16. SQUALO
SQUALO
The storm finally calmed down, but instead of the sun, night crept in.
The sea is at its most dangerous after dark.
That’s when the predators feed. And knowing we still hadn’t saved ourselves, that the hardest part was only beginning, pressed on me more than anything.
I wasn’t thinking only about myself anymore. She was here too.
She couldn’t sleep either.
She lay beside me while I paddled us further away from the yacht.
There was nothing left now. No one had survived.
I had only managed to gather a few pieces of bread still sealed inside the plastic the cooks had frozen, a few small juice boxes, and one bottle of water.
Everything else had either been ruined or sunk with the yacht.
The night sky still held a scattering of gray clouds, but the stars shined through.
I looked down at her.
Her lips were dry. The tip of her nose was still red from crying, and her eyes matched the color, thin capillaries spread across them from the salt water and endless tears. Her chest rose and fell too quickly, each breath giving away the frantic rhythm of her heart. She was still scared.
One hand gripped the fabric of my linen pants. The other clutched the rope along the edge of the raft.
Every now and then she blinked, but mostly she lay there in silence, staring up at the stars.
Her jaw would tighten as she fought to steady herself.
Then, little by little, the anxiety would creep back in, though not as fiercely as the night before, when I’d found her crouched against the terrace railing on the sun deck, holding on.
I pulled the paddle into the raft and set it beside me.
My muscles cramped from hours of paddling, the pain spreading through my arms with every move I made.
Reaching for the left side of my linen shirt, I tore off a narrow strip of fabric, only a few centimeters wide, just long enough to tie around.
“Do you trust me?” I asked after a whole day of silence.
She looked at me. Normally, I would have expected her sharp tongue to fire something back, but she was so broken she only nodded.
“Close your eyes,” I said, helping her sit up a little.
She did. The moment her eyes closed, I wrapped the strip of linen around her head and tied it gently over her eyes.
Her fingertips brushed the linen. She licked her dry lips before quietly asking, “What’s this for?”
“You can’t be afraid of something you can’t see,” I said, easing her back down.
“Thank you,” she whispered, her breathing beginning to slow.
I tried to close my own eyes, to surrender to exhaustion, but I couldn’t. The moment I did, I saw blood everywhere. Sharks chased me through the water, always just behind me.
I leaned back against the raft’s inflated backrest. As I settled into it, something dug into my right trouser pocket. I reached inside and pulled out a crumpled, soaked piece of paper and a set of keys.
The key.
I had completely forgotten about the one Gianni had given me the night he disappeared. It still felt almost unreal that he might be my brother.
I hadn’t believed a word Bianchi had said. And everything I had wanted to uncover had sunk to the bottom of the sea with them.
The crumpled paper was a letter from Blue, dated 1996, written when she was only fourteen. It was tattered and soaked. Maybe that was a sign to throw it into the sea and leave the past where it belonged, but my mind needed to know what she had written.
She had slipped the letter into my school locker and never mentioned it again. Maybe because I had ignored it. I knew that if I read it and someone else found it, we’d be teased all over again.
After the day I found the letter, I didn’t see her for a week.
When she finally came back, she was wearing long sleeves in the middle of a hot, sunny spring.
I never asked Gianni what was going on. He was fighting his own battle with addiction, and somehow I knew he hadn’t noticed what was happening to her either.
I took a deep breath and unfolded the paper, but the ink had bled into the pages. The words were little more than blurred stains, impossible to read. I’d have to wait for it to dry.
With a quiet sigh, I folded it carefully and slipped it back into my pocket while she shifted beside me.
“Oliver?” Her hand reached out, searching for me. “Can you hold me a little longer?”
I closed my eyes and slid down until my head rested beside hers. Slipping one arm beneath her, I gently pulled her against my chest.
The night air had turned cold, and she was the only warmth left beside me.
Without a word, I leaned into her.
She didn’t speak either. I don’t know if it was the warmth between us or simply her presence, but for the first time since everything had fallen apart, my mind finally went quiet.
I closed my eyes and slowly fell to sleep.
The sound of seagulls pulled me from sleep. I jerked awake, blinking hard, trying to work out whether I had really heard them or if I had imagined it. Before I even rubbed my eyes, I searched for where the cries were coming from.
