Chapter 17 #2
About half an hour later, the boat slows near the mouth of the Crown, the swell gentle but steady beneath us. We’re going back in—just a small group this time, returning to grab the last of the samples. I finish the last check on my wetsuit as the dive assistant approaches with my gear.
He swings the tank into place and helps settle the pack on my back. His hands move automatically, tightening the straps, but he pauses for a second, his brow furrowing.
“Everything okay?” I ask, trying to glance over my shoulder toward the part he’s adjusting.
He looks up and flashes a polite smile. “Yeah, all good,” he says, then moves on to help the next student.
I hesitate. It’s just a moment—barely a blink—but something nags at me.
I consider double-checking the gear, but I don’t want to seem distrustful, especially not when he’s been handling tanks all week without issue.
So instead, I tighten the shoulder straps once more myself, buckle my weight belt, and slide the regulator into place.
I give the guide a thumbs-up, then catch Holden’s eye and nod. He’s already at the surface, mask on, eyes sharp as ever. I steady my mask with one hand, the gear with the other, and roll backward off the boat in a practiced motion, the water rushing up around me in a familiar hush.
Only three of us are in for this round, plus Holden. It’s meant to be short. Controlled. Shallow water. Simple.
At least, that’s the plan.
I drop down and move closer to a patch of hard coral that’s thriving here, careful not to disturb the parrotfish grazing along its surface, and start taking measurements.
I work methodically, slow and deliberate, making sure to cover the entire grid assigned to me.
We won’t be coming back to this section, and the thought of leaving a gap in the data makes my chest tighten more than the exertion does.
Somewhere along the line, though, I drift into a stronger band of current.
It’s fine, I tell myself. It’s been like this all morning—annoying, exhausting, but manageable.
I angle my body and kick sideways, working against it with movements that feel heavier than they should.
My legs burn, my arms protest, but eventually the pull eases and I manage to drift out of the worst of it.
I pause there, hovering, forcing myself to slow my breathing before returning to the grid.
When I look up, Holden is a few meters away, suspended in the water, watching me. He pinches his thumb and index finger together in a silent check-in.
I start to nod—
and then I hear it.
A sharp metallic clink, followed by a dull pop, distorted enough that my first thought is that it’s someone else’s gear. Sound travels strangely underwater; distance lies. I twist slightly, trying to locate it.
That’s when the bubbles erupt.
They pour up behind me in a violent stream, far too many, far too fast, and suddenly my next breath meets resistance. Not empty—just wrong. Thin. Incomplete.
My heart slams.
I draw again, harder this time, and get even less air.
I don’t know what’s failed yet. Only that my regulator isn’t delivering what it should, and that I’m starting to sink, my buoyancy compromised as my breathing turns shallow and uneven. The coral below feels much closer than it did a second ago.
I glance up at the surface, then at my depth gauge. I’m still shallow enough for a direct ascent. Safe, on paper. But my limbs are heavy, flooded with lactic acid, and the idea of swimming straight up without a solid breath in my lungs feels… uncertain.
I force myself to look down instead, tracing the path of the bubbles.
The hose leading from my regulator is still there—but when I reach back and grab it, it shifts in my hand far too easily. The connection at the first stage is no longer seated. The metal fitting looks wrong, jagged at the edge, and as I move it, the leak worsens.
My pressure gauge needle jitters, then drops.
Understanding hits all at once, cold and absolute.
Air is escaping faster than I can use it. My tank is venting into the ocean.
I’m out of time.
There’s no fixing this down here.
The only thing left to do is move—fast—and hope my body remembers how to obey before my lungs decide they’ve had enough.
I start kicking toward the sun, as rapidly as my tired, heavy legs will take me, but they don’t feel like they belong to me anymore.
My lungs are close to bursting. Every cell in my body is screaming for oxygen, but I try—try—not to let panic take over.
I know better. I know it’s the worst thing I can allow.
Panic chews up oxygen and floods your blood with cortisol.
It makes your limbs move too fast or not at all.
It kills you faster than the pressure ever could.
But the current drags, the bubbles around me distort everything, and my limbs are moving like I’m trapped in syrup. My vision is shrinking at the corners.
Just when my limbs start losing their rhythm entirely, a hand finds me.
It stops my useless flailing with one firm grip, steady and certain in a way nothing else feels right now. The moment I feel it, something inside me quiets.
I turn, dizzy and disoriented, and there he is.
