The Ocean’s City
Chapter 59

Screams roared in all directions. A chill sank into my bones, causing goose bumps to rise. I opened my eyes, lungs still burning from the smoke. The ceiling had water pouring from it like storm clouds inside the house. The water felt like it came from the Arctic. Sounds of water gushed like the open sea. An inch’s worth of water sloshed back and forth on the floor like on a boat. The house shook like it was in a dangerous storm.

I crawled to my hands and knees to see that I had successfully kicked the door down. The water doused the flames, and the ceiling completely deteriorated, exposing the office to the heavy rain. There were shouts.

“Don’t let them get to the house!” boom boom boom.

My heart fluttered, both with excitement and with fear. My stunt worked. Dalton had found me. I ran to the nearest window and peered outside, but I couldn’t make sense of anything. Most of the lanterns were blown out, or their glow had dimmed. The storm raged, making it difficult to see anything from below.

There was a large monstrous roar, and something moved through the darkness. Its size looked large enough to be a blue whale, but it was too dark to know for sure. Men cried in a fearful battle scream as more shots of gunfire were unloaded.

Then, there were the delicate screams of ladies from below. I turned on my heel, racing to be on the first floor to make sense of the action myself. The house shook so severely that it flung me to the wall, and I had to hold on for support, certain that the house would come crashing down. Then I pushed my rubbery legs, stiffened by the cold, down the stairs just in time to hear more roars of the men outside.

The girls huddled in the corner, holding on to one another. They looked at me with fear-stricken eyes. One lady pointed a long red fingernail at me, her green dress wholly soaked from the water dripping from the ceiling like a sinking boat. Mascara smeared under her eyes like she was crying black sludge.

“You!” she screamed, and all the girls prepped their ears to listen. “You brought this demon here. It has come for you.” The group of girls surrounding the lady all squeaked like little mice.

“If we give her to it, will it spare our lives?” a girl in a peach dress squealed like a squirrel with its tail cut off, stumbling to catch her footing as the house rocked again.

“There’s only one way to replace out,” the lady in the green dress proclaimed as she picked up the ends of her dress and stalked towards me. About fifty girls followed her lead with frazzled looks in their eyes and their minds, desperate for a solution to this unexplainable nightmare.

I frantically looked at the girls rushing toward me. I could run outside, but that’s where they wanted me to go, and I now didn’t trust that it was Dalton coming to save me. What if the thing he was so afraid of had come for me? I turned on my heel to run back up the stairs.

“Get her!” One yelled, and multiple girls flung at me, grabbing at anything they could as I sprinted towards the stairs. Fingernails scratched at my skin as one already fallen girl reached for my ankle, causing me to fall down, hitting my chin on a corner of the stairs.

“No!” I screamed, and the girls gained more desperate courage from the sounds of my fear. It was like if I was more scared of the monster than them, it would save them. More girls piled on top to grab at me. I fought their holds. As their hands slipped from my skin, they determinedly grabbed hold of me again, claw marks branding me, some even breaking the skin. They no doubtably felt chunks of my skin wedged underneath their manicured nails.

The house shook again, more fiercely than the time before. A roar overpowered the sounds of the girls gruesomely calling for a sacrifice and silencing them. There was a bang at the door, and they dropped their grasps. Another bang, and they ran back to their corner. A third bang, and the door fell as lightning struck, making everything brighter except the silhouette of the man standing at the door frame. His broad shoulders heaved up and down, and he entered the room. Everything became quiet except for the creak of the floorboards. No more soldiers were yelling, no more gunshots, nor that frightening roar. The house stood still, but my heart fluttered.

The person I wanted to be as far away from me as possible, all while being right next to me, had finally come. He found me. Again. Just like how he found me on the first day of the club, how he found me after Dannie died and I was kidnapped, and again now. I lay there looking up at him, wishing he was a better person; how cursed I was to be with someone so cold-hearted. I understood now there was no escaping him. My breath hitched in my chest as Dalton quickly studied the room, and his venomous eyes landed on me. He had caught his target.