Total pages in book: 94
Estimated words: 90099 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 90099 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 450(@200wpm)___ 360(@250wpm)___ 300(@300wpm)
“What are you doing?” Tim shouted.
“Watch and learn,” Ilano said with a snarl.
A gurgling sound filled the air like an ominous whisper. A pipe on the ceiling above the cage jerked to life, and then a thick stream of ice-cold water started pouring into the cage.
Chapter 18
Tim’s eyes flashed red with rage, his arms bulging as he pulled on the chains that bound him to the wall. Four men lifted a Perspex square with metal clasps and a silicon seal from the floor. Maya already knew what they were going to do before they secured it on top of the cubicle and fastened the clips. The lid had a small hole in the top for the water to pour through.
The cage was filling fast. She shivered from the cold. Her body would soon adapt, as it always did. She understood what Ilano had planned, but Tim didn’t. How could he? She never had a chance to tell him what she was.
He shouted like an enraged animal. “Let her go or you’ll regret it.”
“Quiet,” Ilano said. “You’re missing the show.”
The water reached her waist. A few more minutes and she’d be submerged. The shivering had stopped, but a different kind of tremor continued to shake her with shortening intervals—the addiction.
Tim was pleading, threatening, and hollering at Ilano, while the latter watched her with interest. She tried to make eye contact with Tim, but he was too wild to notice. Her heart ached for him. It was like holding Darren in her arms all over again, hearing him swallow his own blood. She understood that kind of anguish.
Soon, the water was up to her nose. It was like being trapped in a Houdini trick. Tim had started bargaining, offering his life.
“What the fuck do you want?” he wailed.
With her head tilted back and her ears underwater, their voices became muffled. The beating of her heart and the rumbling of the water filling her prison shortly drowned out all other sounds.
The water went over her head. She held her breath and pinched her eyes shut, slowly opening them again to stare at Tim’s tormented face.
The water stopped. The tank was full.
There were two options—drown or save herself—but there was only one choice. She had to stay alive for Tim, to get him off the island. Tears streamed over his face as he stared at her, his body arched forward as far as the chains allowed.
Closing her eyes, she shut his powerful, handsome features from her vision and gathered the molecules around her. The water moved in a slow twirl that picked up speed as her mind started spinning. In a few seconds, it pushed through the hole at the top, allowing a bubble of air to form around her head. For a moment longer, there was only the movement of the water in the tank, and then a great puddle as the water splashed over the sides, leaving her dry up to her shoulders.
Ilano clapped loudly. “Bravo. Brilliant performance.”
She didn’t look at him. Her attention was focused on Tim. He’d gone very still, his expression frozen in something between shock and disbelief. The guards clambered onto the ladder, removed the lid, and pulled her out by her arms. She dropped to the floor, her energy spent. The men grabbed her wrists and yanked her to her feet. They forced her across the floor, stopping in front of Ilano.
“I was looking forward to drinking her down,” Ilano said to Tim, “but she tastes of your smell. I think I’ll leave the pleasure to you, if that’s how you wish to deal with her.”
Tim’s eyes were flat, the red gone. “Deal with her?”
“Have you grasped the significance of our little show?” Ilano asked.
Tim fixed his gaze on Maya. “She’s a hydromancist.”
“That she is, and what does that tell you?”
“That she can manipulate water.”
Ilano smiled. “Ask her how she got here.”
“By boat,” she said, looking at Ilano with defiance.
“What happened to my boat?”
She glanced at Tim. “I sank it.”
Slowly, Tim’s eye widened with understanding. The earlier look of anguish and incredulity was replaced with one of pain. Betrayal.
Inwardly, she cringed.
“Uncuff him,” Ilano said.
Tim stared at her while the men unlocked his cuffs. When his arms were free, he rubbed the red welts on his wrists caused by his struggling.
A guard shoved her forward, making her fall on her knees in front of Tim.
“Here’s your rat,” Ilano said. “I told you I’d find the rodent. I value our partnership, perhaps too much. You’re like the son I never had, so I’ll let you clean up your own mess. Wouldn’t want to wipe your mouth for you after your dinner. Isn’t that how you put it?” He motioned at a guard, who placed a knife in Tim’s hand. “How you do it is your choice. If you don’t have a taste for vermin blood and draining is not your preferred method,” he pointed at the knife, “you have another option. I have business to attend to. When I return, she better be dead, or you will be.”