Holden.
His mask is fogged slightly, but I can still see his panic burning behind his eyes—just below the surface, barely held in check.
His regulator is already in his hand, not his mouth.
The other hand comes up to my chin, fingers firm, confident.
He tilts my face just enough to part my lips with pressure I have definitely imagined before, and then he slides the mouthpiece into place.
I don’t think. I breathe.
It’s sharp, painful, electric—and perfect. My lungs burn, but the relief is almost euphoric. I nod—barely—and he nods back, just once.
Something about his movement feels like a silent good girl, but that might just be the oxygen deprivation talking.
Then the regulator is gone again, and back in his mouth. He inhales. Deep. Steady. And hands it back once more.
The rhythm begins. My breath. His. Mine. His.
I’m floating, barely coherent, but he holds me up—literally, then more than literally. His arm slides around my waist, solid muscle tightening against me as he kicks for the surface.
He doesn’t look away.
Not once.
His eyes stay on mine, watching, checking, promising. Even as everything starts to double in my field of vision. He’s blurry now—two masks, four eyes, and a mouth I’ve already spent far too long thinking about now duplicated, which feels truly unfair.
I manage one shaky breath before he takes the regulator back, and I’m pretty sure I smile—drunk on hypoxia, fear, and Holden Wilkes.
But the second I do, something shifts in his face.
His frown deepens. His four eyes flick over me—measuring, assessing, recalculating—and then he kicks harder. Faster. Like that smile was a sign of something slipping he can’t afford to lose.
Seconds later—probably, though time has unraveled into something shapeless—we break the surface.
My busted hose is still fizzing like a fountain behind me, the sound shrill and wrong in the open air. Holden rips off his own regulator and grabs my face with both hands.
“Coralie? Coralie!” His voice is loud and close, but it’s like I’m underwater all over again, everything muffled by the pressure in my skull and the exhaustion pulling me under.
“Fuck,” he spits, and kicks hard toward the boat.
Figures lean over the edge—blurred silhouettes against the blinding sky.
Then hands—multiple, frantic—reach down to haul me up.
I try to help, try to grip something, but my muscles are useless, more rubber than bone.
The second my tank hits the deck with a heavy thud, I collapse onto my back, gasping.
Someone starts unbuckling my belt. The moment the weight is off me, Holden flips me onto my side.
Then it comes—violent and unexpected. A deluge of seawater I didn’t even realize I’d swallowed empties from my mouth in deep, wrenching coughs.
I wheeze. Gasp. Choke again. Then I’m rolled gently back, and his face appears above mine—soaked, grim, beautiful. Tiny drops fall from the tips of his wet hair, landing on my cheeks like punctuation marks.
“Trouble,” he says, low and tight. “Talk to me. Can you hear me?”
“Mmm.” It’s pathetic, but it’s something.
Noise erupts behind him. Splashes. Voices.
“Is she okay?”
“Oh my god, Coralie!”
“Why are her lips blue?”
Holden doesn’t turn. Doesn’t flinch. Just growls, “Out of the water. Now. Dive’s over.” His tone leaves no room for debate.
The dive assistant approaches, half-lifted hands already moving to pick me up and carry me somewhere that’s not in the way. Holden’s head snaps in his direction, and I swear I’ve never seen him look like this before—not furious, not cold. Lethal.
“Back off.” It’s not loud, but it carries.
He lifts me himself—strong, efficient, careful—and wraps a towel around my shoulders with more gentleness than I thought he had in him. I’m not shivering, but I think maybe I should be.
The boat lurches into motion not long after, and an oxygen mask is placed over my mouth.
My vision stabilizes just enough to see the sharp lines of Holden’s jaw clenched tight. He’s still beside me. Still watching. And even though my lungs ache and my head’s a war drum, I let my eyes close. I think, at least, I’m safe.
By the time we reach the pier again, I’ve regained some semblance of composure.
My lungs no longer feel like sandpaper and I can stand without swaying which, in my book, is practically a clean bill of health.
Everyone else, though, seems convinced I might spontaneously keel over.
The stares are wide-eyed, hesitant—like I’m some wounded possum they’re afraid to touch.
“I’m fine,” I say for the third time.
To prove it, I puff out my cheeks in a dramatic breath, chipmunk-style, and glance at Holden, waiting for even the tiniest smirk.
Nothing.
He doesn’t laugh. Doesn’t smile. Just watches me like I might dissolve.