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Loose and unmoving—
“NERI!” I pounded on the boat. I hit it so hard my hand throbbed. “NERIDA!”
The shadow didn’t react.
Didn’t stop swaying, red lines intersecting the whiteness of her legs.
Shit.
Shit!
Tearing back to the captain’s cabin, I ripped open the cabinet that held the speargun and diving knives.
Snatching the largest one, I shuddered as the blade felt familiar. How the handle reminded me of a different life, a different world.
Fisting the handle, I tore off my t-shirt, grabbed a snorkel mask, and ran back to where Neri had jumped.
Yanking the mask on, I didn’t think.
I hurled myself up the railing and plummeted over the side.
Water crashed over my head.
Salty and cooler than the Taylors’ pool and so, so terribly vast.
Terror latched around my heart.
The storm that always lurked in my mind roared in my ears.
My fingers clenched at the knife as I drowned beneath ghosts and screams.
But then, I looked below.
The mask offered a perfect view of a stunning world of coral, glittery fish, and rocks covered in starfishes and shells. And hovering in the middle, stuck between the surface and the depths was Neri.
Her hair clouded around her face, her arms loose and floating, her legs tangled in the net.
I swam.
All my fear of what I’d endured at the sea’s moods vanished.
Anger filled me.
Such fucking rage.
The salt had taken my family.
It won’t take her too.
Kicking as fast as I could, ignoring the burning of my lungs, I grabbed the loose, algae-smeared net and slashed it as if it were my mortal enemy.
I hacked at the nylon as the current tried to trap me in it too.
Panic swirled in my fiery chest.
I grabbed Neri’s ankle and sliced away the strands.
I sliced as fast and as furiously as I could, hacking, sawing, noticing the turtle by Neri’s unconscious hand that’d already died thanks to the noose around its throat.
Fish dangled in the net, suffocated and gone.
Even pieces of bleached coral hung as if the net had dragged along the seafloor, scooping up its victims and keeping them as trophies.
My vision greyed around the edges as I fought the overwhelming urge to bolt for the surface.
Just a little more.
She’ll die if you don’t.
Brushing away the sliced net around her other leg, I wrapped my arm around Neri’s slender waist.
I went to kick.
The net washed around her shoulder, tangling in her hair.
Fuck!
Letting her go, I snatched it and hacked.
I kept hacking until there was no more net to trap her.
My entire body screamed for air.
I grabbed her wrist and swam.
I kicked and fought and howled as the surface seemed impossibly far.
Black dots danced on my vision as I shoved the knife into my waistband and put everything I fucking had into surviving.
I hadn’t been able to save my family.
I would die trying to save Neri.
She floated behind me, her hair obscuring her face as I burned and battled the urge to breathe.
I have to...
fucking...
breathe!
I crested the surface just as every organ snarled at me to inhale.
I gasped and choked, water streaming down my face as I sucked in lungfuls after lungfuls.
I shook and had no strength but I dragged Neri up and rolled her onto her back, keeping her face pointing toward the sky as I brushed aside her sodden hair.
“Breathe, Nerida. Take a breath!”
Nothing.
No cough.
No spasm.
“FUCK!” I coughed and swam for the staircase. Keeping my arm wrapped around her upper chest and beneath her arm, I did my best to keep her head out of the water.
It took absolutely everything to climb the four steps into the boat.
Every muscle screamed.
Every bone fractured.
I grunted as I turned and hoisted Neri out of the water, dragging her onto the boat, not caring that her one-piece was torn around her hip where I’d hacked with the knife. Not caring that her legs got caught on the railing on either side of the stairs.
The moment she was on her back, I shot to my knees, brushed away her hair again, and did what Jack had taught me to do. The first-aid course he’d made me sit through a year ago. The dummy he’d made me practice on when he’d taken me down to the local school for safety training—just him and me.
I let instinct take over as I pinched her tiny nose, tipped her chin up, and planted my mouth over hers.
I exhaled as much as I could, filling her chest before rocking on my heels and taking my own much-needed breath.
I pressed my lips to hers again, exhaling every part of my life into her.
Fisting my hands, I found the right placement on her fragile chest and sank all my weight above her heart.
One, two, three, four, five—
Fuck!
I had to give her more air. Her lips were an awful shade of blue. Her cheeks sallow and cold.
Pinching her nose again, I forced air down her throat.
Another one.
