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He had a direction. He let his breath go in a slow, controlled stream.

On the surface, he tipped his head back and gasped for air.

One more breath.

Another breath

A third.

The whole time his eyes were on the water, scanning for Piper.

An odd desperation ran through his veins —unlike anything he’d experienced before—desperation and longing, as if he’d lost something precious to his soul. He set the novelty of his emotions on the back burner.

Way off to the east, he saw her hair and the tip of her nose, a flash of bright pink.

As he rose in the water to swim for her, Ethan heard Tango bark; she was pissed.

She’d gotten away from Gator. That was the only way she could be that far down the bridge.

Tango was wearing her tactical vest, and while it protected her in a fight, it would kill her if she decided to launch herself over the rail to go after him. And that was exactly what Tango—or most Malinois—would do.

Keeping one eye on Tango and another on Piper, Ethan rolled onto his back.

It was one hundred percent Ethan’s fault. Before he jumped, Ethan hadn’t told Tango that command was transferred to Gator.

In Tango’s training, she would only follow her handler, and without a clear command that things had changed, it remained Ethan’s job.

Ethan knew how she got away, too. On the first day of her Cerberus training, Creed had been holding her by the vest handle. All Tango had to do was spin in a circle to break his grip, then she shot out of reach, super proud of herself. Once Tango learned a trick, it went into her toolkit. She was smart as a whip.

For a Malinois, escape was easy.

Ethan had to get control before Tango leaped. He depended on her keen hearing. Cupping his hands around his mouth, Ethan let the wind carry his command, shouting with everything he had. “Tango, trace water. Tango, trace water.”

No, that wasn’t a command she’d trained. Ethan was making it up out of desperation. Tango knew the command “trace” and could trace a cliff’s edge or a roadway. She knew what “water” was. Brilliant as she was, maybe she’d put it together.

The barking stopped

He had to trust his dog because there was nothing else to do.

Flipping onto his side, eyes on his prize, he swam closer to Piper.

Piper was visibly in shock and surely exhausted from her fight on the bridge.

“Stay back.” She bobbed up and down as she slapped the water to send a spray in his direction, like a child playing in the pool. “I’m going to drown, and I don’t want to take you down with me when I panic, which is going to happen very soon.” She seemed to be trying to swim away from him.

When Piper went under, Ethan took a stroke toward her.

She came up spitting water. “Stop. Stop.” She dog-paddled farther away. “Please. When I panic, you’ll die.”

“Do you have to panic?” Ethan called to keep her talking, thinking he could edge forward—the mother-may-I game of life-guarding.

This was nothing he’d encountered in his training.

This was stunning behavior.

Ethan’s teeth chattered in the cold water, and he kicked hard to stay on course. “You’re doing a great job. You got your shoes and dress off?”

“My shoes are on the bridge.” She tried to lift her arm out of the water and take a stroke. With the weight of all the wet ruffles, her arm sank back down.