Prologue: A Storm Is Coming
| Chapter content warnings: mentions of a past abusive relationship, mentions of tubal ligation/getting tubes tied, life-and-death situation, thoughts about dying (not suicidal or murderous), near-drowning
| Word count: 3,214
Claudia Brown wiped her hands on her apron and picked up the serving tray. There were several plates on it, all artfully topped with various breakfast foods she'd made. Claudia loved cooking, and people loved the results. Culinary school had been expensive, but worth it for the certificate framed in her kitchen.
Claudia carried the tray out carefully, bringing it to the wraparound porch on the downstairs level where most guests ate their breakfasts, drawn in by the ocean view. Currently staying there were four guests: Danny Quinn and his brother Patrick, the former of which was apparently residing by the sea for his health (Claudia didn't ask); Doctor Sarah Page, an Egyptologist and archaeologist on vacation; and Charlotte Cameron, a university friend of Emily's who had decided to get out of the city for a while.
Danny finished swallowing a handful of kelp capsules and grinned at Claudia as she appeared. "A good morning means a good day, and you make every morning great, Ms. Brown."
"Flirt with my sister, not me." Claudia replied, tone and smile equally soft as she carefully put the silver tray against her hip to begin setting down plates with her now free hand.
"And how is she on this fine morning?" Danny questioned, still grinning.
"Tea, anyone?" Came the voice of Emily Merchant, carrying a similar tray of teacups and saucers out onto the deck. A murmur of approval came from the guests.
"Well, you all know the drill." Claudia said, setting down Sarah's plate on the table beside her and tucking the now-empty tray under her arm. "Ring the bell if you need us."
The two women went back inside, about to head down to the kitchen to get the second breakfast served. Jenny Lewis was setting the inside table, humming to herself. "Morning, Claudia, Emily."
"Morning." Claudia replied. She smirked wickedly at her twin. "Danny asked after you."
Jenny rolled eyes identical to Claudia's. "I have a boyfriend."
Emily gave an unladylike snort. "Michael? Why are you still with him? His 'serenading' is off-key and it's clear he's tone-deaf. Starting to think you are as well."
Jenny replied to that with two fingers.
Claudia and Jenny were identical twins, but because the family was poor Clarence and Samantha had made the hard choice and given up sweet baby Jenny when she was born. On their eighteenth birthdays, their parents had told them the truth, and they'd sought each other out desperately, quickly growing close.
Thumping from upstairs alerted the three women that they were about to have company. Sure enough, a few moments later Connor Temple appeared, bleary-eyed and wild-haired, clothes wrinkled and askew, feet in the wrong shoes and their laces undone. Behind him was Hilary James Becker, dressed in all black and looking presentable like an adult. Contrary to popular belief, Connor was actually older.
Connor and Hilary, the latter of the two preferring to be called by his surname, were half-brothers and cousins of Claudia and Jenny. Maureen Brown was Clarence's sister, and she'd married Andre Temple shortly after university. He died in a car accident two months after Connor was born, and she'd remarried Martin Becker and given birth to Hilary a year or so later. They were Browns by blood through their mother, and that had been all that mattered to the Browns.
"Sit down, your shoes are on wrong again." Becker told his big brother, who promptly dropped into an ornamental chair. Becker sighed and crouched in front of him, removing the shoes to put onto the correct feet. It was a familiar sight- Becker taking on the role of older brother for his walking-disaster elder.
Emily produced a planner and scanned over Jenny's scrawled notes for the day. "So, today Claudia's taking Connor, Danny, and Patrick on the yacht for a cruise and a picnic lunch at Beacon Cove; I volunteered to drive Charlotte to the H&M in Exeter; and Jenny's getting the office tidied so Sarah can have a Skype meeting."
Claudia nodded to herself, taking Emily's empty tray and stacking it onto her own. "Alright. Becker, Connor, if you'll make sure the yacht's all set and the shuttle doesn't need petrol, that would be greatly appreciated; and Jenny and Emily, you know the drill- housekeeping while the guests eat. I'll get everyone's lunch ready."
