Chapter Six
My brain tries to process what just happened. Blood splatters the boom, sail, and decking. The three of us stare at each other in shock for two or three seconds.
And suddenly, everything is moving too fast.
Ben shouts for Emmy to take the wheel and hangs over the railing, looking out into the water.
Emmy’s panic sobbing, frozen in her seat.
Jackson races to the wheel and grabs it.
I scramble to the side where Keith went over.
The dark sky has turned the water into a churning mass of gray.
We stand at the railing, barely breathing, as we zero in on the cluster of bubbles where he went under. I hold my breath.
He’ll come up any moment now.
My lungs start to burn. The wind pushes the boat forward in the water. Ben and I slide along the railing, following the place Keith went under, waiting for him to pop up.
Nothing.
Shit. He’s not coming back up on his own.
Ben turns to me with eyes so big, all I can see are the whites. “You’re, like, a lifeguard or whatever, right? What the fuck are you waiting for?”
Shit. Shit.
He’s right.
Work brain kicks on. I point up at the sails. “Stop this fucking boat.”
I bolt across the deck, mentally making a plan as I go. I need something to get Keith back to the boat. I need to make sure I don’t get carried out with the current. I need to make sure I can see him in the water.
I snatch a dive mask from the bag of snorkeling equipment on the deck and yank it over my face. The rubber strap tears strands of hair from my scalp. I ignore it and rip the emergency flotation off the back of the boat, hurling it as far out as I can.
I kick the back ladder into the water as I wrap one of the docking ropes around my waist.
“Hannah!” Jackson shouts from the helm. “Don’t you da—”
I dive, gaze trained on where I think Captain Keith went under, one hand on my mask so the impact of the water doesn’t knock it off.
The second I slide beneath the surface I know I’m not going to find him.
Warm currents rip at my body, and I feel myself flip beneath the waves, the force of it pushing me too deep. I fight my way back up to the surface and gasp. Salt water splashes into my mouth, and the rope tying me to the boat grows taut as the boat sails on.
I stick my mask beneath the surface and search for Captain Keith in the depths, hoping my prediction is wrong. That I’ll somehow spot him. Some glint of his bare skin, a flash of his dumb tattoo.
He needs to be okay.
We need him to be okay.
I twist in the water, searching as far as I can see for any sign of movement as the seconds stretch on.
There’s nothing but churning current. Everything beyond my feet is a blur.
I kick back to the surface, shouting his name over the waves.
Jackson and Emmy join me. Their voices cut through the wind, but the way they’re yelling in different directions tells me they can’t see him either. Which means he likely didn’t surface…
A large wave crests around the back of the boat, and I dive under to avoid it.
I’m so out of my depth—literally. I’m literally out of my depth.
My lifeguarding course covered how to reach, throw, row, or go get someone in a lake or a pool.
I spent the summers sitting in a tall chair, plucking floundering preteens from the deep end at the community pool.
My training definitely didn’t cover the steps required to locate an unconscious adult in the depths of the fucking Pacific Ocean.
I make one last desperate attempt to find him.
I dive under and swim nearly straight down.
The pressure of the water slams into my ears, as my body is forced back toward the surface, but I keep kicking.
I look for a hand. For a leg. A wisp of hair.
Anything to tell me which direction to swim.
But I see absolutely nothing. Only blurry gray water that’s playing tug-of-war with my body.
Defeat leaches into my chest.
He’s been under too long.
He’s not coming back. Captain Keith is going to sink to the bottom of the ocean in this fucking storm, and there’s nothing I can do to save him.
My lungs catch fire, and with one final spin to look in every direction, I kick back toward the surface.
The current whips me around again, growing stronger. It tugs me to the side and flips me back toward the ocean floor, until the burn in my muscles matches my lungs. Another surge of water shoves me away from the boat, and the rope pulls tight around my waist.
I stare into what must be miles of seawater beneath my feet, and my pulse hammers in my throat so hard it hurts. In my mind, all I can see is something swimming up from the depths.
Snapping at my legs.
Dragging me under.
I wouldn’t see it until it was on me…
I try and shove the thoughts away, but panic has already seeded itself somewhere vital.
The current shifts, releasing me to the surface. When I finally break through, I’m immediately hit in the face with another wave that mixes my first breath of air with rain and seawater. I choke it back out, struggling to catch my breath.
