Chapter 63 Lame Excuses
1045words
This one was twice the previous one's size and had all the new equipment set out on the deck.
"We should be back by tomorrow evening," she grunted, struggling to untangle a cluster of nets by her feet. "Don't worry. I've already asked Adriane to keep an eye on you. She's inviting you over for dinner. She said Ember could stay with you until we come back so that you won't be alone."
"Okay." My eye involuntarily flicked toward the shadow darting in behind the boat. It was my cue to step back.
"This should be everything." Lachlan appeared, dumping another cluster of nets beside Mom's feet.
My brows furrowed. "What are you planning to do with those?"
"Catch something big," Mom winked.
Harris stepped up beside me, carrying a broad gun on each shoulder. They were long in shape and had a steel arrow peeking out from the barrel. "We got these in case things get too heated out there."
"What are they for?" I asked, thinking there was no way those guns would be able to defend them against a Kraken. Or worse, merfolk.
"A little something you shouldn't fret over," Harris mused. He placed the guns onto a crate beside the cruiser. "We likely won't need them."
Yeah, I doubt that.
The cruiser groaned. Mom, Lachlan, and Harris turned to glance up at the boat.
"It's not supposed to do that," Lachlan pulled a face. "What the—"
Before he could finish his sentence, the boat spontaneously tipped over to its side, and every piece of equipment slid into the sea before it tipped back upward. Water splashed over the deck, seeping into my flat pumps.
I closed my eyes with a dismissal frown on my face. They couldn't have done an even worse job to make it obvious there was some kind of mysterious force behind it.
"Nature does not roll like that," I murmured under my breath, as Mom's distressed cries carried around us.
"No. No. No!" She clutched her head inside her hands.
Lachlan yanked on goggles and snagged up his diving gear. "Harris, grab that rope and toss it in after me."
He vanished underwater before Harris had a chance to react.
Mom sunk to her knees and stared in disbelief at the boat. It didn't last long. Her eyes widened as if she had realized something. She leaped up onto her feet and rushed toward the ladder of the cruiser. "I know you're in there. You don't want us to find you!"
"Mom!" I bolted after her.
"I'm not stupid. I know you're trying to stop us," Mom called out as she climbed onto the deck of the boat. "I just want to talk to you!"
I groaned, climbing up after her. "Mom, it must have been…" Been a what? I had no idea what to say to her.
I swear Hector and Kayn were messing with her on purpose at this point. Of all the creative ways they could have used to get rid of the equipment, they had to stage one hell of a scene.
If I've learned anything—because they were magical beings, it didn't mean they were smart.
"Mom, I there's nothing here."
Mom stepped out of the cabin. "They're gone. But I know it was them."
The crazed look on Mom's face made me nervous.
She blew out an unsteady breath, rubbing her face with her palms. "I can't believe this happened."
Mom, Lachlan, and Harris searched the entire night for the lost equipment, only to return early in the morning, defeated. They managed to salvage a few things, but not near half of what they had lost.
I felt horrible for them, especially Mom, but I knew what we did was the right thing. I was not going to lose her to the ocean.
Or to anything, for that matter. Not if I could help it.
Shortly after breakfast with the Mom and the crew, I dashed over next door.
"What the hell were you thinking?" was the first thing firing out of my mouth.
Hector was on the porch again with the dove on his lap. He gave me a look as if he had no idea what I was talking about. "Thinking? Of what, exactly?"
"The boat?" I exclaimed. "You thought it would look normal for a boat to tip over spontaneously like that? And then, defying all the laws of physics, again, by tipping it back upward?"
Hector seemed bored. "That wasn't easy, you know."
"Are you serious?" I scowled. "You do realize my mom's going to have a field day with that?"
"She can try." He stroked the dove's back. "She won't be able to do much with all that fancy equipment."
My shoulders dropped, and I sighed. "She's not going to stop, you know. If anything, that boat trick you threw back there is going to make her even more persistent."
Hector leaned back in his chair. "Why is your mother so hell-bent on finding our kind?"
"It's been a life passion of hers." I explained to Hector about Mom's encounter with the Mothman when she was a kid.
"I don't think she's telling you everything. This roots much deeper."
"Why do you think that?" I asked.
"The other day I got her to do a Bigfoot round, she seemed...absent. Her conversations kept going back to the ocean. To my people."
"Maybe it's because she's found more evidence of your people than any other cryptid?" I supplied.
"No," Hector objected. "I don't know how much Kayn had told you, but I'm quite in tune with emotions."
"He mentioned something like that."
"I can feel this stems deeper." He stood up, placing the dove back into the basket by the foot of the chair. "Your mother is hiding more than she's leading on."
"Like what?"
"Only she can tell you that," he said. "If I were you, I'd keep a close eye on her. She's willing to die for what she's looking for."
A cold, unsettling feeling churned inside the pit of my stomach.
"We can't let that happen."