The next two hours passed in a flurry of activity. As Claudia had assigned the tasks, Jenny and Emily changed the guests' bedding and towels and cleaned their rooms, Connor and Becker made sure that the yacht was ready to go and that the inn's shuttle, a silver Toyota Hilux, had a full tank of petrol. Claudia prepared three lunches- one for the staff, one for the guests, and one for the picnickers on the yacht.
In the kitchen, Claudia was putting the finishing touches on the large cooler of lunch food, drinks, and dessert. The other lunches were on the other end of the large island counter.
Connor poked his head into the kitchen. "When's lunch gonna be ready?" He asked. "For us, I mean."
"You're eating with the Quinns and me at Beacon Cove, remember?" Claudia reminded him. "But grab one of those trays and bring it into the dining room for me. Jenny and Becker and Emily haven't eaten yet."
Connor dutifully took the tray, and Claudia closed the cooler before picking up the other tray and following her cousin. They set the trays on the table and set five places, finishing just as Emily and Jenny entered the room. They all sat down to eat, knowing Becker would turn up soon enough.
"Got the mail." Becker announced, coming inside. He turned to the hall table and began sorting into piles. "Rubbish, rubbish, paper, bill, rubbish, guest, rubbish, bill, bill, guest, Jenny, me, rubbish, bill, Emily." He made to chuck the 'rubbish' in the bin, but Jenny quickly stepped in and confiscated the newspaper, two catalogs, and her envelope.
He gave the bills to Claudia and the manila envelope to Emily, slipping his rolled-up imported gun magazine into one of his boots by the door and heading out to bring the guests' mail to them.
Emily carefully opened her envelope and scanned the pages with excitedly wide eyes. "Yes! Brilliant, just brilliant, yes!"
"What is it?" Claudia leaned in, Connor looking over from the newspaper questioningly.
Emily turned the papers so Claudia could see. "He signed them!"
Emily had also been born a Brown, the daughter of Clarence Brown's brother Felix. Sadly, Felix and his wife Annabelle had a rather loveless and cold marriage, poisoning Emily's view of what married life was. She had met Lord Henry Merchant, Member of Parliament, on a tour of Parliament in barely-afforded university, and she'd nobly agreed to marry him to give him the wife he desired for political reasons to support her family.
Then the abuse had started.
It had started with little things- her conduct in public not perfectly fitting the mold of what he felt was needed and proper, then grew to taint every waking (and sometimes sleeping) moment of her existence. Her refusal to bring a child into that life had made things worse, and after a particularly bad incident, she'd run away and done two very permanent things: the first, gone to the police and told them everything, reporting his abuse and filing for divorce; the second, getting her tubes tied. She couldn't take the chance he'd find a legal loophole to drag her home, but if he did, at least she wouldn't get pregnant in that toxic environment.
But it had gone splendidly.
The entire Brown family had turned out to support her in court, and Sir Henry had gone to prison. The divorce had been fought tooth and claw, but her lawyer had evidently convinced Henry to comply. Emily was rich thanks to suing Henry, securing her entirely family, and had been responsible for Claudia and Jenny being able to open their dream hotel. 'We Browns stick together' she'd quoted their great-grandmother Alice, and she and Connor and Becker had all come to help.
Claudia's face broke into a relieved smile and reached across the table to put her hand over Emily's. Jenny, sitting next to the divorcee, embraced her tightly, and Connor whooped and threw his newspaper into the air.
Becker poked his head around the corner. "What's with all the hullaballoo?"
"Henry signed the divorce papers!" Claudia announced, smiling widely.
Becker raised his eyebrows, a pleased smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Finally. If he wasn't in prison, I'd've gone to his house and thrashed him until he agreed to sign."
Emily laughed, eyes shining with the happiest of tears. "If you had, I would've bailed you out of jail."
Everyone chuckled at that, and they all knew darn well that both Becker and Emily- despite their joking tones- had been as serious as a heart attack.
The Browns were not to be messed with.
