Page 41 of A Princess, Stolen (A Kiss of Revenge, Blood, and Love #1)

I understood two things. First, Sparta had betrayed me. Second, if no one noticed, I would drown alone in the ocean. I landed hard in the water and felt the waves crashing over my head, and then there was nothing left but panic.

Panic and the shock of the cold.

For a few seconds, I was dazed as I sank with the heavy boots on like a stone and noticed the red sunlight shimmering over the surface of the water like a carpet of embers.

I didn’t know if I was screaming or motionless, thrashing or sinking.

For a tiny moment, I even thought I was burning underwater and my alveoli would burst when, at some point, I realized that I was floating lifelessly like a doll in the blackness.

Almost weightless. Fear had immobilized me and I was sinking.

Mom came to mind. Mom, as I had always drawn her: a white ghost sinking toward the bottom of the sea.

Mom!

It was pure adrenaline that made me react now.

I glanced up at the floating reflections of red and gold.

Instinctively, I kicked my legs and flapped my arms like wings, but the heavy boots pulled me downward as did the many layers of clothing, the soaked turtleneck, jeans, and long underwear.

Fear gripped my throat. Again, I flapped my arms but I barely made any headway.

I blinked. Something bright floated past me at eye level, very close, almost like millions of tiny fish.

It puffed up and contracted as if it was breathing in and out.

Only then did I suspect something was around me holding me down, preventing me from rising.

It wasn’t my clothes. I reached out at the bright object since I couldn’t see it due to the panic and the murky water. It was rough, solid, and fine-meshed.

My heart skipped a beat. It was a net. A trawling net. Panicked images of my painful drowning overwhelmed my mind as I frantically grabbed at it. The net was everywhere, even under my feet there was something unyielding.

Oh God! Oh God! Oh God!

I thrashed around like a fish out of water when suddenly there was a hard yank.

I slid forward without swimming. Then, I understood the horror: I had fallen into the water into a trawling net stretched out beneath the surface.

Its round opening had swallowed me like the mouth of a sea monster and I was now at the narrow end being dragged underwater.

Fearing for my life, I tried to swim toward the wide opening, but the net was too tightly wrapped around me, and even if it had been looser, the undertow I would have had to swim against was too strong. The cutter was going too fast. And that meant it kept the net under the water too.

Out of sheer desperation, I flailed my arms up and down again, punching the net. The pressure in my head was building and not only from fear. I had to take a breath. Bubbles from my struggle trickled up through the mesh. I can’t get out! I can’t get out!

Do you know what the most insidious thing is about these nets? I heard Sparta ask.

I tried with all my strength to tear the net apart with my bare hands, but like in the storage room, it was too strong and stretched too tightly.

I only felt a sharp burning sensation on my fingers.

For a moment, I remained motionless because I didn’t know what else I could do. Then, it occurred to me.

I tugged up the sleeve of the sweater to cut through the net with the rough part of the ring.

But, in my panic, the ring became stuck in the fine fibers of the mesh. Now I was truly trapped. Like a fish on a hook. I screamed and useless bubbles bubbled around me. How long had I been underwater? A minute? A minute and a half? It felt like forever.

I had to breathe. My head was pounding. With shaking fingers, I tried to untie the bracelet, but fear and the water made me clumsy and the knot tightened.

I’m drowning! Like Mom!

All of a sudden, I stopped moving. I saw my braids floating in the water as if in slow motion as did the edge of my sweater. My arms and legs seemed too heavy to move. Everything slowed down. And it was quiet. Deafeningly quiet.

Was it always like this when one lost a fight?

My pulse pounded hard in my temples, chest, and stomach against the dwindling oxygen as if I were merely a single pervasive heartbeat.

Da-dam. Da-dam. Da-dam. My eyeballs stung.

I had to breathe. I wanted to take a breath even if it was water, but I couldn’t.

Something was blocking me as if my throat was closing up.

My thoughts drifted into the void as I saw colorful swirls in the water.

Brushstrokes without meaning. Suddenly, I felt disembodied as if my memory was sliding through spirals of red and green.

For a few seconds, my mind was still conscious on some level, and I saw Mom.

And again, it was as if this was all happening timelessly, in the past, present, and future.

I see her standing in front of a tiny suitcase that is on her bed. She is stowing some pants and shirts and even packing some of my clothes in it. I spot my yellow ducky underpants and my favorite sweater with the daisies.

