20. Tyler
The scooter’s headlight carved into the darkness that stretched ahead of us like an avenging sword, but the black water dragged on forever. The scooter droned in my ear like an angry wasp. My muscles screamed for a rest from hanging on. I was hungry and so damn thirsty I could barely swallow.
I had no idea how Indiana was still going. She was incredible.
We’d taken turns driving the scooter, and she kept constant watch, ensuring our depth was maintained at eleven feet below the surface and to make sure our direction was on point. We’d already depleted one scuba tank each, and we were on our reserve tanks.
The scooter’s battery life was nearly at an end. I had no idea how much further we had to go to reach the tiny island.
My fingers, numb and clumsy, tightened around the handlebars as life seeped out of the machine with each passing second. The scooter had been our salvation, but it wasn’t going to make it all the way. Once this was done, we would need to swim.
The scooter’s robust hum reduced to a faint whine, and the LED battery indicator light flashed, matching my pulse hammering in my chest. The handles chugged once in my hands, then the engine died. The headlight dimmed to a tiny glow as we coasted the final couple of feet.
The droning engine was replaced by the sound of my breathing as I grabbed Indiana’s hand. As her scooter dropped into the black abyss, she turned on her flashlight, and we kicked our fins, rising to the surface slowly so we adhered to our decompression requirements.
Swimming side by side, I squeezed Indiana’s hand to mine. She was my lifeline to reality in a world that had gone belly up. A shrill beep cut through the silence from the hard drive inside my wetsuit. It was a stark reminder that each beep could lure a deadly attacker to us.
But I was not letting it go.
My commitment was to Chui’s victims. The bodies in the orphanage forest. The victims in the shipping container. Countless other victims, and those we hadn’t even found yet. I would never give up on them. Indiana was a victim of his fucking mess, too, and I would never give up on her either. She had lost everything because of that fucker.
My dad’s voice echoed into my mind, and my resolve hardened. My father’s decades of unwavering service instilled in me the weight of duty and the unyielding drive to push through pain and fatigue. I would protect Indiana.
And I would find out who ruined everything she had and make them pay.
Wesley, the victim I couldn’t save, swam into my mind. He gave me a sinister smile, raised the gun in his trembling hand, and pulled the trigger. Searing pain shot up my back, and I jolted. Wesley gave me the bird, then vanished before my eyes.
Indiana squeezed my hand, and in the glow of her torch, her eyes conveyed her concern.
I gave the okay signal, and although she nodded, her worry lingered.
Shoving aside the thought of Wesley’s ghost, I counted the beeps coming from the device in my chest until we finally broke through the surface.
We both groaned as we spat out our breathers, sucked in fresh air, and heaved a sigh of relief.
“You okay?” I asked.
Her ragged breath rippled across the surface. “Yeah. I guess.”
I found her hand beneath the water and gripped her palm to mine. She squeezed back, and a surge of warmth washed through me at how perfect her grip was.
“Air never tasted so sweet,” I said, offering Indy what I hoped was a smile, but my lips were so dry I couldn’t tell.
She nodded. “I’ve done many dives that lasted longer than that, but man, that took it out of me.”
I rolled my head back, and my neck creaked as I stared up at the millions of stars populating the Milky Way. The moon had dipped lower on the horizon while we’d been submerged and provided enough glow to see that we were still in the middle of nowhere.
It was like we’d drifted into another reality, and we were suspended between the abyss below and the endless cosmos above.
I ran my tongue over my lips, trying to produce moisture, and tasted salt crystals instead.
Her profile was magnificent against the night sky, and although she looked exhausted, a fierce determination was etched into her features. Her courage and strength stirred something primal within me.
I ran my fingers over her jawline. “You’re incredible.”
She gave a short laugh. “Don’t feel it.”
I cupped her cheek. “You feel fine to me.”
The corners of her eyes crinkled, a hint of vulnerability peeking through her armor. “Your hands are waterlogged. It’s a wonder you have any feeling.”
Despite brushing off my compliment, a tiny crack appeared in her stern expression. And that was a crack I wanted to open more.
It was a dangerous feeling. One that had gotten me into trouble before.
But I wanted to know her. Needed to know her. I wanted to learn how she got the scars on her forehead and thigh, and the stories that left her emotionally scarred. I saw them in her eyes. I wanted to be the man who helped her find her new happy place.
She frowned at me. “What?”
“We’ve come up for air. I’m waiting for my kiss.”
