Chapter 12 Breathless
Calla
You’re not alone, Calla. I won’t let you.
Calla had been looking out of her porthole, joining the darkening clouds in their brooding.
At first, she hadn’t wanted to reply. She’d been in no mood for company. And then she’d been too stunned to move at all.
She was used to Riley making light of everything. She was used to Riley pestering her for attention, teasing, joking. She was not used to Riley being vulnerable.
Her words settled in her chest as she spoke, warm and heavy, burrowing their way past Calla’s walls, and her hurt, and her anger. They weren’t enough to soothe. But they were enough for Calla to want to see what would happen if she reached out, too.
And yet, by the time she’d pulled the door open, Riley had left, the echo of her footsteps still resounding through the empty corridor.
For a breath, Calla stood there, staring at the empty space.
It might feel safe in there, but it’s also unbearably lonely, isn’t it?
It was. Calla could barely stand it anymore, but the alternative felt worse.
So much worse. If she left her room, she would have to confront her own failure.
She would have to try again. As soon as she went back to the sea, the selkie’s voice would be in her head, taunting her.
Her disgust. Her rejection. The way she’d killed all life as if it was nothing. Her own inadequacy haunted her.
And then Riley had come over, trying to comfort her, and it had worked.
Because now Calla itched to look into Riley’s hazel eyes and urge her to say those words again.
I see you.
Calla hadn’t known how much she’d craved to hear them. They unleashed a hunger that stole her breath away. And so she followed, forgetting all about her self-imposed solitude and her resentment in order to chase a mischievous pirate across her ship.
So be it.
The deck was empty. Calla frowned, her steps faltering as she peered into the dark of night. “Riley?” she called out through the pattering rain.
Nothing but the beat of the waves against the hull and the flap of the sails in the wind.
Something felt wrong. The presence in her chest was restless, urging her to hurry, to move, but move where?
There was nobody here.
Calla took an unsure step forward, only to nearly stumble on her own feet.
No, it was a shadow, small and squeaking at her angrily–Patch.
Seeing him alone sent a bucket of ice-cold water washing over Calla. Her heart lurched in her throat as she scanned the darkest shadows of the deck for any hint of life, but it was still empty. The presence in her chest twisted and snarled in painful intensity, in… panic.
Patch’s squeaks as he looked up at her echoed that panic, and then he dashed off into the rain, glancing behind every few leaps to see if she was following.
Calla didn’t know what else to do, so she followed him to the railing.
He climbed up on it and peered at her with his beady black eyes.
Looked at the water. Back at her. Squeaked again. Angry and impatient.
Calla understood. Pure, simple dread drove her forward, because now it was clear what both Patch and her instinct were telling her.
Riley was in the water.
She couldn’t swim.
Calla was up and over the railing before she even had the time to suck a full breath in.
The water hit like a shock, but Calla barely felt it as she searched the darkness for any hint of movement, and–there. Just to her right.
Riley.
Calla twirled in place and swam. Slow again. Too slow. She pushed harder. Faster. She forced her awkward human limbs to behave. She spread her webbed fingers wider and begged the currents to remember her as one of their own. And suddenly, she was gaining.
Enough that Riley’s silhouette solidified in front of her, enough to see what Riley was doing out at sea, in the middle of the night. She was swimming. Or attempting to. But not towards the surface. Down. She was fighting the currents to get down, and she was breathing in lungfuls of water.
She was killing herself.
Calla’s heart seized in her throat, all thoughts lost to her.
She just acted. In a breath, she was in front of Riley.
In the next, her arm wrapped around her waist and her hand grabbed her cheek, forcing Riley to look at her.
Her eyes were half-lidded, and she was looking straight at Calla, but she wasn’t seeing her.
No spark of recognition. Calla had never been this scared in her life.
Then Riley pulled away from her, half-passed out. Her fingers clawed at the water, sluggish and weak, still trying to get deeper.
Calla shook herself out of her stupor and started towards the surface.
Riley thrashed. She tried to fight it, but Calla was stronger.
The currents were listening to her, pushing them higher and higher.
Just as they breached the surface, Riley’s body went slack in her grip, all fight bleeding out of her.
