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My stomach twisted. The way she asked that question hinted things weren’t as simple as I wanted to believe between us. Balling my hands, I cooled my tone. “Never.”
Her lips turned down for a heartbeat but then curled back into a smile. “You might change your mind. One day.”
Padding barefoot to the open door, she grabbed the handle and spun back to face me. “Twenty minutes. Don’t be late.”
She left without another word.
* * * * *
“How’re you doing, Aslan?”
I swallowed around the grief and terror lodged painfully in my throat and forced a single word. A word I was learning to live with. “Okay.”
“It will get calmer when we get to the reef. Just a little farther. Just focus on the horizon.”
I clutched the co-captain’s chair where Jack had told me to sit when we’d arrived at the port and boarded The Fluke.
I’d been hauled onboard last time, dripping wet and barely breathing, yet I remembered it so clearly. I remembered the tidy deck, gleaming rigging, and the small kitchenette with its table and benches below.
It wasn’t an overly large vessel, but it cut through the water with a powerful purr.
Once again, it made me rage at the feeble boat my father believed would be our salvation. We should’ve taken the chance of flying here. We could’ve used our passports one last time before he burned them. But then again, after what he told me in the boat about why he’d made us nameless and homeless...I now knew why leaving clues behind would’ve led to our death.
They’re dead anyway...
“Have you heard anything from the fishermen?” I asked, cursing the hope in my voice. “Any other people hauled from the sea?”
Jack gave me a sympathetic look. “Not yet. We put out a call last night and again this morning.” He pointed at the impressive radio and dials surrounding the helm. “We’re in constant contact with seafolk, so we’ll know the minute anything or anyone is found.”
I nodded and looked back outside.
The view had changed from the seaside township of Port Douglas to the open waters of the Coral Sea. Anna had given me a lesson on suburb names as we’d driven the short distance to where The Fluke was moored, but now she stood at the front with Neri, their hands wrapped around the stainless steel barriers, riding the waves as their hair snapped and danced behind them.
Neri’s jellyfish dress tore around her legs as she pointed at something to the right.
Anna turned to look at Jack through the glass frontage of the captain’s quarters. Shrugging, she pointed at Neri and then laughed.
Jack groaned under his breath, following what his wife was silently saying all while I floundered. With a flick of his wrist, he turned the boat in the direction where Neri waved.
The sun blinded me off the water.
Curiosity itched, shoving back my horror at being back on the ocean and the sorrow just waiting to drown me. “What does she see?”
Jack shot a look my way. “One of these days, I swear I’m gonna have her tested.”
“Excuse me?”
“Nerida.” He laughed as a dolphin suddenly launched itself out of the water in the exact location Neri had pointed at. “She always does this.”
“Does what?”
“Seems to hone in on wherever Sapphire and her pod are.” He pressed harder on the accelerator lever, making us skim over the water. “But it’s not just the damn dolphins. It’s the whales and the turtles, the migrating humpbacks and the octopus. She even seems to know where we’ll find saltwater crocs when we’re tasked with providing new data on their locations.”
“Has she ever told you how she does it?” I wiped away a droplet of sweat from my temple, grateful for the shade of the cabin and dreading going out on deck where the sun beamed relentlessly.
“Nope. She just says she has a nudge. A little push deep in her belly.”
“You sound jealous.”
