“Practicing again?”
“Practicing what?” He has one hand under his head, and a fool would mistake him for a man at ease. That’s never true. He’s got the balls—or the suicidal nature—to go toe-to-toe with me, and that means he is always waiting for our next confrontation.
“Being a useless piece of shit.”
He huffs a laugh. “Everything’s fine out here.”
“How recently was it fine?”
“Five minutes.”
It is true that I have attempted more than once to throw his petulant ass into the ocean and leave him behind, but I never follow through. Last time I did it, he caught himself on the railing. I never thought I’d see that out of anyone but my brothers.
I scan the deck, not because I don’t trust him but because anything can happen in the space of five minutes. That’s part of the reason I live on the sea.
He’s right. It’s clear.
The only other crew member in sight is Jason, who’s sitting up near the bow on a cargo crate with his legs dangling over the deck.
“Did she call yet?”
Nicholas shifts on the hammock. “Supposed to call soon.”
“Get the fuck out of here, then. You’re relieved.”
He launches himself out of the hammock and disappears into the murky shadows at the opposite end of the ship. I keep the lights to a minimum. Some cargo ships sail like floating carnivals. Not this one.
I bought the Trident for its more discreet size and faster speed, not because I want to announce my whereabouts to every asshole with a pair of binoculars. It also has the virtue of a hybrid design—welded steel on the outside, antique wood on the inside. I about died laughing when I saw it. Whoever designed it was lovesick for the sea.
The ship had to be mine. At least for a little while.
I make a mental note to fuck with Nicholas about his phone sex schedule later.
I’d do it now but that feeling has settled into my bones. The railing next to the cargo crates is cool on my palms. It’s keeping me from the water, the same way the ship does. Sometimes, I don’t mind it.
Other times, like tonight—
“Everyone says you can see the end of the ocean.” Jason’s voice floats down from above me.
“No one can see the end of the ocean. We live on a sphere. Christ, why did I hire you?”
“I don’t know.” He jumps off the crate and lands somewhere behind me. Jason is the youngest crew member by about five years, and light on his feet. Nicholas didn’t want to hire him. I overruled. I had a sense about him, the same way I have a sense about this night. This moment. “Something out there?”
“There’s always something out there. It’s the fucking ocean, Jason.”
The words aren’t fully out of my mouth before the sea conspires to illustrate the point. My hands tighten on the railing seconds before my legs tense. The water is not calling me now, whatever the hell that means. It’s reaching up to the railing and trying to pull me in.
“What is it?” He’s by my side now, his own hands curling around the railing. “You look like you’re about to jump overboard.”
“Maybe I am.”
The urge to get out there, to get closer, is so strong that my heels are off the deck, knees bent to jump. It’s not always physically impossible to outswim a cargo ship, especially one like this. It’s far more agile than some of my other ships. Under the right circumstances I could do it. It kills me to know that this isn’t one of them. I need the ship for a little while longer.
Jason curses under his breath. He obviously can’t see it yet.
It’s a glint in the moonlight, distinct from the waves because of the way it bobs a second slower than the natural roll of the water. I point a finger right at it, and Jason leans out. He tries harder to see, but seeing isn’t enough. I feel it out there, too. That’s the kind of shit you don’t say to other people—I sense things in the water, about the water.
“It’s debris, isn’t it?”
The moonlight shifts in the water and more of it slides into focus. The telltale red and white of a rescue buoy is bright against the dark fabric of the sea, crowned in more white, like a pearl.
Someone’s overboard.
From my ship? Unlikely. Another ship? It doesn’t matter. We’re on a diagonal from them, heading away into the night.
I sprint for the bridge, where the helmsman, Louis, doesn’t take his eyes off this equipment. He’s got the ship on autopilot. My whole body bristles with adrenaline. It craves this kind of action.
“Man overboard off the port side,” I tell him. “Take it off auto.” The radar screen shows a faint dot, a few pixels. “There. Near as you can get.”
“One of ours?”
“I don’t think so.” Nicholas has been on deck for the last few hours. He’d have noticed if somebody from the crew went over.
The ship is beginning to turn by the time I’m back on the deck. “I lost it,” says Jason, leaning out over the railing. “I can’t see him anymore.”
I can. “We’re moving in.”
His eyes go wide, the moonlight making the whites look whiter. “How close?”
“Far enough to avoid killing them.” There are a few different ways that could happen. Too close, and we run the risk of sucking the person down into the vortex from the engines. Closer, and we could hit them. The force of the collision would be like a car. Worse than a car.
The buoy gets larger, and larger, but against the backdrop of the ocean it looks small. Pathetic. The distance shrinks. My muscles burn with the effort of keeping myself on the ship.
I can see dark hair when I finally give in. One step up on the first rung of the railing, then the top, and then I’m dropping into the ocean.
It welcomes me, rushing up and over my head, and I resist the compulsion to swim down and down and down until there’s no more light. The urge is there and gone and then I’m cutting through big, rolling waves. Brisk, but not intolerable.
At least not to me.
The sea bears me to the buoy… and the person who’s floating on it.
“Fuck.” I didn’t think this would be a great situation before.
Now I have confirmation that it’s bad.
The buoy is clinging to the girl. She doesn’t have a grip on it so much as it has one of her wrists tangled in the tow rope. It’ll have rubbed her wrist raw.
I doubt she feels the damage to her skin.
She’s delirious, murmuring nonsense under her breath, her dark hair in her eyes. Clear signs she’s been out here longer than is safe. She’ll be dehydrated and too cold. Thin white fabric clings to what I can see of her skin. She makes no attempt to move or kick.
I wrap a hand around the buoy. “Sorry for this.”
I don’t know why I’m sorry, or why I say it. The girl mumbles another hushed string of words. She makes a pained noise when I start to tow her but goes back to her prayer or curse or whatever she’s saying.
Nicholas and Jason and five other guys wait by the railing. “You need help?” Nicholas calls down to me.
“No.” I tow her up to the ladder on the side of the ship, brace myself against it, and sweep her against my body.
The second we hit air, her body convulses, curling against mine, and her teeth snap together in the beginning of an earth-shattering shiver. “Look at your manners,” I say. “Not even helping to hold on.”