Chapter 2
Verity
I was no longer scared. I no longer scanned the waves for the curved dorsal fins of sharks.
I was spread out on my back, staring up into the cloudless sky, imagining I was floating in my bathtub back home.
The lifejacket steadied me in the waves that pushed me from side to side.
My ears were beneath the water's surface, erasing the sound of the gulls screeching high above.
Float to live. I'd seen the sign on lifeboat stations back home in the UK.
I'd never thought I'd have to use that advice myself.
My lips were dry and cracked despite the water all around me.
I was thirsty, so very thirsty. The urge to drink was even stronger than the desire to sleep.
Exhaustion pulled at me, the desperate need to close my eyes and surrender to the darkness.
But I kept my eyes open and watched the gulls.
They meant there was land nearby. I hadn't been involved in charting today's course, so I was unaware of any islands that might mean my survival.
Hugo would have known. But Hugo had swum away, unwilling to listen to me.
I'd told him that they'd be looking for us at our last known location.
If the Minerva came looking for us, they'd come in this direction.
There was no point in wasting energy trying to swim to them.
It was impossible. But Hugo hadn't listened.
Now he was gone. At first, I'd watched his slow progress, his head bobbing between the waves.
He'd turned and waved a few times, then he'd disappeared in the distance.
I hoped he would make it. I liked the guy.
He was funny, even if his humour was a little cringeworthy from time to time.
His taste in music was atrocious. But he was clever, kind, a nice guy to be around.
And he still owed me a round of poker. He better not die.
At least Jammie was still here with me, floating somewhere to my right. He was a PhD student from Birmingham. His thick Brummie accent made me laugh sometimes. He'd begged me to come along on the RIB today. I bet he regretted that now.
In the beginning, he'd asked questions. Would the Minerva find us. What if it didn't. What should we do. How could we survive in the middle of the ocean. At some point, he'd stopped asking questions. Whether he didn't like the answers or whether he wanted to conserve his strength, I didn't know.
Despite the silence between us, I was glad I wasn't alone.
The accident kept replaying in my mind. The whale's fluke crashing down on us.
The splashing water. Flying through the air, landing in the cold sea.
And again, that fluke, waving at us as if saying goodbye.
Or maybe 'fuck you, humans, stop bothering me'.
It hadn't been one of the whales we'd studied, I was sure of that.
I could recognise them all by their dorsal fins, and some had trackers attached to their thick skin to help us trace their movements and understand their behaviour better.
"Jammie, did you recognise the whale?"
My voice sounded as dry as my throat felt.
"No." He coughed. "But... I don't... know them all."
He sounded to be in a worse state than I was in.
How long had it been? The one day I'd forgotten to put on my watch.
.. We'd set out in the early morning and had worked for at least two hours, following a pod of minke whales that had come to these latitudes for breeding.
They weren't part of my research project, but I'd been happy to spend a day with the other two researchers, helping Hugo record the whales' behaviour and teaching Jammie more about field work.
My own research circled around orcas. Most research on them had been conducted in polar and sub-polar regions, which is what I was about to change.
Unless I drowned today. Would anyone continue my studies? Or would it die with me?
That thought gave me renewed strength. It wasn't the whale's fault.
I didn't believe that. It had seen us as a threat, or maybe a toy and had reacted accordingly.
We had encroached upon its territory, not the other way round.
I'd only got a glimpse of its fluke - and I hadn't even seen the whale before it had crashed into our RIB - but I was pretty sure it had been a humpback whale.
Just like minkes, they came into these warmer waters to find a mate.
I hoped it would meets its one true love. I didn't wish it ill, not even if this was to be the end.
I was done blaming other people - other whales - for my problems. Even if this whale's actions had been a little drastic.
A bird flew low over our heads. Marine avians were not one of my specialities.
To be honest, I could barely tell apart a herring gull from a ring-billed gull.
I was all about the cetaceans. My love had started with a cuddly dolphin toy as a child - I bet my grandmother hadn't expected me to make a career out of it.
My chest grew cold at the thought of my family. If the Minerva didn't find us, if we...
No. This was not going to be the end.
"Vee..."
Jammie sounded so very weak. I turned my head to look at the young man. He hung heavily in the water; his life jacket was all that was keeping him afloat. If only the RIB hadn't sunk, then at least we'd have something to hold onto.
"Yes?" I croaked.
"I don't... want... to die."
I reached deep for the last remnants of energy and flipped myself onto my front, then slowly paddled towards him. There were only two metres between us, but it felt like miles. I grasped his hand - icy cold - and squeezed it.
"I'm here. You're not alone."
He gave me a grateful smile, but even his smile was weak. His eyes were red-rimmed, salt crusted in his hair and eyebrows. His lips were split open in places. His skin was pale, almost grey. Not good. Did I look just as pitiful?
I turned onto my back again, but kept hold of his hand. The short swim had exhausted me. I had never craved water more desperately.
By the slow walk of the sun across the cloudless sky, I estimated we'd been in the water for at least five hours.
It was afternoon now. And within a few hours, it would be dark.
I'd spent enough time on lone ships in the middle of nowhere to know the absolute blackness that would fall over the world once the sun had set.
No lights save for the moon and the stars.
At least it was a clear day, with no sign of clouds on the horizon.
Full moon had been a few days ago, so we'd have enough light to see a shark before it started to eat us.