Giggling, she jumped on my shoulders and shoved me beneath the water.
Laughing as I resurfaced, I said, “Or not.”
She cupped my cheeks and pecked her lips to mine. “There you go.”
“Hmmm, so nice.” I licked my lips.
She smiled so wide it lit up her eyes. “Shut up, you silly fool. Save your energy. We have some swimming to do.”
My eyes traced the curve of her jawline, illuminated by the soft lunar glow.
The beeping against my chest added an urgent heartbeat to our situation.
“Are you going to dump that thing, Kingsley?”
“Nope.”
She groaned. “I hope you don’t regret that decision.”
Me too.Dodging a reply, I said, “We’ll swim quicker without our tanks.”
“Yeah, go on then, get rid of the final asset I own.”
I groaned. “I’m sorry.”
“Forget it.” She unclipped her dive vest. “I can’t dive without a boat anyway.”
As the moonlight cast a silver sheen over the water, we shed our scuba tanks, dumped the air out of our vests, and let the scuba gear go. Indiana shed her light onto her gear until it vanished into obscurity below.
“Come on,” I said, trying to sound upbeat. “Let’s find that island.”
We rolled onto our stomachs, and as we swam side by side, our fins slapped against the water in a steady rhythm, propelling us across a sea of nothing. My limbs ached, but I matched Indiana’s pace, stroke for stroke, refusing to let exhaustion claim me.
Minutes turned into hours. Finally, a silvery glow shifted on the horizon. I blinked at it for a few beats before I realized what I was seeing.
“Look!” I pointed ahead.
“About bloody time.” She groaned.
Waves crashing onto a tiny beach shimmered in the silver moonlight, and I released a massive sigh of relief.
It seemed like hours before we reached the shore and our hands clawed through wet sand as we hauled ourselves out of the ocean. We collapsed onto our backs and gasped for air.
“We made it,” I said as my lungs heaved. “Our first miracle.”
She huffed. “Let’s hope we have better luck than Tom Hanks did in Castaway.”
“I thought you didn’t watch TV.”
She rolled her head toward me. “I don’t. Saw that movie at the cinema.”
The air sizzled between us, and I rolled closer to her, drawn by an invisible force.
She licked her lips as if welcoming my advance, and I closed the distance, crushing my lips to hers.
She didn’t pull away, and our kiss was a clash of elements, fierce and unyielding, mirroring the passion that had been building inside me since the moment she growled at me.
I probed with my tongue, tasting the salt in her mouth, and her fingers dug into my wet hair and pulled me closer. We moaned in unison as our mouths captured our kiss.
All too soon, we broke apart with our chests heaving and our eyes locked. There was no denying it anymore. This wasn’t just about survival. There was something deeper going on between us. Something dangerous and undeniable. Something so fuckin good it terrified me.
“Tyler.” She spoke my name in a breathless whisper, laced with wonder and something like fear.
“I know,” I said. “It terrifies me, too.”
Smiling, she nodded.
We’d crossed a line, a line that I didn’t want to come back from.
I sat up and looked around. Our tiny beach was no bigger than Rhino had been and was dotted with pieces of driftwood and dozens of coconuts. Beyond the beach was dense bush and a steep, rocky cliff that rose above us like a looming monster.
Sand clung to my skin as I stood, the world tilting slightly as my equilibrium was tested.
I offered my hand. “Come on, let’s see if there’s a resort offering cocktails on this island.”
She laughed. “In your dreams, Kingsley. This rock is deserted.”
She removed her neoprene booties and kicked them away. As she unzipped her wetsuit and tugged it over her shoulders, I did the same.
The night air licked my drenched skin and cooled the heat that had been trapped in the wetsuit for what seemed like days. The beeping device dropped corner first into the sand, and I had to resist stomping on the fucking thing. That noise was doing my head in.
I stole a glance at Indy and was treated to her glorious breasts wobbling in her bikini as she wriggled the wetsuit off her legs. She flicked the cumbersome rubber aside as if angry with the wetsuit, and as she stood with her hands on her hips, studying the island behind us, I studied her.
Her plain black bikini didn’t leave much to my imagination. Her body was lean, and her skin was incredible. Indiana was a stunning warrior. And so beautiful. Yet she didn’t seem to understand just how amazing she was.
I pulled the wetsuit over my swimming trunks, and as I sat on the sand to drag the damn straitjacket off my legs, I was treated to a close-up view of Indy’s stunning legs and the scars across her right thigh. “How did you get those scars?”