The group finished their tea, in joyous spirits thanks to Emily's news. Claudia and Jenny cleared their dishes and brought them to the kitchen before returning to the dining room. "Alright, we should head out on the yacht now if we're gonna have a nice cruise before we go to the beach." Claudia stated.
"I'll start the yacht." Connor volunteered. Claudia instinctively opened her mouth to kibosh that idea, but he turned his puppy eyes on her and her resolve broke. With a sigh, she nodded, and Connor cheered and danced in his seat. Claudia rolled her eyes as Becker muttered under his breath about his immature older brother needing to grow up.
"Alright, go ahead, and if one of you would remind the Quinns of the time while I get changed, that would be appreciated."
Claudia left the others and went upstairs to the room she and Jenny shared, locking the door to ensure none of her cousins burst in while she was indecent (because yes, that had happened, and she hadn't been able to make eye contact with Connor or Becker for two weeks afterward.) She put on her swimsuit- a short black swim dress, ruched with a square neck, and as modest as it was because she felt uncomfortable in anything less in front of guests- and zipped up a pair of black knee boots before slipping into her black trench coat and wrapping a raspberry-pink scarf around her neck.
She went back downstairs, a bag of beach supplies hanging off one shoulder, and fetched the lunch cooler from the kitchen before heading out to the yacht. Danny, Patrick, and Connor were already waiting with their personal effects for the trip- towels, sunscreen, and so forth, like in her bag.
She smiled brightly and set the cooler down. "Is everyone ready?"
The Quinn brothers gave their confirmations and Connor bounced excitedly on his toes. Claudia brought in the anchor and took her seat at the wheel, then steered the yacht away from the dock with a practiced ease. They spent about an hour merely cruising on the yacht before Claudia brought them to the small beach of Beacon Cove, which was thankfully empty at the moment.
After a few hours of swimming, sunbathing, and eating lunch, a thunderstorm was rolling in. The group packed up and boarded the boat to return to the hotel. Claudia returned to her place at the wheel, steering the yacht away from the beach with an eye on the incoming storm. Hopefully they'd make it back to the inn in time.
It soon became clear- to Claudia, at least- that they would not make it back in time. She did not mention this to her passengers, not wanting to worry them. Instead she pressed the yacht to its limit and took the shortest, straightest route she could.
But it wasn't enough.
The sea grew rough, its waves crashing over the deck and soaking them all to the bone, and the shrieking wind made Claudia's task of steering nearly impossible. Rain fell in harsh sheets, deafening and painful to the humans it fell upon. Still, with her teeth clenched, she battled on, fighting to get her cousin and guests to safety even if she herself could not be saved.
Unfortunately, there was only one potential shelter between the beach and the inn- a tiny, unnamed inlet about halfway between the two points. If she could get the yacht into the narrow space, perhaps they could ride out the storm below the deck.
But Claudia soon found it a struggle to keep the boat from capsizing, let alone steer it in any particular direction. It was hopeless. Only her sheer stubbornness kept her fighting as long as she did.
The sun had long since been blotted out by the dark clouds, leaving only the occasional bolt of lightning to illuminate their surroundings. Waves taller than men were stirred up, then ones taller than trees, and then taller than houses.
It was such a wave, probably ten meters high, that Claudia saw coming toward them in a lightning-flash. It was too close to avoid; in a matter of seconds it would be upon them. Claudia swore under her breath, wrenching the wheel. "Hang on!" She called, bracing herself for the incoming wave.
It crashed over them, stronger than they had anticipated. Despite being braced in her spot, Claudia was knocked out of her seat and ended up on her hands and knees on the deck, spluttering. Patrick dove to the ground to avoid being hit by the dangerously swinging boom. Skinny Connor stumbled from the force of the wave and slipped on the slick deck, but Danny- the only one who had managed to remain standing- caught and steadied him. Yet another wave rose up on the starboard side, swelling greater and greater in size as it loomed ominously taller than the yacht's highest point.
It was in that last second before it came down like a merciless hammer of judgment that Claudia Brown accepted the fact that she was going to die.
