Shay
“Cut us loose,” she ordered, and Justin leapt to obey, ripping the ropes apart instead of taking the time to untie them. In a second they were free and she fired up the quad-linked engines.
The noise was loud, but the power that thrummed through the cockpit where she sat brought a grin to her face. It had been too damn long since she went fast.
“Sit down. Here we go!” she crowed and gunned the engine.
Water spewed out in a fifty-foot-long tail behind them as the rear of the boat dipped into the water, the bow rising high above them. Seconds later they were whipping across the harbor in pursuit of the other speedboat.
Shay didn’t have much training with speedboats, but her pursuit of going fast had taken her onto the water several times before. The huge engines on the back had to be putting out four hundred or more horsepower a piece, judging by how fast the forty-foot-long craft sped ahead. It was a monster, and she howled in delight as the wind whipped her burgundy hair free of its pony tail, flicking it out behind her sharply.
“You’re crazy!” Justin shouted from his seat.
She turned to look at him and laughed. He was hunched over in his seat, bracing his arms against the body of the boat as it thudded across the small waves in the harbor, his knuckles white from gripping tightly.
The exhilaration was the only thing keeping her going just then, and she knew it. That blow from Cronin had hurt, and all she had wanted to do before the engines sprang to life was lie down and go to sleep. Now though, she was back in her element, and she used her skills ruthlessly to close the gap between them and Cronin’s craft.
It was obvious he wasn’t as comfortable at these speeds as she was. His boat was going slower than hers, and he wasn’t able to get it skipping across the tops of the waves the way she was.
“Get ready!” she yelled as they began to pull alongside him.
“Ready for what?” Justin yelped back.
“Well, one of us has to go over there and kill that sonofabitch,” she said over the wind. “And that’s not my specialty. I got you here. Now get over there and kick his damn ass!” she ordered.
Justin gave her a strange look, his head tilted slightly to the side.
“I think I’m in love with you,” he shouted, standing unsteadily as the nose of their boat caught the rear of Cronin’s.
Shay’s jaw dropped, and she almost fell behind Cronin as he pushed his throttle down some more after noticing how quickly they were gaining.
Her eyes narrowed at the challenge and she pushed them closer and closer.
“I love you too,” she said, relief blossoming inside of her at finally being able to speak the words, to sum up everything that she felt between them into one sentence. It may have been too soon for many, but for Shay, it felt like she should have said it days ago.
Justin grinned, making her heart do a double-beat, and then he crawled over the glass and onto the bow of the boat. Unlike smaller boats, the top of this one was covered, providing him with no easy way to get up there. But Shay knew what she was doing, feathering the throttle up and down slightly as they bounced along, keeping it as steady as possible between waves until the nose of her boat was halfway up alongside Cronin’s.
She watched as Justin blew her a kiss and then launched himself across the distance. The other man was sharp though, and Shay gasped as he killed the throttle almost instantly in response. Instead of Justin landing in the cockpit with him, he hit the windshield glass and tumbled along the front of the boat, almost ending up in the water before he found a grip and slowed his slide.
Cronin grinned and then gunned the boat.
Justin flew down the length of it toward the rear this time, still unbalanced.
That was Cronin’s first mistake, however. Justin grabbed him as he went by, stopping his motion. The pair went down, fighting as the boat continued to surge through the harbor. Shay watched—having kept pace as best she could—as the boat surged forward without a pilot, currently aimed at the opposite shore.
Hurry up, Justin. Finish him and stop the boat, or get clear!
The two battled each other, opening cuts with practically every blow. Her heart raced as she watched them go at it. Gray was obviously some sort of superhuman as well. She wondered if he was a shifter like Justin, or just one of the ones who had taken the serum that he had told her about.
Justin landed a solid blow, spinning Cronin around, though he took a vicious shot to the ribs in return.
Shay shouted in terror as Cronin landed on the controls. The boat spun away from her far too quickly.
The hard spin at such a high speed caused the boat to flutter. Then abruptly it upended itself, flinging both men free as massive propellers emerged and spewed a haze of water everywhere as they spun freely, unencumbered by the denser water.
She watched as the pair went skidding over the water before settling into it. Although she was in a fast-moving boat, Cronin was now between her and Justin. Cronin was swimming for him quickly, intent on finishing the dazed shifter off.
Shay growled. “Oh no, you don’t,” she raged and slammed the throttle down.
Cronin looked over his shoulder as she approached. He must have known that she would reach Justin first, because he broke off and began to head for shore.
Shay spun the wheel and followed him, the nose of her boat pointed right at him. There was just enough time for her to see the shocked realization cross his face, and then she ran him over. The boat thudded as he was run under the hull, and she whirled in time to see the wake turn dark red as blood discolored it.
“That’ll teach you to hit a woman,” she spat and hauled back on the throttle, easing the boat into a slow turn that put her on a course to Justin, who was looking at her wide-eyed.
“Little faster please,” he said, looking warily at the water around him as she putted over to him.
“Why?” she asked as she came alongside and he hauled himself in, rocking the boat as he went.
He hesitated.
“Are you afraid of water?” she asked with a frown, killing the throttle entirely. The boat slid to a halt, rocking gently with the waves.
“No,” he replied quickly. Too quickly. “Just sharks,” he added in a smaller voice.
Shay laughed loudly and threw herself into his arms. Behind them, the other boat slid beneath the waves, the propellers still spinning, sending it speeding into the depths in some sort of odd Viking funeral.
Before she realized it, she was crying, huge sobs racking her body as Justin held her tight.
“Hey, it’s okay,” he said, his fingers caressing her cheek softly as he kissed the top of her head. “It’s over now. It’s okay.”
She shook her head. “No, it’s not. J is still out there.”
She felt him tense under her. “How do you know J?”
“He was in the yacht that left at the start of the fight,” she said, resting her head on Justin’s chest.
“Damn,” the big shifter whispered, but he didn’t get up. Instead, he just held her tight.
“Justin,” she said, relishing the way his name rolled off her tongue.
“Yes?” he answered, his voice happy but tired.
“He’s not human.”
“Who isn’t?”
“J,” she replied “He’s something unlike you, or the Agents, even Cronin, the man you just killed. He’s... more powerful. There’s something about him, it’s scary. More so than anything I’ve seen yet.”
She could feel him frown.
“Justin?” she said again.
“Yes my love?”
“I think I’m going to pass out now,” she wearily as the last of the adrenaline fled from her body.
A second later, she followed through with her last comment as blackness washed over her.