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Swearing under my breath again, I slipped out of the alley, keeping tight to the shadows. I was good at disappearing, a trick of the eye, but this was too many and too out in the open.

As I headed for the bridge, gunfire and yells dug in like spikes, wanting to draw my attention, but I kept on my mission, keeping her boots tight to my chest like I was holding onto her.

A loudmeowpierced the air between shots. Katrina called them to her, directing all their attention away from me.

“What the hell? Did that cat just jump in the water?” a man spoke in Hungarian.

“That’s the cat-shifter! Shoot it!”

My body whirled around, ready to fight, my anger blistering up my spine. The need to protect her overruled everything.

BOOOOM!

A cannonball hurled from the ship through a line of soldiers, crashing into a wall, splintering stone into the air like raindrops. My body flew, rolling over the road along with Killian’s men, tossing me like a doll. My bones crunched and my skin tore, the items in my hands scattering. I hit the ground, rolling over the concrete. For a moment or two, I was unable to move. My skin burned as my insides splintered, grappling for air.

Coughing, a man sat up next to me, his familiar features dropping my stomach.

Connor. His expression shifted as he took me in, realizing who was next to him.

“Hey!” He pointed at me, starting to get up.

It was now or never to make a break for it. I didn’t even have time to check to see if Sprig was all right. My head spinning, blood dripping into my eyes, I clawed my way up, stumbling as my brain swirled with vertigo.

“Hey! Stop!” he belted at me. “Kill him!”

Bullets zipped by my head, my feet zigzagging me down the street, their bellows catching up with me.

Pop!

Grazing my temple, a bullet hummed in my ear, taunting me with its kiss of death. I pumped my legs and arms faster, ducking behind objects and tossing anything I could in the path behind me to slow them down.

Daring myself a moment, I curved my head back to the river, seeing the ship was moving, heading for the bridge. Sprinting onto it, I trailed along the railing, gauging where the best place to jump was. Climbing over the railing, every muscle locked down.

“Come on… come on,” I chanted at the ship, noticing Killian’s men getting closer. Their bullets would be here faster than the ship would.

The hawk-shifter screeched, diving down on me, her claws nicking at my head.

“Shit!” I bellowed as gunfire pinged off the railing, sparking the metal.

My time was up.

“Hold your breath, fuzzball,” I muttered, taking in the ship’s speed, seeing Scot and Vane at the bow. I sucked in and jumped.

My body plunged down, slicing through the cold water, the impact slamming into my chest like a bat.

There were so many times I had considered letting the sea take me after finding my family at the bottom of Davy Jones’s locker. To find that peace I was always hunting.

But now my family was above, my peace was on that ship, and I no longer wanted the sea to take me. If she was alive, I would fight, kill, and demolish whatever it took to get back to her.

My arms pushed me through the murky water, swimming for the port side.

“Captain!” Scot’s voice was the first to reach me, tossing down a rope ladder. My fingers caught it, and I struggled to pull myself up. My body was exhausted, injured, and fatigued. My leg still ached from where the necromancer cut into it, the binding muscles weak, forcing me to use more of my arms to pull myself up.

Shots volleyed back and forth, the soldiers’ voices getting farther away as we slipped out the other side of the bridge, their rifles no longer able to reach us.

Thank the gods… we actually escaped.

“Here.” Scot leaned over, clasping my hand to yank me up the last few rungs, my body dropping onto the deck with relief. The weight of my wet clothes, plus Katrina’s jacket, was too heavy for me, my muscles shaking.