Chapter 24.
Antarctica
The killer whale hadn’t been coming for Wyatt, as it turns out.
It blows past him—black, white, massive—close enough to take his breath.
For a half second, the water around his head turns violent—pressure, wake, noise that he feels in his teeth.
Then it’s gone, diving under the surface without leaving so much as a drop of blood.
He doesn’t see what it’s after, and he doesn’t care.
He cares about Hannah.
Wyatt swims in her direction again, feeling he’s going in slow motion, arms already thickening, joints already refusing him.
Every stroke feels delayed, like his body and his brain are arguing over whose job this is.
He tells himself that she’s not dying before help arrives—if it arrives in time—and neither is he.
Up ahead he can see that Alek has almost reached Hannah.
Then another swimmer flies right past Alek, appearing almost out of nowhere, the way the orca just had.
Wyatt recognizes Reg Drummond, player #2, the Australian Olympic athlete. He’d been on the Zodiac boat with them and now here he is, muscular arms pumping hard and fast above the frigid water.
If the water temperature, feeling like it’s a hundred degrees below zero, is slowing him down the way it is Wyatt, Reg Drummond sure isn’t showing it as he passes Alek.
Wyatt remembers his lifeguard training and tries to estimate time and can’t.
Three minutes? Five? Ten? His wrists feel like they don’t bend right anymore.
A rescue Zodiac is coming, small and fast in the distance.
Not fast enough.
How long have I been in already?
Three minutes? Five?
The boat is still too far away.
Wyatt can’t tell now whether the burn he’s feeling in his arms and legs is from the water, or because he’s stretching his endurance to its limits.
The three swimmers finally meet where Hannah is floating, face down.
Reg immediately takes charge while Alek struggles to keep treading water, and keep her face, red as an apple from the cold, above it. Reg gets a hand under Hannah’s jaw, another under her shoulder, and snaps her over. As soon as he does, they see that her face isn’t as red as theirs.
Hannah’s lips are wrong—too pale, starting to blue.
Alek’s face is red from the cold, eyes wide. “Is she—”
“She’s alive,” Reg says. The words come out clipped. He doesn’t have spare breath for anything else. “Barely.”
Wyatt has no idea what to do.
“Help me,” Reg snaps, not unkind, just urgent. “Alek—hold her head. Wyatt—grab her arm.”
Wyatt does it, fingers clumsy, almost useless.
Reg tilts Hannah’s head back and gives her a breath. He doesn’t hesitate as he begins doing rescue breathing, the kind lifeguards do on a beach, here in the water, because he has no choice if they’re going to save her.
Hannah coughs—thin, weak. Water dribbles from her mouth.
It’s the best sound Wyatt’s ever heard.
“Need . . . to our own boat while at least part of it is still out of the water . . . while we hope other boat . . .” Reg is having the same difficulty speaking as everyone else, almost as if they are all still underwater. But he clearly and urgently says: “Now.”
“How?” Wyatt asks, as he struggles to keep treading water.
Their Zodiac is capsized, only a portion of its bow still visible.
“I’ll hold on to her . . . try to side-stroke,” Reg says. “You get on other side . . . keep her head above water.”
Wyatt side-strokes, one arm doing the work while the other keeps Hannah’s face up.
The rescue Zodiac is closer.
Still not close enough.
To Alek, Reg says, “You follow. Stay close.”
“I’ll do my best,” Alek says.
Reg manages a half-smile and says, “No medals . . . for trying.”
Alek stays close, fighting to keep her own chin above the surface.
Wyatt knows they’ve only been in the water for a few minutes. It feels like hours. But they methodically keep pushing their way toward the capsized boat, only showing its bow above the water.
They’re close when the whales return.
Two of the more rambunctious ones are between them and the Zodiac. They breach hard, not far off, and the water around them heaves. Wyatt feels his grip start to slip. He tightens it with hands that don’t want to close.
A low pulse rolls through the water again. Not the whales.
Reg holds on to Hannah and keeps stroking.
“Don’t let her go,” he says.
Wyatt doesn’t answer. He can’t. He just strokes.
He strokes as the waves the whales are creating make that more and more difficult.
Wyatt can see the rescue boat getting closer.
Still not close enough.
Seconds later he feels the biggest waves coming at them from what feels like all directions.
And sees why.
The two orcas appear on either side of them, close enough that Wyatt sees the slick shine of their skin, the white patches like eyes staring back, right before one more act of nature.
The water rises again—higher this time—like the world is about to flip.