“Mom, what are you doing?” I hear myself asking.

Startled, she turns around, her long cinnamon-colored braids swinging back and forth. “Will, I thought you were downstairs with your grandma?”

“Are we going on vacation, Mom? Do you have Mr. Sparkles with you?”

“I’ll get him. Will, darling, do you remember the story I told you the other day?”

“The one about the little bird whose owner loved it so much that he kept putting gold beads in its food? So it couldn’t fly anymore?” I remembered the story well because it creeped me out.

Mom kneels in front of me, brushes my hair out of my face, and kisses me on the forehead. “That’s exactly right. I have to tell you something, Nevaeh.”

Nevaeh. She only calls me that when it’s something serious, usually when I’ve done something that displeases my dad. “What’s wrong, Mom? Did I forget to feed Banana and Balou?”

“No, no. That’s not it.” She leans toward me and whispers, “I’m the little bird, Nevaeh. Your dad loves me too much.”

Too much. Too much. Too much.

The words were like an all-pervasive echo that reverberated from the bottom of the sea.

They filled me as everything grew darker and darker inside me.

Darker and darker. It was as if a light shining inside me was quietly and slowly dimming.

And then there was that last moment of rebellion when I realized that I was drowning, that I was dying.

My body thrashed about senselessly as my mind painted red pictures. However, I saw something in them.

The gray eyes of the sea. They were wide and full of terror. Then two strong arms grabbed me.

“Willa? Will?”

My upper body contracted reflexively and I coughed, spitting water and gasping for breath at the same time. It sounded tortured like the wheezing of a battered bellows, and my heart pounded like an anvil in my head. Someone grabbed my hand and I squeezed the fingers as hard as I could.

I lay on a flat surface, staring blindly into an ashen face.

Nathan .

I wanted to smile at him but failed. I wanted to say his name but couldn’t.

I couldn’t make any sound at all; I just lay there with my eyes open, gasping.

I felt the cold wind blowing over me and it sounded as if a hundred voices were whispering to me.

Voices that spoke of the horror under the water, the net, and the hooded figure.

Voices from the past, from Mom. I am the little bird .

I heard that one sentence repeatedly in the air, fluttering like the rapid flapping of a hummingbird’s wings.

I am the little bird. I am the little bird. I am the little bird .

For several breaths, I thought of Banana and Balou, my snow-white budgies from childhood.

Disturbed, I sat up and coughed another stream of water from my bloated lungs. I hadn’t drowned. Nathan had saved me, even if I didn’t know how he had managed, but I had seen his eyes and felt his arms just before I had passed out.

“Will—what happened?” He was kneeling next to me. He was completely soaked, his hand, which I was squeezing, was as cold as mine and it was shaking. A few men stood behind him, but in my dazed state, I could only see Pan and Troy clearly.

“Did you fall overboard?” Nathan wanted to know.

I shook my head.

“Sleepwalking? Jumped while in a trance?”

“Pushed,” I choked out.

Nathan’s face went as lightless as night. “What?”

“There…there was a man.” It hurt my throat to speak. I clung tightly to his hand and he squeezed my fingers.

“Who?” he whispered darkly.

“Say who and I’ll strangle him with my bare hand,” Pan growled behind him.

Wide-eyed, I looked at Nathan, the water flowing tirelessly from his hair. I wasn’t truly present yet. It felt like I was still down in the water with Mom in the spirit world.

She had braided her cinnamon-brown hair into two pigtails. Just like me! And she smelled of No. 1 by Clive Christian. Just like me! Dad loved that smell.

“I was caught in a net,” I stammered incoherently. “There…there was a fishing net.” I felt so dizzy.

“I know. Someone must have dropped it in the water to trap you,” I heard Nathan say.

Reality seemed muted, veiled behind a wall of white mist.

“Who?” he demanded.

The cloaked figure appeared before me; the thousand eyes behind the finely woven threads. I felt the hard hand on my mouth and smelled the pungent scent of camphor.

I had to get out of there. I staggered to my feet but my legs gave way. Nathan reacted immediately. He grabbed me around the waist, supporting me by wrapping my arm around his neck and holding me so that I could stand upright. Everything about me was shaking.

“It’s okay, Will, you’re safe,” he said, his anger, however, made it difficult for him to speak gently to me. “Nothing can happen to you now. But you have to tell us who it was, otherwise, we can’t protect you.”