The rope pulls tight around my ribs. When I look up, Jackson is on the back platform of the boat, dragging me in. Emmy stands behind him, collecting the rope as he drops it on the deck. The life ring is already by her feet. They gave up on saving Captain Keith before I did.
I don’t fight it or yell for them to let me keep looking. I’m desperate to get out of this water. I swim as fast as I can toward the boat, battling mental images of creatures sinking their teeth into my skin, tentacles wrapping around my ankles, mouths swallowing me whole.
Jackson helps pull me out of the water and boosts me up onto the main deck.
I collapse against the teak, gasping for air.
“Hannah, what the fuck were you thinking?” Jackson screams, angrily untying the rope from my rib cage.
I can barely hear him. My ears are ringing, salt water burns my nostrils, and I’m focusing very hard on all ten of my fingers splayed out beneath me as adrenaline pounds through my veins.
I shove the dive mask off my face, close my eyes, and force air in and out of my lungs as the boat rocks over increasingly larger waves.
I’ve never been afraid of deep water before. This isn’t even the first time I’ve been in the open ocean. But it all hits different when you’re looking for someone in the water.
I imagine Captain Keith sinking into the depths on a loop I can’t blink away. God, he didn’t deserve this. A panicked sob rips from my chest, and I feel arms around me, but I don’t know who they belong to.
When I finally sit up, I find Emmy on her knees beside me, arms like a vise around my shoulders. “You’re okay…you’re okay, Hannah,” she says, and I get the feeling she’s been repeating it for a while. Her entire body is shaking, but she’s still trying to calm me down.
One of the striped resort towels is draped across my back. I pull it closer around me, even though it’s soaking wet in the rain.
Jackson is crouched beside his sister, staring at me with angry, terrified eyes. “What the hell were you thinking, Hannah? If that rope untied or snapped, we wouldn’t have been able to reach you fast enough in this current. You could have died.”
I look away. “I know. I thought I could get to him, but—”
Ben’s feet thunder across the deck, and he skids to a stop in front of me. The sail is down, and he seems to have secured the boom from swinging. The metal mast and support poles stretch up like skeleton fingers against the darkening sky.
He scans the deck around us, and the color drains from his face. “Where is he?”
The three of us exchange a look. Nobody wants to be the one to say it out loud.
“Hannah!” Ben yells. “Where’s the captain?”
I flinch. “I couldn’t find him.”
Ben’s eyes dart from us to the water and back. “Where the fuck is he?” he shouts again, like he didn’t hear or can’t process what I just said.
I grab onto the railing and climb to my feet. The towel slides off my back and lands in a heap on the blood-smeared deck. “I’m sorry,” I say, louder this time. “I tried my best, but the current is too strong, and there’s no visibility. If he was conscious, maybe he would have…”
I didn’t think Ben could get any paler, but he does. He looks like the ghost of the sun-kissed boy we met at the resort.
“Fuck, fuck, fuck!” he shouts, dragging his hands through his wet hair and tightening his fingers in the roots. He turns on his heel and kicks the bag of snorkel equipment. “This can’t be happening. He wasn’t…”
We say nothing. The three of us watch as the reality of the situation sets in.
The only person who knew how to handle this boat in the storm is dead.
And our new friend Bennett killed him.
Emmy lets go of my shoulders and reaches for Ben. Jackson and I grab her at the same time to hold her back.
Ben clocks the movement and wheels on us. “It was an accident,” he shouts over the storm, his eyes frantic. “You all saw that. The wheel slipped right out of my hands!”
My jaw clenches. That’s not how I remember it. He can’t rewrite history now that the consequences of his actions are starting to sink in.
He takes another step in our direction, and Jackson places himself between us and Ben.
Ben squares up to Jackson. “Oh, come on. You don’t have to protect them from me. I didn’t do anything! You all saw what happened!” he says again. Getting louder. “Let’s not overreact.”
“Listen,” Jackson says, his voice steady and calm.
“Let’s get back to shore. Okay? You know how to operate a boat.
Can you get us back in one piece? Can we motor in?
We can figure out everything else once we’re not stuck on a sailboat in the middle of nowhere.
Can we agree that that’s our biggest problem at the moment? ”
Ben shoves him, and Jackson falls into me. “No, it’s not fucking okay! I’m not going back to the marina until we’re all on the same page.”