All I could do was hold onto the side of the boat, squinting over the metal railing at the water behind us. It was hard to see, since I was being jostled violently each time the boat went over a patch of rough waves, and the boat threw spray up behind it. But I could make out a dark blob skimming over the water way behind us. Our boat was faster, wasn’t it? It had to be.

Overhead, the sky was a solid mass of dark grey. Storm clouds had collected, unnoticed, during the chase. I watched the sky, gut churning. There was a flash from deep within the clouds, electricity brewing. A storm really was going to hit us in the next few minutes.

“You have to be kidding me,” I muttered, and Eli glanced back at me from his position at the wheel, as if he had somehow heard me, even over the noise of the engine and the waves beating against the hull of our boat.

He gave me a half smile, a pained grimace, and I could tell he was thinking the same thing. We were on the run from bad guys, skimming over the ocean in a tin can, and now the sky gods were about to rip the clouds open and hurl thunder and lightening down on us.

Well, perhaps he wasn’t thinking that exactly. But something along those lines.

We were screwed.

Even though I knew Fiske wouldn’t do well on the open sea, I felt a pang of regret start to tighten my chest. He would hate this, but I wished he was here.

We’re going back for him. We’re just going to get help. I had to keep repeating it in my head in order to stave off the waves of guilt that began rolling in.

A low grumble sounded over the noisy engine, making me jerk my head up to look at the sky again. The wind was whipping my hair against my face and neck even harder. The storm was almost on us now.

My fingers were curled around the metal railing so tightly that they were turning numb. When I glanced back at Eli, it was to find him staring past me, a look of panic on his face. I whipped around, angrily tugging my hair out of my face when it obscured my vision.

The dark blob was getting closer. Close enough that I could make it out properly.  I could tell it was a boat now, and that there was a dark, miserable figure hunched over the wheel at the prow. Was that Cain? It was impossible to tell from here.

They were gaining on us. They were too close. I had wondered if ours was the faster boat, and here was my answer. They were going to catch us.

Eli put his head down against the wind, and I could hear his mumbled curses drifting back to me. He pressed down on the lever beside him, jamming down on the throttle. The engine whined, but we didn’t go much faster.

The rumble of thunder was louder the next time it happened, enough to make us both jump. Then a jagged streak of lightening lit up the sky. For a second it painted the scene as brightly as daylight, and I could see the people in the boat behind us. Cain at the wheel, shoulders hunched, expression blank. His grandfather behind him, bracing himself against the ship’s railing. A third man I didn’t recognize was huddled in the back, a long dark shape resting against his shoulder. A rifle.

Then it was dark again, and I was back looking at them through the gloom and the fog of the ocean’s spray. My heart was slamming frantically against my ribs.

The waves were growing gradually rougher, tossing the boat more violently, tossing me more violently. At one point I tipped forward, nearly pitching over the railing when we hit a particularly rough patch, and a wave crashed over the side of the boat, soaking me completely. The weird thing was I could feel it coming. I knew where the water was, I realized. I knew what it was doing. What it was about to do.

Maybe I could stop it, if I knew how.

Now the second speed boat was close enough that I could make out the three figures inside, even though  the storm had picked up so much that I had to squint through a sheet of spray. When I glanced back, I saw Eli clinging to the wheel, no longer really attempting to steer. His face was sheet white, and he was gripping the wheel so hard his entire body was stiff.

Anger made me sit up straight. His own grandfather was responsible for this. Not for the storm, of course. But for making us come out here in the middle of the ocean like this. For putting his grandsons in the position of having to make terrible choices between family and mortality. For turning Cain into a monster.

I needed to do something. I couldn’t just sit here, clinging to the railing, hoping the storm wouldn’t dump us out of the boat before they caught up with us.

I should have been more cautious about it, I was too angry. I reached out the way I had for people, feeling for the water inside them. But this time it was different. The water wasn’t contained, it was vast and wild and….it was too much for me.

When I felt it I reeled in shock, the sheer expanse, the depth of it. It made my head spin, made me slump against the railing. For a second or two I could feel the ocean. I could feel how far down it went. I could feel the tides flow east and south. I could feel the storm stirring the surface, terribly strong, but still barely noticeable to the ancient depths. I could feel the creatures that moved through it, cutting through the body of the water, riding the currents and resting in the dimness at the bottom. There were millions of tiny life forces below the surface, and more than a few large ones, a few creatures that were hundreds of feet long.

Desperately I pulled my senses back, containing myself to several feet around the boat, shoulders slumping in relief. I needed time to recover from that, from that feeling of immense power, but I didn’t have time. The roar of the engine from behind us was impossibly loud now, they were almost on top of us. Gritting my teeth, I reached out my hands, grasping at the air, trying to figure out how to do what I wanted to do. It had been easy when I’d felt the water inside people, I had just reached in and somehow pulled. But I didn’t want to do that now. What I wanted was more subtle than that. It would take more talent, and it wasn’t like I’d been trained to do this.

There was no time for self doubt though. Taking a deep breath in through my nose I shut my eyes and concentrated on calm. Pressing my palms down towards the water seemed to help me focus the need in my mind. I needed the water to settle under my influence, I needed it to be calm and still in the circle around the boat.

            Directly ahead of me, Eli gave a shuddering gasp of surprise. My eyes flew open.

            The sea around us, within a five foot radius around the boat in all directions, was calm as glass. The waves were still crashing all around us, but when they reached the circle of calm around our boat they seemed to fade away into nothing.

            The boat behind us was still struggling through the waves, being buffeted on all sides. We would lose them now, I knew. There was no way they could go faster than us now, even if their engine was more powerful. The smile spreading across my face was a little bit wicked. What they must be thinking right now. It was hard to see Cain’s face, but I knew it was him at the wheel, and I could see the figure behind him, his grandfather, waving his arms around. I could even hear faint cries across the wind and the crashing waves. Safe to say that Cain’s grandfather was very angry.

            I turned back to Eli, about to say something smug, about to gloat, when Eli threw up his hands and shouted, “Vee, get down!”

            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.”