“Okay. I can do that.” Max went to move off, stopped and caught Wyatt’s arm. He reached around to the back of his waistband and handed Wyatt two handguns. “I took these off a guard. You look after these girls, you hear?”
Wyatt tilted his head in a yes and took the guns.
Max shuffled away, beckoning to the crew. “Let’s get to the med bay before those freaks find their way back in.”
“Okay, just us then.” Caro climbed back to her feet with a grunt. “Tell me I won’t regret this.”
Jen shouldered the explosives pack. Wyatt checked both handguns, tucking one into his waistband and the other in his hand, automatic rifle slung over his shoulder.
His eyes swept the corridor one last time before he looked at them both. “Stay close. Move fast.”
The air temperaturedropped as they descended to Seven’s lowest level via an emergency stairwell. The smell changed from gun oil and fear-sweat to something else. Salt. Brine. The organic scent of ocean water contained by metal walls.
Jen pushed through the final watertight door.
The moon pool breathed beneath her. A deep, steady bass note rolling up from the ocean below, water moving against steel as if the rig itself had a pulse. Salt and rust and neoprene hung heavy in the air.
Caro stopped just inside the door. The greenish lighting washed the color from her face. “Bloody hell and a half,” she murmured. “We’re really doing this?”
Jen swallowed to clear the knot in her throat. Air pressed against her eardrums, turning the world distant.
She could calculate load distributions and stress tolerances in her sleep. She understood how structures failed and why. But this—this was black water. Water that could consume her whole. She’d once nearly passed out during a simple inspection crawl, too close to the waterline. The memory tried to reach for her—cold water, tight spaces, the feeling of her lungs refusing to expand?—
“Hey.” Wyatt’s hand closed around her elbow.
Gentle pressure guided her to the side, away from Caro quietly talking herself through safety checks on the dive control panel.
“Look at me.” His voice dropped, pitched low. For her alone.
She looked up. He was close, his solid frame blocking her view of the dive room. Close enough to see the dark flecks in his eyes, the concentration there. His other hand came up, brushing her temple, tucking damp hair back behind her ear.
Awareness flared through her at the contact.
“I know you can do this.”
The squeeze of her throat made it hard to speak. “I’m an engineer. Not—” She gestured at the moon pool. “Not this.”
“You’re also the woman who climbed through a vent shaft while armed men hunted her. Who destroyed her own systemsto stop them and then broke into an armory and walked out carrying a shit-ton of C4.”
He smoothed a lock of hair from her forehead. “You’ve already done harder things than this.”
Her skin lit up under his touch. His palm was warm against her cheek. She could lean into it, close her eyes, shut out the world.
Instead, she took a deep breath. “Those were different. I could solve those. This is just testing I won’t drown.”
His gaze didn’t waver. “You won’t. Because I’ll be right there. The whole time.”
Her breath finally reached the bottom of her lungs, and the ache in her ribs lessened.
“What if I freeze?” The admission came out small.
His answer was instantaneous. “Then I’ll bring you back up. That’s it. But you won’t.” His hand was still on her face, warm against her cold skin, anchoring her in place. “Because when the fear gets loud, you’ll tell me. And we’ll solve it together. You’re not doing this alone.”
“Okay.” She took a breath, then words came tumbling out before she could stop them. “I almost killed a man. With a fire extinguisher.” Her voice cracked on the last word. She looked away fast, swiped at her eyes.
Get it together.
She hadn’t cried through sabotage or firefights or crawling through vents—but now, in this strange lull before diving into black water, it all pressed in. “He was trying to kill Max. And… and I didn’t mean to hit him that hard, I just—” Her throat closed. “I thought he was dead.”