Calla didn’t let the panic overtake her.
She held Riley close to her chest as she reached the Moonshadow again, then carefully slung her over her shoulder as she climbed her way up the hull.
She might as well have been carrying a sack of wet sand.
Calla’s heart beat so hard and fast in her chest it felt like it might burst at any moment.
She pushed past the strain in her arms. She pushed through the burning in her lungs.
Her hands were shaking and rope burnt as she clung to ring after ring of rain-soaked rope, tears stinging at her eyes as Riley’s unconscious body over her shoulder didn’t as much as twitch, and just as she’d started wondering if she’d been too late, hands shot out over the railing and pulled the both of them on deck.
“What happened?” one of the deckhands on duty asked, but Calla wasn’t hearing them.
She was on Riley in an instant.
Her lips were tinged blue.
She wasn’t breathing.
Calla pushed on her chest, remembering all the water Riley had swallowed while she was down there, gritting her teeth as she pumped and pumped and pumped and nothing happened.
Her throat squeezed tight with a feeling she dared not name, because it wasn’t too late.
It couldn’t be. The sea wouldn’t dare take Riley from her. Riley was hers. She was–
Gasping. Riley’s chest seized, then she hurled to the side, seawater bursting from her lungs.
Calla took in a shuddery breath, a sob of relief lodging in her throat. With Riley’s every gasped breath, the panic in her chest eased. She could breathe again.
As she expelled the last of the water, Riley braced herself against the deck, barely holding herself upright, and she shivered violently.
Calla didn’t think. She didn’t resist her impulses.
That thing in her chest wasn’t something other–it was her own instinct, a part of herself she’d spent too long pushing down, neglecting, and it had nearly cost her Riley’s life.
Riley, who was her… Hers. She was hers. So Calla reached out to gather Riley in her arms and stood.
She was cold as ice, and the shivering wasn’t going away, her chattering teeth filling the silence of night.
For a brief moment, Calla wished Sable were here.
Her first mate always ran hot, favoring sleeveless shirts even on the coldest days.
But she wasn’t. Here. The only other person who might be able to help was–
“One of you, send Haddock to my quarters,” she told the lookouts.
They both snapped to attention and scrambled out of the way with an, “Aye, captain!”
Riley’s hands fisted in her coat, her head lolling against her shoulder as Calla started carrying her towards the quarterdeck.
Patch zipped past ahead of them, but Calla barely spared him a glance.
The sea, her ship, her crew, all of it went to the back of her mind as she kept track of Riley’s faint breaths, felt the weak pulse at her neck.
Riley faded in and out of consciousness as Calla descended the stairs to the officers’ quarters, and her body went slack in her arms by the time Calla kicked her cabin’s door closed at their backs.
With a glance around, she approached her desk and maneuvered an arm to roughly shove her maps to the floor before depositing Riley on it, helping her sit upright.
She grabbed her chin, searching her half-lidded eyes for a spark of something. “Riley,” she said gently. Then, when that got her no reaction, less gentle, fingers digging into her skin, “Riley.”
Slowly, Riley blinked up at her. She was still shivering, water dripping from her clothes all over her desk, her floor. Calla saw nothing but the lost look in her eyes. It clawed at her chest, making it hard to breathe, to think.
“Calla?” Riley asked quietly. Her voice was raw, scraped by seawater. She shuddered again, then, slowly, she looked around. “What happened?”
Calla swallowed the thickness in her throat. Riley looked so lost. “You don’t remember?” The hand gripping her chin slipped to her jaw, bringing Riley’s attention back to her.
Riley looked into her eyes, and she seemed to get lost in them. Her lips parted. They were still wet with seawater. Her skin was warming under Calla’s palm. She wasn’t talking.
“Riley.”
Riley’s eyebrows pinched. “I… No.” Then her eyes focused, and her frown grew deeper as her eyes darted across Calla’s body. “Did you go for a swim?”
That sounded more like Riley. Something unhitched in Calla’s throat, even as her lips twitched in displeasure. “You jumped overboard.”