Sharks were fascinating. And I wanted them to stay as far away from us as possible. It helped that we were floating and not trying to swim anywhere. Neither of us had any injuries save some bruises. If we were lucky, we'd not attract the sharks' attention.
If we were lucky.
I stared into the blue sky and wondered whether I should start to pray.
I'd never been religious. Never seen the point in it.
I could appreciate a pretty church or mosque or temple as a building, but I'd always lacked the urge to pray to some higher being.
Until now. I couldn't save myself from this situation.
I was relying on others to come to my rescue.
Maybe a bit of divine intervention wouldn't be so bad.
"Vee..."
Jammie's voice was barely audible over the sound of the waves.
"Yes?"
"I can't... hold on..."
I squeezed his hand as tightly as I could. "You will hold on. You-" Water filled my mouth, salt erupted all over my tastebuds. I spat it out, coughing, spluttering.
"You will survive. We both will."
But my words sounded weak even to me. Hope was fading with every passing minute.
Had Hugo made it to the Minerva? Or was he lost in the vast emptiness of the Atlantic Ocean?
For a moment, I could hear one of the songs we'd sung along to earlier, Yellow Submarine by the Beatles.
Everything had been okay then. We'd had no idea that less than an hour later, we'd be in the water, fighting to survive.
I started humming the tune. It was a broken, tired attempt, but it gave me something to focus on.
"...mmhm-mmh-mmh-mmh-mhmm..."
Jammie joined in. I looked at him, saw the determination in his eyes and steeled my own will to survive. We could do this. We wouldn't give up.
And that is when I saw the shark's fin cut through the waves. A grey triangle that triggered every single primitive instinct to run, scream, hide. Jammie hadn't seen it yet.
There was nowhere to run. We were sitting ducks.
I squeezed Jammie's hand to get his attention. "Don't move. Don't splash. No sudden moves. There's a shark."
To his credit, he didn't react besides tightening his grip around my fingers. "Hit him... nose?"
"That's what I've heard."
I'd never planned to encounter a shark outside a shark cage.
A shadow passed beneath me. A second shark? It had looked like a smaller shape, but it was gone before I could get a closer look. Not that I wanted a closer look. I wanted to be far away from here, on a safe, dry bit of land.
"Whatever happens..."
I didn't get to finish my sentence.
The fin disappeared, then reappeared a heartbeat later, slicing the water between Jammie and me. The sheer grace of it made my breath catch. Sharks were beautiful — I’d always thought so — but beauty didn’t help when you were about to be their dinner.
It circled once. Twice. Close enough for me to see the darker blur of its body below the surface, moving with effortless precision.
My heart hammered. The animal was maybe three metres long, smaller than a great white but larger than a mako.
A blue shark, perhaps. Common in these waters. Curious, not immediately aggressive.
Please stay curious.
The tip of its tail broke the surface for a moment, glittering in the sun like polished steel. Then it vanished again.
Jammie whispered, “Still there?”
“Yes.” My throat ached with dryness. “It’s just looking.”
He made a strangled noise. “Looking for lunch.”
“Not if we stay calm.”
It was ridiculous, trying to reason with both him and the sea.
I was a scientist, but science didn’t comfort me now.
Logic couldn’t fight teeth. My whole body was trembling, half from cold, half from terror.
I tried to focus on the small things: the feel of the current brushing past my legs, the steady up-and-down of the swells, the rhythm of our breathing.
If I focused on those, maybe I could pretend this was just another dive, another field study.
The shark came closer. Close enough that I saw the ripple of its gills, the subtle roll of one dark, intelligent eye. It was studying us. Assessing. Wondering whether we'd taste good.
I braced myself. “If it comes near—”
The water exploded beside me.
For one wild instant I thought the shark had struck, but what breached the surface wasn’t grey — it was green, shimmering like polished jade. Something — someone — rose from the depths in a surge of power and foam.
Jammie screamed.
I didn’t. I couldn’t. The sight had robbed me of sound, of thought.
The creature moved with impossible grace. One moment he was beneath the surface, the next he was there between us, chest heaving, water streaming off a body that looked human, but also didn't.
Sunlight caught on him, flashing across the green skin and bits of seaweed attached to his shoulders. His hair was dark, streaked with lighter threads that rippled in the water.
The shark turned sharply and vanished into the blue, as if something larger and far more dangerous had entered its territory.
I hung in the water, frozen. My heart was hammering, too fast to be useful. My brain struggled to form a single rational thought.
He looked at me. Not at Jammie, not at the sea, but straight at me. His eyes were the colour of deep water, shifting and unknowable. They didn’t seem threatening, only curious.
He spoke, a sound that wasn’t quite human speech but not entirely other either. The water seemed to carry it, wrapping the word around me until I felt it as much as heard it.
"You."
My mouth opened, but no sound came out. I was cold to the bone, my teeth chattering so violently I could hardly breathe.
Suddenly the last remnants of energy left me.
I'd heard about this. People who nearly drowned hung on, only to then go completely limp when they saw their rescuers, believed that hope was imminent.
The world tilted. The sea rushed up again, and suddenly I was moving.
Arms, strong and unyielding, lifted me clear of the waves. I caught a last glimpse of Jammie’s pale face as I was drawn against the stranger’s chest. He was shouting something, his voice lost to the roar of the ocean. Then the horizon tilted again, and the sky dissolved into light.
Salt burned my throat. My vision narrowed to a single thought.
This isn’t possible.