Then at last he was done, and he yanked the last knot so tight he heard himself gasp.

And in that gasp, he heard his own voice.

His last scrap of humanity.

It had been a long time since he’d felt human.

Since he’d had even a memory of who he really was.

The cacophony of screaming voices had long ago drowned out all but the last vestiges of the man he had originally been.

Yet now, with the rope still burning in his fingers, those final vestiges of his humanity gave him strength to resist the commands of the voices. Keeping the boat carefully balanced, he lifted the crayfish trap and the cement blocks so they were balancing on the gunwale.

Sensing what was about to happen, the voices rose once more, the woman’s voice towering over the rest as she roared her fury at what he was doing.

He felt his resolve weaken, and reached for the trap as if to pull it back inboard. Then, in the instant before his fingers closed on the trap’s mesh, he found one last scrap of strength. “You…will…not…win,” he breathed, and with a quick shove, tipped the trap and the blocks into the water.

The rope followed the blocks overboard, its coils racing into the depths, and he felt his entire body throbbing to the pounding of his heart.

He’d won.

But even as he felt the flush of victory, the rope went taut and he felt it jerk on his waist. Before he could react — before he could reach for the oarlock that had saved him a few moments ago — he plunged over the side and into the freezing water.

Too dark! It had been too dark, and when he’d fumbled with the rope, he’d somehow tied it around himself!

“Too bad,” the woman’s voice mocked. “We told you not to! We told you! But we don’t need you. There are others. There will always be others.”