FLOOD

A Greater Power

            Something made a sharp whistling noise by my left ear, and I ducked down, heart flying up into my throat. There was a sharp crack and a clang, and I whirled around, fists up, ready to fight, ready to rip the water out of whoever was attacking us.

            There was an iron grappling hook lodged into the side of our boat, hooked around the railing. Behind it, a length of chain trailed, then pulled taunt. The boat’s engine groaned and squealed, and spray began to kick up behind it. We weren’t going anywhere.

            Now I could hear laughter over the wind, and I squinted through the mist at the edge of my circle of calm.  Cain’s grandfather had thrown the hook at us. There was no way he’d done it with his bare hands, he must have some kind of grappling gun or something.

            I could hear Eli protesting behind me as I ran to the hook. I knew what he was thinking, I was thinking it too. This hook had nearly hit me, had nearly impaled me. If his grandfather shot another one at our boat it might get me this time. But I couldn’t just leave the first one hooked around our railing. I couldn’t let him reel us in like a fish. I had more pride than that.

            Cursing loudly over the wind, I wrapped my fingers around the hook, trying to pry it off the railing. There wasn’t enough slack though, the chain was being pulled on too hard. Eli was still yelling behind me, and I tried to ignore him. I gripped the railing and squinted through the waves. The other boat was approaching. The closer they got, the more slack the chain would get. I should be able to unhook the grapple as soon as they got close enough.

            The sound of the engine changed, their boat was reversing. They were going to pull as all the way back to the island and there was nothing I could do about it.

            “No!” I shrieked over the wind, pounding my fists on the metal railing, bruising my knuckles. Eli must have stepped away from the wheel then, because he stomped across the deck and grabbed my arms, pulling me away from the railing. He had to practically press his mouth against my ear so that I could hear him.

            “Stop it! You’re going to go over the railing.”

            I hadn’t realized I’d let my grip on the water go. There was no more calm around our boat now, it was pitching and rocking wildly in the waves and I’d barely noticed.

            “We’re going to figure out way out of this, but I need you to stay calm,” Eli said.

With his arms hooked around my waist, and his face pressed into my hair, we must have looked oddly intimate in that moment. My eyes were still fastened to the other boat up ahead. I could still see Cain crouched over the wheel.

I nodded, hoping that Eli could feel the gestured. He must have, because he released my waist and stepped back. My mind was racing. I could cause the water to grow even rougher, I felt fairly certain I could. But our boats were now hooked together. There was a good chance that whatever happened to their boat would also happen to ours. I had a feeling I would be fine if I was dumped into the water, even in this storm. But Eli, somehow I doubted he was a strong swimmer. At least, not strong enough in this storm. If I could figure out a way to stop their boat, even for a moment, it would cause the chain to go slack and I could unhook the grapple and throw it into the water. There had to be a way.

Maybe I could make a single wave hit their boat, and knock the driver over. That might work. It was better than sitting here and waiting to be towed all the way back to the lab.

I was turning to tell Eli this when I felt the chain go slack. I was still holding on to the top of the grappling hook on the railing, and it began to slide back and forth under my fingers, scraping along the metal. With a cry of triumph I hooked my fingers under the hook, grunting, using all my strength to yank it off.

The hook tumbled down into the waves, but my cry of triumph was cut off when Eli grabbed my arm tightly. He was staring at the other boat, eyes wide.

The boat that had been towing us had stopped in the middle of the ocean. There was a wide area of water around it which was now dead calm. It was like my little clear patch, except way larger. The calm patch was spreading fast, and in seconds, the choppy water around our boat died away, turning into gentle waves.

In the other boat it was chaos. I could see Cain was leaning over, working on something near the wheel, shoulders hunched as his grandfather towered over him, yelling at the top of his voice. The other man, the one who had been carrying the rifle, was now standing up in the boat staring out at the calm patch. He looked frozen.

It took Cain’s grandfather a few more seconds to see the calm patch, apparently all that he’d noticed was that his boat had stopped. When he finally looked up he fell silent, and even from this distance I could see his face turn pale. He turned to our ship and looked at me.

Eli was looking at me too, his eyes wide. “Are you...?”
            I shook my head, fear rising up in my chest. “I’m not doing this.”

“Then what…”

“I have no idea.”