pretend to be my friend? Why did you make up Queenie?”
“It was a joke at first. I warned you about playing those online games, and I had planned to gain your trust and hack your computer just to show you how easy it is. But”—she shrugged, tightening the knot in the jacket around her waist—“I didn’t expect to enjoy being your friend.” Her gaze locked on Heather’s. “It’s been a long time since you and I were on the same team.”
A familiar pang tugged at Heather’s heart. She loved Ashley. She always had. For years she’d wanted nothing more than her sister’s friendship.
This wasn’t it. This was manipulation.
Heather shook her head slowly, forcing rational thought to rein in her emotions. “I’ve been defending you for weeks. Even when others told me what you’d done, I believed in you. I’m through, Ash. You’ve been hurting people I care about, and you brought me out here to dump me in the ocean. We haven’t been on the ‘same team’ since we were kids.” Her eyes blurred with tears, but her voice was steady. “I was stupid to believe my sister was still inside you. She died the day you sacrificed our father to Davy Jones.”
Ashley stiffened. “Believe whatever you want. I don’t regret being Queenie.”
“If that were true, I wouldn’t be sitting in this boat, burning in the sun, with my arms taped behind my back.” Heather kept wringing her hands; her sweat was weakening the adhesive, but not fast enough. “Queenie was my only friend.”
Ashley rolled her eyes. “That’s bullshit. I was there, remember? You told me about all the Sea Dog crew, and every day that passed you were online less and less. You took our friendship for granted the second Drake came into your life. You abandoned Queenie for these people you just met.” Ashley stood up and placed her hands on her hips. “It doesn’t matter anymore. Time for you to take the figurehead back to the Flying Dutchman.”
Heather frowned, scanning the boat. Where was it? Other than the two of them and Ashley’s tote, there was nothing else in the boat. And a ship’s figurehead was huge. She focused on her sister again. “There’s nothing here, Ash.”
Ashley’s lips curved into a tight smile, and darkness radiated from her stare. “You’re wrong.” Her eyes rolled back in her head, the whites glowing red as she opened her mouth. All the life drained from her skin, taking her coloring with it. Her features hardened until she resembled an ivory statue more than a woman.
Her jaw dropped, her lips parting to make a perfect O shape, and the sound that assaulted Heather’s ears was far from human. A banshee wail. Heather shrieked as well, unable to cover her ears from the assault. The hands of doomed souls reached up through the surface of the Atlantic, swiping the air, reaching blindly for her.
Ghosts dragged themselves into the tiny boat, the cacophony of voices all at once deafening Heather’s senses, overwhelming her. In spite of the sun, her burning skin prickled with goose bumps as the dead gripped her arms, holding her steady while her sister’s aura glowed a deep crimson. The glow spread, reaching out from Ashley’s body.
Ashley and the figurehead were one. Davy Jones had bonded them.
Heather gasped when their father climbed aboard the boat, his murky eyes lined in sorrow. “I’ve missed you. Breathe in the power of the Dutchman’s figurehead and we’ll be together forever.”
“Daddy?” Heather shrank back, struggling to silence the screams of thousands of lost souls. “She’s hurting me.”
He came closer. “Stop fighting. It doesn’t have to hurt. Once the figurehead possesses your body, you’ll live forever with me.”
She just wanted the shrieking to end. She closed her eyes, and music drowned out the pained screams. I remember you. Images of Drake filled her head both from this lifetime, and the previous with Lucy, and another, and another. Lifetimes. Before he was Drake, before she was Lucy, their souls always found each other. Again and again.
He’d never find her at the bottom of the ocean. Davy Jones would end their legacy.
Heather clenched her teeth and opened her eyes. “No.”
The ghost of her father took a step back. “She won’t stop.”
Something shone in the shadowy depths of his eyes that contradicted his words. Hope.
“Neither will I.” Heather didn’t know how the figurehead took hold of her sister, but she wasn’t going to let it possess her without a fight.
…
Drake pulled up at his house and jumped out