As she swooped her gaze from the dark outline beyond the sand, her hand went to the scar on her forehead.
I nodded at her thigh. “Looks like you needed quite a few stitches.”
She brushed her hand over her thigh, leaving a trail of sand across her skin. “Yep. Twenty-eight.”
I winced. “Ouch.”
When she didn’t elaborate on how she got the scars, I didn’t probe any further. But I hoped that she would one day open up to me. I wanted to know everything about her.
Growling, I finally yanked the wetsuit off my feet and tossed it aside with a huff. “Man, it’s good to get that off.”
I stood again. Both of us were half-naked under the stars, and as the cool breeze drifting across the ocean teased my skin, I pulled the neoprene booties back on.
Indiana tugged hers back on, too, and then nodded toward the rugged outline beyond the beach. “Welcome to paradise.”
A smirk played across her lips.
“Better than where we’ve been. Let’s find a place to rest. I don’t know about you, but I could sleep for a week.”
“Pussy.” Grinning, she gave my shoulder a good shove.
“Don’t act like you’re not exhausted. I see it in your eyes.”
“That’s my eyes bleeding because of your sexy outfit.” She made a show of running her gaze up my body.
“What?” Grinning, I waggled my booties. “Don’t you like my survival fashion?”
She laughed. “Okay, Officer Fancy Pants, lead the way.”
“No, after you.”
She cocked an eyebrow at me. “You just want to check out my ass.”
“Exactly.”
She sucked her lips into her mouth as if stifling a laugh and walked away.
Forcing my weary legs to move, I picked up the hard drive, folded over the plastic around it, and shoved it into my shorts pocket. The damn beeping was like an alarm clock from hell.
Crossing the soft sand was much tougher than it should have been. Every step was like walking in quicksand. Ahead of us, the bush looked raw and rugged, and I searched for signs of human occupation, but there was nothing. I couldn’t even see animal paths through the vegetation.
A thumping noise beat through the air, and I spun toward the ocean.
A helicopter whipped out from behind the rocky island. Its blades sliced through the night sky as its spotlight swept over the water like a searching eye.
“Oh fuck!” I grabbed Indiana’s hand and dragged her toward the bushes.
“It could be a rescue,” she yelled over my shoulder.
Bullets shredded a palm tree four feet away.
“Run!” I dragged her into the green-black shadows.
My scuba booties slipped on the smooth leaves beneath us, and we stumbled into the vegetation and fell in a tangle of limbs. Grit bit my waterlogged skin, and the taste of salt and fear was thick on my tongue as I dragged Indiana to her feet.
“Come on! Move!” Gripping her hand, I pulled her deeper into the bushes.
The trees became a blur, and the ground was a treacherous obstacle course that threatened to betray us with every step.
Leaves brushed my bare chest. Twigs snapped beneath my boots. My thumping heart matched the thundering rhythm of gunfire.
“Keep going, Indy!” I reached back, finding her hand, and her fingers crushed mine.
We crashed into a dense cluster of trees.
My world narrowed down to two things: the beeping in my pocket and the thumping chopper. Leaves slapped against my face, stinging my water-soaked skin. I didn’t let up. Every instinct screamed that stopping meant death.
Her ragged breaths panted behind me, but she didn’t slow down either.
Bullets chased us like a metallic swarm, attacking the plants behind us with brutal repetition.
We scrambled up a rock wall, and at the top, I pulled her behind the trunk of a massive gum tree.
“Get down.” I yanked her to the ground. Our gasps filled the air, and my heart hammered against my ribs like it was trying to break free.
The gunfire seemed to fade as if confused by our sudden disappearance.
“Shhh,” I breathed.
Pressing my hand against the rough bark, I pulled Indiana close and peered around the tree. The moon was a sliver of light in the ink-black sky, pinpointing the chopper. The helicopter’s spotlight sliced through the night like an accusation as it hovered over the beach.
The bushes around us were still like they were holding their breath, waiting to see who made the next fucking move.
“What’re they doing?” Indiana peered over my shoulder, and her hot breath brushed against my neck.
The chopper’s side door opened.
Indiana gripped my arm.
The beeping in my pocket seemed to get louder, like a ticking bomb about to explode.
Two figures dressed in black stood in the chopper’s open doorway, and a steel cable tumbled out.
A man clipped onto the cable and jumped from the helicopter.
As his feet hit the sand, the second man jumped.
“Oh fuck!” My heart launched to my throat. “Run.”