“I…” Riley’s face went blank. “What?” Then an expression rippled through, a flash of panic as Riley shook her head. “No, that was… it was a dream.”
Calla hated to do it, but she had to. They had to understand what was going on, what had just happened. “Look at yourself, Riley.” Her hand slipped from Riley’s jaw, allowing her the space.
Riley did. The panic turned to wide-eyed horror, and her arms wrapped tightly around herself, but she still wasn’t able to hold in her shudders. “I thought I heard something,” she said, her voice faint. Her eyes glazed over. “I had to get to the bottom. It was important.”
“Why?”
Riley looked into empty space as if trying to remember. Eventually, her shoulders deflated. “I don’t know. I just had to.” Then, in a voice so small it nearly broke Calla’s heart, she said, “I don’t know what’s happening to me, Calla, I–”
A sob wrenched the words out of her throat, and it was so wretched Calla couldn’t keep her distance anymore.
In a flash, she was against the desk and wrapped Riley in her arms, holding her tight against her chest. Riley’s whole body wracked with her next sob, and she buried her face into Calla’s shoulder, desperately clinging to her soaked coat as if Calla was the only thing holding her together.
And Calla’s heart did break, then. She squeezed tighter, pressing her cheek against Riley’s dripping hair.
“Shhh,” Calla said as she held her. “You’re okay, Riley. You’re safe. I’ll make sure of it.”
Riley must’ve heard it for the promise it was, because her breath hitched, and then she battled her breathing back under control, taking deep, steadying breaths as she buried herself deeper in Calla’s hold. She shivered again.
Calla drew back. Or tried to, because Riley clung tighter with a sound of protest that had no right to feel as endearing as it did.
She placed her hands over Riley’s and gently disentangled them from her coat.
“I’m not going anywhere,” she promised at the flash of panic in Riley’s eyes.
“But we need to get you out of those clothes and into something dry. You can’t stay like this. ”
Slowly, Riley nodded, and she let go, bracing herself against Calla’s desk, her gloved fingers curling tightly around its edge.
By the time she was back with towels and dry clothes, Riley had gathered herself back together, and she was looking anywhere but at Calla.
Unlike Patch, who had climbed on her desk too and sat just at the edge of the puddle of water that had pooled on the wood, staring at Calla as if in warning.
Calla ignored him as she set the clothes and towels on the nearby chair, then she approached Riley again.
“Gloves off. Arms up,” Calla said, and Riley’s eyes snapped up to hers, startled.
For a moment, it didn’t look like she was going to move.
Then, slowly, she removed her gloves. Her arms lifted into the air.
No smartass comments, no teasing, no jokes.
Just charged silence as Riley watched Calla take off her shirt, then she kicked off her boots and lifted herself off the desk just long enough for Calla to do the same with her pants and shove a towel underneath her to sop up the water.
They both stayed silent as Calla towelled off her hair, then patted her skin dry slowly, gently, making sure not to touch Riley’s skin with her bare hands, not to linger.
Because it was not lost on Calla how Riley was sitting naked in her room, on her desk, and how everything was quiet save for the thud of Calla’s heart in her ears.
So quiet Calla couldn’t miss the hitch in Riley’s throat as her towel patted her ribs, her thighs, and a heat spread under her skin.
Insistent. Distracting. Calla ignored it, because now was not the moment.
She was still worried. Riley was still cold and shivering.
They still didn’t know what had happened.
And all the things they hadn’t talked about still stood between them.
But as she helped Riley get dressed again, something else happened.
Calla inhaled the scent of Riley all wrapped in her clothes, and the knot inside her chest loosened.
Relaxed. Feeling Riley’s scent tangled with her own was… unexpectedly soothing.
Riley chose that moment to flash her a teasing smirk. “Your turn, captain?”
And the worry twisting Calla’s insides disappeared into a flare of warmth. Because there it was. Riley was still herself. And Calla wanted to kiss her in the relief of it.
She licked her lips, thinking of a reply that didn’t involve kissing, when a knock on the door cut through her thoughts.
They both turned at the sound.
“Captain? It’s Haddock. You called for me.”
For a brief, baffling moment, Calla’s instinct told her to send him away.