Sienna is already moving. “I’m getting the pole camera.”
She grabs a long retrieval pole rigged with a small waterproof camera at the end. She drops to one knee and lowers it into the water with smooth, practiced precision.
I shift my camera to the tiny monitor mounted near her grip, catching the murky underwater feed as she angles the pole down and out.
Green haze.
Particles drifting.
Swaying strands of kelp.
Then—
Something metal.
Sienna adjusts the angle. The shape comes into focus.
A rusted washing machine drum is jammed between the rocks.
The mother sea lion is trapped inside.
Her head is lodged in the drum. She’s thrashing, twisting, fighting. She can’t pull free.
Bubbles burst around her. Frantic. Violent.
She’s stuck.
“Oh God,” Sienna breathes.
Then she lifts her head and yells, voice cracking across the deck like a flare shot into the sky.
“WE HAVE A RESCUE!”
Chapter Fifteen
Ivy
“Cole! Tilt the damn lens up! Cole, do you copy?”
Nothing.
The deck is absolute mayhem.
Ropes slide through cleats. Metal shrieks overhead as the ship’s crane swings into position, lines snapping taut. The ocean slams the hull hard enough I feel it in my knees. The pup’s high, frantic bark cuts through everything like a siren that won’t shut off.
I watch Sienna command the crew with effortless authority. She shimmies into her wetsuit like she was born for this exact moment.
Everything is moving. Everyone is vibrating at a hundred miles an hour.
But Cole is a statue.
“Hartwell.” I try the mic one more time. “Shot on Sienna. Now! What are you doing?”
Still nothing.
I rip the headset off hard enough that the plastic cracks against my ear. “Are you kidding me?” I mutter as I sprint to him.
The man who spent the last forty-eight hours playing with my sanity, who literally stopped breathing but came back like nothing could touch him, is now frozen. His camera is aimed at a patch of empty, churning gray water.
