It was clear to Tabitha that she hadn’t earned Chela’s trust, and the same was true for her. It wouldn’t have surprised her to learn that none of them trusted each other, yet here and now, they had formed this chain, this rare conjunction of sorts. Chela for Alfred, Tabitha for Chela, and Carrion was hopefully somewhere behind. Alfred was a piece of their predicament – Tabitha knew it and Chela knew it. To lose him would weaken them in this unknown place and erase an entire memory that might help explain what exactly happened to them.
The end of the dock was at least 50 meters away from Tabitha, but she couldn’t make out what was being said. The waves barked at the edges of the dock like a pack of dogs, salivating and dousing the boards with their foam. Alfred was struggling against the beast’s body, pounding at the single arm wrapped across his chest, a helpless hostage. His meager attempts to break free were quite in vain.
By Chela’s hand gestures, Tabitha could see she was pleading with the creature, but she was also steadily moving closer to the pair. She couldn’t claim to know Chela, but already Tabitha understood who she was – someone with a rope’s length of tenacity and a tightly wound, deceptive knot. Most people like this would find themselves strung up by their own ambition, but Chela wielded her noose. She never wore it around her own neck – she was looking for someone else who might. And when she found that person, nothing would stop her from climbing to the cosmos itself.