Page 119 of Haunting the Deep

The floor beneath us tilts more and we all stumble.

“We need to get to higher—” An arm wraps around my waist and cold metal presses against my neck.Knife!

“Time to go,” Matt says in my ear.

No!

Mollie turns to me, fear seizing her expression. Matt pulls me backward and away from them.

“What’ve I done?” Denis says, and walks toward us. “Miss!”

“Stay where you are, Denis,” Matt warns. “You already did what you needed to do. You brought her up here.”

“No…I…Ya took Mollie from me!” Denis’s eyes are wild. “Ya made me scare this girl.” He points at me. “I didn’t know what I was doin’, who I was!”

Mollie inches her way over to the oar.

Matt steadily backs us away from them and toward the railing. I open my mouth to respond, but the knife pushes into my skin and I shut it again.

Mollie wraps her hands around the oar. Alexander I runs up the deck toward us.

“Mollie, take one more step and I will slit her throat,” Matt warns.

Alexander I grabs Mollie, throwing her to the ground. Denis hits him. The floor tilts again and we slide. Matt grabs the railing, pressing my stomach into it and securing his hands on either side of me. The knife is still in his hand and precariously close to my side. The black water lies quiet and unaffected fifty feet below.

“Kill her!” Alexander I yells.

Mollie screams and Denis loses his balance. She, Denis, and Alexander I slide, grabbing at the slippery deck to no avail.

“Mollie!”No no no!I push against Matt, fighting him to release me. I grab on to the railing, turning my body around so that I can see him. “Stop this! The ship is going down! You need to let them go! Let them pass on!”

“And who made it sink?” he says accusingly.

People below us scream as they slide off the ship into the water. The deck slants even more now, and I clutch the railing. “Stop hurting them!”

“Is that what you want, Samantha?”

“Yes! That’s what I want.” My voice is heavy and angry.

“You want me to die?”

His words catch me off guard. “No. I want you to break the spell.”

He shakes his head. “I can’t let all these spirits go. My grandfathers spent decades collecting them, my father did, I did.” His hand tightens around the knife and his voice is resolute.

I scan the deck near my feet for anything I can use to get away from him. There’s nothing except slanted ship floor. My heart beats fast in my freezing body.

“So you’re going to let these souls fall into this icy pitch-black water all over again? Can’t you see how terrified they all are? They don’t know they’re dead—they think this is all really happening. And how long will you keep them there while you repair your spell? Months? Years? You and your family are so concerned with your own selfish needs that you took away their right to remember, to choose, to pass on. This ship isn’t for these spirits, it’s for a handful of egomaniacal warlocks!”

The deck tilts more drastically below our feet. Any minute now this ship is going to lift in the air.

Matt’s eyes harden.

I try to move away from him, but there is nowhere to go.

The deck shifts again. Matt slides against me, shoving my back into the railing. The water is moving steadily up the deck, reaching for us. I look down at the panicked people, clinging to anything they can. There’s nothing on the floor but some rope where the lifeboats were tied. My frozen hands strain to hold on to the railing.

He stares at me intently. My eyes flit to the rope and the water below. He lifts the knife.