Chapter 11
Eleven
Quincy
The rain comes down in sheets.
Lightning flickers against the low clouds over the ridge, momentarily sketching the outline of the tall trees before shrouding them in rainfall again.
“We gotta get out of here now!” Reef shouts over the roar of the rain as I haul up the anchor.
“What about the sailboats?”
His grip on the wheel is tight as he starts the engine.
“Every one of them knows this lake even better than I do. Or they should,” he replies.
I trust that Reef knows every channel and cove of this place, yet with the promise of bad visibility if the rain gets any worse, I can tell he’s nervous.
Reef grabs the radio from its mount. “All vessels, this is the marina finish station. Return to dock immediately. Repeat: race suspended, return to dock.”
He pauses, thumb hovering over the button.
I hate sitting here, waiting for instructions. But in this scenario, he’s the captain, and I have to trust him to make the decisions.
The radio crackles.
“…Stuck on the sandbar! Need assistance!”
Reef’s head snaps up. “Which vessel?”
“Sailboat thirty-two!”
A moment later, the low whine of a small engine approaches, and Susan appears in a skiff, rain dripping from her visor.
“Half the racers aren’t answering the radio!” she shouts over the wind.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” Reef scolds her.
She is indignant. “I radioed you as soon as I saw those black clouds. Nobody was responding to me, and we need to rally these boats and get everyone to safety.”
Reef curses as he examines the sky again. They know the protocols.”
I straighten, rain plastering my hair to my cheeks. Gesturing to Susan’s vessel, I say, “I’ll take the skiff and pull the sailboat off the sandbar.”
“No way!” Reef begins, but I’m already reaching out a hand to help Susan into the speedboat.
“You and Susan need to warn the others and get them all back to the marina!” I call out over the chorus of rain and wind.
“Quincy! The skiff is too small…”
“I can do this!”
Reef stares at me for one charged second. “She does have a higher cert than I do,” Susan reminds him, referring to my second-level search-and-rescue certificate, which Reef had told me on my first day that I wouldn’t need. But now’s not the time to point out the irony.
The look of grave concern flashes in his eyes.
He’s genuinely worried about me, on some deep, core level that he can’t express.
He doesn’t want me to go, but not because I can’t.
Because he literally can’t bear to have me out of his sight.
The thought would be wildly thrilling if this weren’t a life-threatening emergency.
There’s no time for him to argue with me, and he knows it.
“All right. But be careful, Quincy. Radio me the second you reach them.” He points at me with the radio mic in his hand.
The first rumble of distant thunder rolls over the ridge. I grip the wheel of the skiff as Susan leaps aboard the speedboat, and with a roar of the motor, I shoot out across the choppy water toward the stranded sailboat, leaving Reef and Susan to rally the rest of the fleet.
Somehow I make it to the sandbar. The skiff scrapes against the shore, and I leap into the knee-deep water, rain slashing sideways.
Sailboat 32 is nowhere to be found. Spray slaps my face as my chest tightens. I haul the skiff all the way onto the shrinking sandbar as the water rises.
Where are they?
I trudge to the middle of the sandbar and turn a slow circle. No white sail. No vessel. No beached boaters. Just the angry sky and the roiling water. Lightning cracks, too close, and I jump, aware of how much danger I’m in out here.
I try the radio in the skiff. “Reef, come in! This is Quincy. I’m at the sandbar, there’s no one here!”
The response is a crackle, and then all I hear is sharp static as lightning strikes somewhere close. I drop the radio.
I could try to navigate back to the marina, but the probability of getting lost in this storm, or completely waterlogged, is pretty damn high.
But if I stay, I’m a sitting duck for a lightning strike.
“Think, Quincy.”
I can only think of one thing to do.
With everything I have in me, I drag the skiff to the highest part of the sandbar, then drop to my knees. My fingers claw at wet sand, digging a shallow trench. This emergency task seems to take forever as rain clobbers me. But I get it done.
By the time I climb into the hollow and curl up, I’m hyperventilating from terror.
I pull the upended skiff on top of me, and I wait for the storm to pass, shutting my eyes tight.