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Fuck.
Dragging the heavy gear onto the deck, I placed it carefully by the other oxygen bottles, then hustled back to the side.
I peered so damn hard into the water, begging her to reappear.
Jack would kill me.
His daughter had vanished, without any air.
My heart thundered as I glanced at the sun-bleached clock bolted to the side of the captain’s cabin. How long had she been under? How long had Jack said she could hold her breath? Four minutes? Five?
The second-hand ticked past excruciatingly slowly.
True fear cracked through my bones and the horror of losing everyone I ever knew to the sea made nausea crawl up my throat. When the clock showed she’d been gone two minutes—not including the time it took for me to stow her tank—I couldn’t do it anymore.
Bending down, I tore at the Velcro locking the boot around my fractured ankle.
Images of my little sister crowded my vision.
Of her choking and drowning and—
Terror suffocated me.
I clenched my jaw in agony as I kicked off the boot and hobbled toward the staircase. I couldn’t remove the cast around my wrist, but I didn’t care. All I cared about was finding Neri before she could die just like—
“Aslan.”
I stopped on the second rung of the ladder.
Twisting to look over my shoulder, I came face-to-face with Neri.
Dripping wet, her eyelashes sparkling with water, she scowled at my unbound foot. “Why is your moonboot off?”
Fury poured through me, and I launched myself back up the stairs, hissing as my ankle spasmed. Dropping to my knees, I slid to my belly and grabbed her unceremoniously beneath the arms.
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing?”
“Getting you out of the damn ocean.” It was awkward, and she was heavier than I expected, but I somehow managed to wriggle backward and drag her onboard.
Depositing her on the deck, I swear the planks sizzled as she rained ocean all over them. Breathing hard, I sat on my ass and drew up my knees. My ankle protested, and my heart crashed against my ribs. I was coherent enough to understand that my panic wasn’t about Neri.
I didn’t know her.
Her father himself called her a fish after a lifetime of being around the sea.
She didn’t need me acting as if I’d just saved her from an unmentionable death.
Yet I couldn’t get my fear under control. My despair. My all-consuming panic of losing someone else.
Brushing back her wet hair, Neri yanked off her flippers, tossed them aside, then sprang to her feet and headed straight for my discarded boot.
Shaking her droplet-streaming hands, she scooped it up and padded back toward me.
She stood silently before me, her breathing calm, her black one-piece tight and far too revealing.
Raking both hands through my hair, I flinched as she sat on her haunches and passed me the boot. “It’s okay. I know why you’re worried. And you don’t have to be. You never have to be worried about me and the sea.” Hesitantly, she placed her cool hand on my knee. “It will get easier. One day. Perhaps not soon. Maybe not for a long while. But...eventually—”
“I’m fine. I overreacted. Forget about it.”
