AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Indeed, Fraser was dropping fast now.
“There’s always a gust, right above the water. Grab that, and ride that as far as you can. I’ll land and get to you.”
“This is going to get chilly.”
Ned’s jaw tightened as he watched Fraser work his chute. Indeed, he caught a gust, the chute maybe fifty feet above the water, his feet nearly at depth. But, as if he might be kiting over some Caribbean sea, he skimmed the waves, angling the chute toward shore.
But this wasn’t a parasail, and their chutes lacked the front edge wing shape that let kiters glide over the water.
Fraser dropped into the chop a mile from shore.
“Fraser!”
No answer. He was probably untangling himself from his lines and fighting to stay afloat.
Ned needed to get his feet on land.
And get a boat.
And…oh, God, please,Fraser couldn’t die just off the Russian shore.
Ned sailed out of the gust and powered down to shore, scouring the shoreline for a boat, anything, even debris, but saw nothing but gray gravel shoreline.
He put down on a lip of shore, his feet sinking into the wet gravel. Trini would have called it a textbook landing.
He called it desperation. Especially as he shucked off his chute and didn’t even bother to secure it. Instead, he did something painfully stupid.
The only thing he could think to do.
He unbuckled his tactical pack, tucked it with his gear, grabbed his life vest and headed into the water.
Stupid, stupid, but the waves would carry Fraser in, and if he could get to him, they’d get back together and—
He was already in the water, shouting against the cold that burned through his body, when he heard the motor. More like a buzz, but it thrummed through him, and he paused, eating waves, treading water. He was maybe three hundred feet from shore, his body already numb, when the light bumped over the water. Disappeared.
Flickered again.
The Russian military had found Fraser. Ned knew it in his bones, and shoot, he had no choice but to turn and flee to shore. He’d get his pack and run for the thick forest, hide in the mountains cape. Survive. And then in a few days, he’d find Pavel and—
The motor burned toward him.
What a colossally bad idea, flung from his desperation, and now he’d gotten his brother killed along with himself, and Shae would be stuck—
He spotted the shoreline, some one hundred feet ahead, and with the surf pushing him, he might outswim the boat, now throttling toward him.
“Ned!”
He thought he heard his name, but maybe it was his own heartbeat—his feet hit shoreline and he swam-ran through the water—
“Ned!”
The voice jerked him, and he stopped, turned.
The boat road the waves, just beyond where he’d hit the shore and—
Fraser was in the water, holding on to a fishing boat just a little bigger than his father’s bass boat.
Out here. In theocean.
