it,” he said. “I know where to go, and it isn’t far.”

She nodded and grabbed his arm.

“C’mon,” she said. “I’ll help you up.”

Kai knew immediately it was them coming through the thicket. He wasn’t sure how he knew. Or why. Call it instinct. Or maybe a sixth sense honed like the tanto knife in his fist. In theory, it could have been the wind. An animal. Even his brother. But the instant he noticed the movement, he knew it was Snow Pixie and her boyfriend.

He slowed from a trot to a walk, then slowed again and hung back behind a colossal red maple. It was probably 100 feet tall and ten feet wide, its bark scaled like the skin of a dinosaur. It would keep him hidden.

Kai waited. He’d seen the rustling in the brush about fifteen feet up ahead and ten to his left, on the very path his marks took from the beach. The path on which he’d first picked up their trail. In fact, the thicket was at the ridgeline, just a few feet above where they had left their kayak.

Why would they reverse themselves now? They had come all this way. Spent hours circling back to the beach. Hiking through the storm. Hours.

What would make them turn around and leave it again?

He was sure his twin brother had something to do with it. Again, call it intuition. Their shared genes. Whatever the fuck. But if he was right, where was Tai? He wouldn’t have let them head back into the woods. He would have done them and completed the kill chain. What could have happened?

Kai stood under the maple, facing the path, keeping an eye on the brush to his left. Thanks to the little white Russian, he looked the worse for wear. His hair was streaked with blood. His nose throbbed like an exposed nerve, though the flow from his nostrils had slowed to a dark trickle. With the goggles over his black-and-blue eyes, his bruised and swollen face might have belonged to a masked, overripe jack-o-lantern.

He watched the path. Cold, wet gusts nuzzled and prodded him. Rainwater rilled down from the cavorting, wind-tossed branches overhead. There was more movement in the thicket. What was taking the marks so long?

After a few seconds, they finally appeared through the brush and he got his answer.

They were walking together, and slowly, Snow Pixie a step behind the boyfriend, a hand on his shoulder. His arm was in a sling, and he looked shaky at best, carrying the Mag in front of him. Kai had demolished his fingers. Torn up muscles and tendons with his awl. Shaky, yes, and no wonder.

He unholstered the Jägar, keeping his left fist clenched around his tanto knife. A one-two combination.

He was thinking he could easily take them out from right here behind the tree. A neat, quick hit. Like the seal out on the bay. Which was what his brother would do. Except he wasn’t his brother. They said only humans killed for sport. For the thrill. But that was false. All kinds of animals did it all the time. It was a taste. An inborn hunger. He wasn’t ashamed to admit it was the