Raging Sea (Undertow, #2)

Another chair soars across the room. A leg clips me in the side, and my ribs burn.

“Riley, I don’t want to fight you, but I will, and I’m a lot better with this thing than you are, so do yourself a favor and just look around!” I scream.

He stops his assault and does as I ask, his head whipping from one end of the room to the other. Suddenly, he’s running at me and I’m sure he’s going to attack again, but then he sails past me to one of the tanks. It has an unconscious Selkie floating in it, most likely unaware of what is happening around him. Riley stumbles to the next tank and the next, and I hear him gasp when he comes across one filled with Rusalka hands. He turns and sees another with human body parts, and finally he comes across a Sirena whose chest cavity has been opened wide so that we can see her beating heart.

“My father? Is he here too?”

I nod.

“You can help me rescue him and all the others.”

“What’s real?” he shouts. “Is the plague real?”

“No!” I shout to him as I plant myself in front of a computer. I search the screen, looking for a button that might say OPEN TANKS or STOP BEING EVIL. I quickly realize I’m wasting my time. I press a few buttons, hoping to get lucky, but nothing happens. All I know about computers is how to make a Vine.

“Then the parents didn’t die?”

“He killed them!” I shout. “He needs all of you to be as good with the gloves as you can be, and giving you something traumatic and worth fighting for did the trick.”

“Coney Island?”

“That’s real. He’s sending you to fight the Rusalka, but none of you are ready. Riley, I know you have a million questions, but right now we have a very limited amount of time. We have to get these people out of these tanks.”

I hear a crash and then the sound of sloshing water. I turn to find one of the tanks has cracked, and a man tumbles out onto the floor. Riley scoops him up and pats his face, trying to wake him up.

“Dad, I need you to get up and walk.”

I wasn’t prepared for the Alpha to be drugged, but there’s no going back now. I turn and find a Ceto sinking in its tank. A sign has been taped onto the glass that reads CETO NAME: BUMPER.

“Bumper!” I cry, remembering her from school. I concentrate on the water behind the glass. There’s a crack and then another gush of water onto the floor. Bumper falls out with it and flops about as she morphs into her more human form. I take her squishy hand and lock eyes with hers. She recognizes me.

“It appears that I have missed some important events,” she says.

“Riley, get to work on the others!” I shout.

He’s reluctant to leave his father, but he does what I tell him. Soon another tank is shattering next to us, releasing a Sirena. I do the same to Nathan, the pufferfish man. When he spills out of the tank, he nearly knocks me down.

Riley rushes to another tank and is about to break it when I stop him. Inside is the squid creature Spangler warned me about. Its hundreds of tentacles slam against its tank. I don’t believe much of what Spangler has said, but when it comes to this thing, I think he was telling the truth.

“Not this one. And skip the Rusalka, too.”

“What about these people who are torn open?” Riley cries.

I shake my head, though it hurts my heart.

“We can’t help them. If we open their tanks, they could die. It might be cruel to leave them here, but if they’re alive, they still have a chance at rescue.”

“Why didn’t you tell me, Lyric?”

“Spangler threatened the people I love, Riley,” I explain as I free an adult Triton I’ve never seen before.

“Is Uncle David part of this?”

I groan. “Yes! Doyle is part of this. He still might be, but right now he’s trying to do the right thing.”

The lights dim and flicker.

“What was that?” Riley asks.

“I don’t know, but it would suck if that’s the system rebooting,” I say. “Listen, we need to break open all these tanks at once, but again, keep the ugly ones in time-out.”

“I don’t know if I can,” Riley says.

I take his hand, and we turn our gloves on the tanks. I watch them rattle and shake. There’s an ear-jamming crash and then the sound of gallons of water spilling everywhere. It rushes at us, and I’m so focused on freeing everyone, I’m not ready for it. Both of us are pulled under and slammed around. I bang the back of my head on something, and the pain is searing. All the time, Riley holds my hand. He never lets me go, and eventually he gets me to my feet.

“Are you all right?” he asks.

“I’ll survive,” I say.

“What now?”

“The rest is up to Doyle,” I explain.

“Lyric?” Spangler’s voice broadcasts through speakers mounted in the corners of the ceiling. I hear it echo outside, too, and in the halls. It’s everywhere. “Lyric, it’s Donovan. David and I are outside, and we need to have a chat.”

“Riley, stay here and help everyone you can,” I say.