The wave fell, and as the hulking wall of water struck the yacht, it seemed to push against every surface it struck and tipped the boat to port, and even Claudia's desperate attempts to balance the yacht could not save it from capsizing.
The moment Danny hit the water, he could feel it. The itching, crawling bugs sensation under the skin of his legs. His bones aches and muscles flexed, stretching his skin. He quickly toed off his shoes, hooking his toes into his socks to remove them as well, all the while working his belt so he could undress from the waist down while staving off his body's natural processes and reactions. He managed to shed his clothes, immediately forcing himself to relax so he could let it happen.
In a blinding burst of pain of tearing skin and breaking bones and branching muscles, his legs morphed into his tail. A similar (but muted in comparison) sensation erupted on the sides of his neck as his gill flaps opened, rendering his lungs or surfacing for breath unnecessary.
He snapped his tail, like a whip, and shot through the water toward his struggling brother. He seized him from the back, wrapping one arm around his chest and pinning both arms to his trunk, and propelled them toward the surface with his tail and free hand.
They breached the choppy surface, an somewhat lethargic Patrick gulping in a breath. Danny's gills closed partially, his lungs kicking in again.-He craned and looked around- for the yacht, for Claudia, for Connor, for the dock, for anything.
"Danny?" Patrick asked, sounding tired and confused. "Danny, what's going on? I can feel something in the water."
Danny gritted his teeth. This was not how he'd wanted Patrick to find out. "Don't worry about it." A flash of lightning illuminated the world for a brief moment, but Danny's searching eyes saw what they sought- shelter. "Hold your breath, Pat; I'll get us out of here."
Pulling Patrick close to his own body, Danny swam toward the tiny inlet, hoping that it and the tiny rock island within it would provide shelter for them to ride out the storm.
Connor Temple wasn't doing well.
He was an alright swimmer; 'average' was an accurate way of putting it. But that was in a swimming pool- school or public, small and contained with a reasonable temperature and no current except the one generated by the swimmers. In the chilly ocean, with its strong currents and influential storm overhead churning it up, and with way more clothing than his swim trunks, he was fighting a losing battle. He distantly remembered hearing somewhere that he should take off his shoes, so he quickly toed them off, but didn't think to apply that course of action to the rest of his weighty clothing. Instead, he fought to reach the surface, limbs pumping and clawing and flailing gracelessly as he struggled to survive.
A dark shape passed through the water around him, a shadowy silhouette that gave him no further information or details on the subject. He momentarily stopped trying to reach the surface, curiosity piqued. The lack of movement, of course, caused him to begin sinking again, which elicited a panicked frenzy of scrambling for the surface again.
The shape, slim and long, passed by again, and Connor could've sworn there were fins at one end. But his eyes were refusing to stay open as his strength waned and he began to sink down more than he swam up.
The last thing his tired, frightened mind registered was something strong wrapping around his stomach like an iron bar and the vague sensation of moving upward.
Eighty feet away, his cousin Claudia was struggling to not sink. Salt stung her eyes, but she didn't close them, needing to see to reach the surface. She wasn't the best swimmer, her shoes were filling with water, and her clothes were waterlogged and dragging her down. She could hold her breath for about a minute, but she was quickly running out of time. She managed to wrestle out of her coat, untangle the scarf from around her neck, and pull her knees to her chest, struggling to unzip the boots as she sank. She managed to free her feet and kicked, but her legs were growing weaker and she only had a few seconds of breath left. She summoned the last of her strength and kicked with all her might, frantically clawing toward what she hoped was the surface. But the sky was dark and so was the water, and without sunlight or even daylight it was impossible to be sure where the surface was.
Cold, tired, and oxygen-deprived, Claudia's struggles waned to an end, her limbs so heavy-feeling she couldn't move them. Nature took hold and she began to sink, down toward the seabed and away from the air over the surface. Her eyes fluttered shut against her will.
A strong arm wrapped around her waist, but she was too tired to open her eyes to see who had grabbed her. She dimly felt herself be pulled against a body and the two of them moving through the water before she passed out.
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