Chapter 58

chapter 58

ELLE

Hargrave's men had been so interested in what Cepharius would return with that they didn't even realize Donna was missing—they must have assumed she was taking the world's longest shower.

Whereas I found myself goosestepped down the hall, with a soldier's arm tucked under my chin, and his gun with its frangible bullets shoving into my kidney.

Hargrave set us up at the back of the dock room, me by his side, with an array of his people standing in front of us in a line.

"Tell your kraken not to try anything," Hargrave told me, as I made a face at him.

"He can see all this," I snapped, before I was jerked up onto my toes. "Ceph?" I thought out for him.

"I am here, my pearl. Tell me how to proceed."

I took a look at all the soldiers with their guns out. "Don't come too close." Then I spoke again. "He's ready. He has—" And I paused, to find out what Cepharius was even going to trade with. "A piece of the ship," I said, hoping that it would take the soldiers a bit to find out Ceph was carrying an empty box .

"Have him throw it in."

Where was Donna?

Not in a lifeboat ascending to the surface, I hoped.

Ceph hurled the hexagonal box through the water's square, where the men made a show of carefully retracting it while staying out of his tentacle range.

"Tell us how it works," Hargrave demanded.

I thought of a lie quickly. "It's a power crystal. It contains part of the ship's energy."

And as if to refute me, Donna came into the room, to throw something the size of a backpack like a discus into the water. "It's the spare battery!" she shouted as a soldier hip-checked her and sent her sprawling.

Hargrave did not miss a beat—he whipped his gun out like it was a part of him and shot it.

Prior to that, I had no idea how incredibly explosive lithium-ion batteries could be.

The thing instantly turned into a fireball.

I screamed—but at least I was behind the front line of soldiers, who caught the worst of the sudden burst of flames with their bodies as we were all rocked back by the concussive blast. I could smell the scent of synthetic materials burning, and the soldier holding me let go, right before falling and taking me to the ground with him. There was a piece of battery casing sticking out of his eye.