Her Dead Husband Walked Out of the Ocean

Chapter 2: Seven Years Missing

The second figure was not a stranger.

It was a woman.

She came out of the water slowly, wearing a dark diving suit, her wet hair stuck to her face. Two more people appeared behind her, both dressed the same way.

Sienna pulled Ava behind her.

"Damon," she whispered, "what is happening?"

Damon did not look away from the woman.

"Run," he said.

Sienna's heart dropped. "What?"

"Take Ava and run."

The woman smiled as she stepped onto the sand.

"That is not very loving, Damon. After seven years away, you tell your wife to run?"

Ava looked up at her father. "Daddy?"

The word hit Damon like a wound.

He turned to Ava, and for one second, all the fear in his face broke. He dropped to his knees in the sand.

"I'm sorry," he said. "I am so sorry."

Sienna's eyes filled with tears, but anger came with them. "You were alive this whole time?"

"I had no choice."

"Everyone has a choice."

The woman laughed softly. "Not when they belong to us."

Damon stood again, moving between his family and the strangers.

Sienna noticed scars across his back. Old scars. Deep ones.

The woman looked at Sienna. "Your husband was never lost at sea. He was taken."

Sienna felt sick.

Damon's voice was low. "Her name is Mara Voss. She works for the people who kept me alive."

"Kept you alive?" Sienna asked.

Mara smiled.

"Your husband survived something he should not have. We needed to know why."

Damon took Sienna's hand and pressed something into it.

A small metal key.

"Go to the old lighthouse," he whispered. "Room twelve. Everything is there."

Before Sienna could answer, Mara raised a black device.

Damon's body suddenly locked.

He fell to his knees in the sand.

Ava screamed.

And Mara said calmly, "Now we take all three."