The fog was slowly lifting, the sun was breaking through the clouds.
Morning had come. A warm orange glow stretched across the sea as we drifted in the raft.
As my eyes adjusted to the light, I spotted the top of the lighthouse far away, its beacon still burning, guiding the way.
And as the mist continued to retreat, I realized we were much closer than I’d thought.
“It’s the island,” I smiled and jumped forward to paddle towards it.
The movement stirred Gabriella awake.
She weakly pushed herself up from the raft, her fingers searching until they found the hem of my pants. She curled them and quietly asked, “Are we home?”
“No,” I said. “But we’re close to land. I think it’s one of the islets off Li Galli.”
She nodded and kept holding on to me.
That used to bother me. I’d pull away or push her hand aside. But now I wanted her closer, and closer, and I didn’t even know why.
I was rowing so fast I didn’t notice the jagged rocks circling the island, their sharp edges hidden beneath the surface, waiting to tear the bottom out of a raft. One of them still held the remains of a small fishing boat, splintered against the stone.
I slowed my strokes, steering toward the lighthouse, but the current carried us to the back of the island, on the opposite side of the lighthouse.
The morning was impossibly still. I looked down into the water and could see the depth of it. The sea was so clear it felt endless.
There wasn’t a single fish.
If this was Li Galli, it was known as the Siren Islands because of these rocks.
According to the myths, sirens lived in caves on the island, and whenever ships sailed too close, they would call to the sailors, luring them nearer until the ships struck the rocks and sank.
The Greeks believed the sirens devoured the sailors, but later the stories became less about monsters and more about revenge.
It’s strange how those myths have almost disappeared. We don’t even know if our ancestors were completely out of their minds when they came up with them, or if there was some truth buried beneath the stories.
Either way, I didn’t believe in sirens, but I did believe in the danger.
Especially when I spotted the same shark that had attacked us near the yacht, gliding after us beneath the surface.
“Fuck,” I muttered, slowing my strokes. Every fucking vibration seemed to pull it closer.
These animals were supposed to be intelligent. They rarely attacked people. But something kept drawing this one to us. Maybe, from below, we looked like sea turtles floating on the surface. Or maybe it really wanted us to show us they are on top of the food chain.
Then, just as we were no more than five meters from shore, the raft scraped against a rock and lurched to a stop.
I felt freezing water pour inside. Tiny fish darted through the raft alongside the loaf of bread still sealed inside its plastic bag.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” I muttered again. “Gabriella, whatever I tell you now, please don’t panic.”
It was pointless.
The second her hand touched the water, she ripped off the scarf I’d made from my linen shirt and screamed.
I shut my eyes and drew in a long breath. If I didn’t drown her now, I never would.
She panicked, her arms thrashing wildly in every direction, only pushed the raft deeper beneath the surface.
“We have to swim to shore,” I said.
The raft had caught on a rock, leaving one end pinned in place while the other tilted upward. The raised end gave the two of us somewhere to stand, and for the moment, that was enough.
I needed to calm Gabriella first and draw the shark away from us.
I pulled her up beside me, and said. “Just look at the land.”
I took a deep breath and set the two small juice boxes and the loaf of bread beside her. The rest of our supplies had already drifted away. Then I climbed up, grabbed a paddle, and shoved the raft back into the water.
It floated away exactly as I’d hoped. So did the shark.
Before I straightened up, I stuffed the bread and juice boxes into my pockets, trying to save what little food we had left.
The moment I stepped back to her, her arms wrapped tightly around me.
I knew she was terrified, but she almost shoved both of us straight into the mouth of a sea monster.
“Calm down,” I said, though I think I was saying it as much to myself. That familiar irritation was creeping back whenever it came to her.
I turned her gently, holding her by the hips. One arm slipped around her shoulders, my hand resting against her jaw to keep her facing the island, while the other held her close.
“Focus on the land, can you?”
She nodded.
“Now breathe in.”
The breeze carried her scent of vanilla towards me, and before I realized it, I’d closed my eyes and breathed it in.
“I don’t know if I can,” she whispered, trembling beneath my hands.
“You can,” I said. “You have to.”
She nodded again.
I recognized this stretch of water.