Chapter 13
Dylan
As adrenaline pumps through my veins, it’s all I can do to remain focused.
Because right now, in this moment, Emma is all I can see.
On the beach behind us, there are at least a dozen armed men swarming the crowds, searching for her.
We’re far enough out and cloaked by bright sunlight that they’d have to strain to see us…
but it would only take one moment, and they’d be on us.
With her life in the balance, I shove all of the darkness down and fight against the fire spreading through my veins because her hand is in mine. Fire that threatens to consume us both if I let it.
Another few paces, and then we’ll be there.
Waves crash into us, but I maintain my stance as I slowly back farther into the water.
We can’t look like we’re in a hurry, or that will set them on us sooner rather than later.
Stay calm. One step after the other, I guide Emma past the breaking of the waves until we’re out far enough that I can tell she’s barely standing.
A woman on the beach screams as she’s ripped up from where she was lounging on a beach chair. One of the armed guards who’d been following Emma flips her around to face him, then shoves her to the ground when he sees she’s not Emma.
“I need you to slowly begin to lower into the water, okay?”
“I can’t swim,” she says again. Her face is pale, and I imagine her eyes are wide with terror behind the dark sunglasses still covering them.
“I know you can’t, but I can, okay? I won’t let you drown, Emma.”
She hesitates just a moment but then begins to lower herself farther into the water, until only her head is sticking above the surface, the hat covering her sheen of blonde hair. I shrink down too, slowly taking steps back. Until—my foot brushes against something hard.
Yes. Finally.
“I’m going to go under, and I need you to stay right here for just a minute, okay?”
“You said you wouldn’t let me go,” she says frantically. Her breathing is rapid, her body trembling.
“I won’t let you go. But I need to get something.”
More yelling on the beach.
They’re getting more frantic.
Won’t be long before they turn their attention to us.
“We have to hurry,” I urge.
She closes her eyes and nods. “Lord, please be with us. Please be with us,” she begins to pray.
I take a breath and drop down below the surface.
With one hand on hers, I use my other to raise the long knife I drove into the sandy ground earlier today.
Attached to it is a bag with our rescue.
As soon as I have them in hand, I break the surface and take her hand to place it on my shoulder.
Nausea churns in my stomach in response to the contact, but I beat it down.
I’m with Emma. This is Emma. We’re in an ocean, not a prison cell.
“Hold on here, okay?”
“Okay.” She grips me. I struggle against my own demons that are trying to claw to the surface because right now, Emma’s life is all that matters. Not mine. Not my pain or the panic trying to shove out all rationality.
Just her.
Please don’t let me lose myself.
I take the long knife I’d used to hold the bag in place and slide it back into the leather holster at my back.
Then I reach into the bag and withdraw a pair of goggles, quickly sliding them over my head.
I don’t pull them down over my eyes and nose just yet though.
They’ll dull my vision above the water, and I need to be able to keep track of the men currently searching shops along the shoreline.
Reaching forward, I remove the sunglasses from her face. Her pupils are so dilated that I can barely see the blue of her eyes.
“We’re swimming?” The hand gripping my shoulder begins to tremble even worse, so I pause a moment and reach up to touch it with my own. Darkness swirls around the edges of my vision.
No. Please no.
“Do you trust me, Emma?” I whisper the words, almost afraid to hear her answer. After all, with everything I’ve put her through…how could she?
“Yes,” she replies without hesitation.
“Then trust that I won’t let you drown, okay?”
Emma nods, so I continue withdrawing items from the bag. First, I slide one flipper onto my foot, then do the same with the other. As soon as they’re secure, I withdraw two mini oxygen tanks fitted with mouthpieces from the bag.
I hand her one and point to the mouthpiece. “You’re going to bite down around this and breathe slowly, okay? You need to be calm so you don’t run out of oxygen too fast.”
Another yell on the beach.
I look up and see the men hassling people closer to the shore now.
Another hit of adrenaline kicks my system into overdrive.
“Okay,” she replies.
Reaching into the bag one final time, I remove another pair of goggles and quickly pull her hat off her head to slide them over her face. All while I keep an eye on the shoreline.
One glance this way, and they’ll make us.
“I’ll have a hold on you the entire time, okay?
Just gently kick your feet. And if you feel you can, close your eyes.
It will help.” After sliding my goggles down and shoving the bag, her hat, and sunglasses into the Velcro pocket of my swim trunks, I bite down around the mouthpiece of my tank and take her hand off of my shoulder to weave her fingers through mine.
Emma follows suit, biting down on the mouthpiece. With her eyes locked on mine, we slip beneath the surface of the water.
It surrounds us, enveloping our bodies as it silences the sounds from the shoreline. My hammering heart is all I can hear. But the water pressing in around me helps to mute the feeling of her hand in mine. Which helps me pretend that no one is touching me.
We’re far enough out that the waves aren’t pushing us back to shore, but we still have a long way to go before we’re safe. I stay focused on that simple fact, and doing so manages to help keep everything else at bay.
These waters and this island will be crawling with Karvers people if we wait too much longer. I have mere minutes to get us to the pickup location. So, keeping a tight grip on her hand, I kick my feet and push us out further.
We need to be out far enough that the boat won’t seem suspicious to anyone on the shoreline. My hope is that they’ll turn their attention to the island rather than the waters, but I can’t take any chances.
My muscles burn from exertion, but I keep pushing forward. Not too much farther now. We’re far enough out that the ground below has fallen away and made way for the dark abyss below. I glance back at Emma again, hoping she still has her eyes closed.
For someone who can’t swim, being unable to see the ground below will feel an awful lot like torture. Thankfully, her eyes are still closed. I pull her forward a bit more, swimming with one arm and both feet.
I’ve never been more thankful for my special forces training. Specifically, the two months we spent training with SEALs.
Ahead, I glimpse a red weight dangling down in the water. Bingo.
I pull her forward and keep swimming until we’ve reached it; then I squeeze her hand tightly. She opens her eyes, and I point up.
With wide eyes, she frantically kicks her feet, and I push her to the surface. We break free beneath the bright sun, and Riley reaches down to pull her into the boat.
“Hey there, Emma.”
Bradyn and Tucker pull me up, and I drop the breathing apparatus onto the floor of the boat, then slide the flippers off and set them beside it too.
“You good?” Tucker asks, his gaze dark.
He wants to know if I’m stable. Or if I’m struggling with the forced proximity I shared with Emma. More likely, he wants to know if I’m myself or the monster they made me. “I’m good.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.” But it’s a lie. Because every second I sit here, every breath that passes, I can feel the hands of my torturers on me. It’s not Emma’s hand that was in mine—it was theirs.
It wasn’t her hand on my shoulder.
It’s a blade driving into my body.
No. No. Desperate for distraction, I push to my feet and cross over toward the bench where Emma’s sitting. Riley has draped a towel around her shoulders, and her eyes are closed, her breathing ragged. I take a seat near the bow, leaving some distance between me and Emma.
With the immediate threat past us, those voices in my head grow louder.
I close my eyes and lower my head into my hands as Bradyn starts the motor and heads out farther into the ocean.
The loud rumble of the engine isn’t enough to drown out the voices, but it is loud enough that no one can hear the hammering of my heart—and for that, I’m grateful.
I step into the front door of my house, then move aside so Emma can walk in after me. Thanks to the flight home, she’s dry and wearing a pair of clothes Lani packed for her before we left to get her.
Delta sprints over to greet us, his tail wagging.
“Hey, handsome.” Emma leans down and pats him gently. She barely spoke the entire flight back, burdened by all that happened, but now she seems lighter. A bit more like herself.
“I’m going to check in with Kennedy and get the guest room set up; then I’ll be back,” Bradyn says before leaving the house. He’s coming back for Emma since she’ll be staying with him and Kennedy in their spare bedroom. She’s close to Kennedy, so I know she’ll feel comfortable there.
It’s what’s best, but I’d be lying if I said I didn’t wish she could remain here. With me. So I can protect her. Except that has the chance of being more dangerous than anything she’s faced so far.
“Ash! There you are!” Emma squeals when her cat comes trotting out to see what’s going on.
His back goes up, and she sinks to her knees.
Within seconds, the cat is rolling around in front of her while she loves on him.
“Oh, it’s so good to see you, baby.” She looks up at me. “Thank you for taking care of my cat.”
“There were drugs in your place. It didn’t seem right to leave him there just in case he got sick.”
“Thank you,” she says with a smile.
“Yeah.” I run a hand over the back of my neck, then head into the kitchen to feed Delta. With it being a quick rescue mission, we’d left the dogs here, so my mom fed him breakfast this morning, but he’s already acting like he hasn’t eaten in days rather than hours.
After filling the bowl with kibble, I wash my hands.
“His name is Ash?”
She smiles and nods as she cradles the cat. “My sweet boy.”
“I—uh—was calling him Foxtrot.”
She arches a brow. “Foxtrot?”
I shrug. “He’s fluffy. Fluffy starts with ‘F’. I was sticking with the phonetic alphabet naming convention…so Foxtrot.”
Emma laughs. “Foxtrot. I really like that. How about you? Ash Foxtrot Franklin?”
Desperate to do something to keep my focus off of her, I reach into the fridge for a bottle of water. “Want one?”
She nods and sets the cat aside to stand. Because I’m so afraid our fingers will brush and set off the charge inside of me, I put the water on the counter rather than hand it to her.
“Thanks.”
“Yeah.” I lean back against the counter and take a deep breath. As I do, Emma comes around into the kitchen and stops in front of me—keeping enough space that I don’t feel smothered, yet close enough that my heart rate increases.
Keep it together.
“I’m sorry, Dylan.”
“For what?”
“The fight. I had no right to blow up on you like that.”
“The figh—” And then I remember the day at the church. In reality, it was only a couple of days ago, yet it feels like lifetimes. “It’s fine.”
“No, it’s not.” She has yet to open her bottle, gripping it with both hands. “You were being kind by leaving those flowers, and I threw it in your face—literally.”
“I messed up. I should have just let you move on. I’m the one who should be saying sorry.”
“Move on.” She lets out a laugh, but there’s no humor in it. “When are you going to get it?”
I clench my teeth together, doing what I can to keep myself grounded in the reality that is here.
Because when she takes a step closer, it’s all I can do to keep breathing.
The intense reaction I’m having now is due to all the closeness over the past few hours.
Knowing that doesn’t help though. Not when I’m a volcano about to erupt.
“I know that you’re different now. I’m different. But—” Emma takes a deep breath. “I don’t want to push you, Dylan, but I want you to know that, if I haven’t moved on already, I doubt I ever will.”
“You need to,” I choke out.
“Why? You leave me flowers; you risk your life for me; why can’t you just admit how you feel?”
“It’s never been about how I feel,” I snap, anger raging inside me.
I drop the bottle of water and grip both sides of the countertop.
“I can hardly stomach being touched—do you know that? Do you know that whenever I feel hands on me, I’m thrown back into that cage?
Every tiny contact leaves acid on my skin. ” Tears burn the back of my throat.
“But you held on to me in the water.”
“Because if I didn’t, you would’ve drowned. I’m paying the price for it now, believe me.” The voices scream louder.
Delta trots over and leans against me. Absently, I reach down and bury my fingers in his fur.
“I saw your scars,” she whispers. “I saw what they did to you. But you didn’t die, Dylan. You came back. You deserve a chance to live.”
“No, I don’t,” I choke out. “I should have died back there. Everyone else did.” The panic has its jaws around me now, biting down and squeezing the life right out of me with jagged teeth as sharp as broken glass.
My chest is so tight I can barely breathe, and as the edges of my vision begin to darken, I know I’m about to teeter right over the edge.
Releasing the countertop, I take a step back to put distance between us.
Space. I need space. So I don’t hurt her.
“I can’t do this, Emma. Please—” The farther back I get, the colder I grow, even as tension snaps around us like lightning.
She’s my storm.
My perfect storm.
“Okay.” She moves away from me, tears rolling down her cheeks as she wraps both arms around herself. “I’m sorry, Dylan.”