Hold Fast - Part Three
This episode is part of a larger story, Soft Touch. If you haven’t yet, you can go back and read it from the beginning right here.
Don’t panic. You’ve been through this before. Deep breath. What do we do?
“Will!” I shout, spinning around in the passageway. “Where are you?”
I run halfway up the steps to the deck, then pull up short when I nearly run right through him. His green eyes are wide with alarm. I’m guessing my voice isn’t the calmest it’s ever sounded.
“Can you get up in the air?” I ask him urgently. “As high up as possible, please! See if there’s any sign of a boat out there besides the one we just put the guys on!”
“Of course, but what’s-?”
“Aiden hears someone in trouble! We think it’s Christian!”
Will zips back up the stairs without any further questions, a streak of silver light flashing out into the rain. I spin back around to face Aiden, who’s standing with his head bowed and his hands clasped over his ears.
“I usually lose the ones that have something to do with boats,” he mumbles shakily. “But normally I’m not already on a boat, too… so – so maybe this time…”
I catch his wrists, firmly pull his hands out of the way, and lean up to feather-light kisses up his neck. Teasingly stroking his chest with my fingertips, pressing myself up against him. Catching him so much by surprise that he lifts his head in bewilderment, his eyes fluttering open. The ice-blue glow in them spills down over his blushing cheeks.
“Is now really the time for this, Jamie?” he sputters incredulously.
“No, not at all! That’s why I thought it might snap you to attention.”
“Jesus Christ, dude!”
“It worked, didn’t it?” I peer over my shoulder to make sure Robin isn’t leaning over to see what’s going on, then turn back to Aiden and take a handful of his henley. “How much time do we have?”
Aiden listens for a second, then swallows hard. “Some yet. It’s still quiet.”
“Okay, which means we have time to find him! Can you tell which way it’s coming from?”
Aiden closes his eyes again, screwing his face up. “Maybe, but I need to listen…”
“Okay, just-” I catch his hands in mine, back him up against the wall, and press myself into him like some kind of upright weighted blanket, holding him still. “Listen.”
Aiden goes motionless for a second, then folds his arms tightly around me. I feel his wild heartbeat fluttering against my chest, and I try to keep mine as smooth and steady as possible. Softly stroking his back with my fingers. Doing everything I can to help him forget about everything else.
He falls silent. He’s humming and snapping with waiting magic, as if it senses it might be needed. It feels like electricity against my body, seething power and Heliomancer heat enwrapping me like Aiden’s arms.
After a moment he softly buries his nose into my hair, carefully taking deeper breaths.
“Have you got it?” I ask hopefully.
Aiden nods, and I take what feels like my first deep breath since his eyes started glowing. He blinks them open in surprise when I let him go, rush into our cabin, and drop to my knees in front of my bag.
“Jamie?” He stops in the doorway, lifting the brim of his snapback so he can see. “What are you doing?”
“Just getting some of these.” I shake two tablets of Advil out of the bottle, then hand them up to him with my water bottle. “For the headache you’re going to have after this. I know you don’t have it yet, but Luca told me the trick with pain management is to try to address the pain before it becomes a problem-”
“Do we have time for this right now?” Aiden sputters, his eyes opening very wide.
“Yes!” I insist, flashing him an indignant look. “I don’t want you to be hurting later!”
Aiden pauses in surprise, then breaks into the tiniest little smile. It’s impossible to say what expression is behind the glowing light in his eyes, but I sense the depth of the warmth in them.
He silently pops the pills into his mouth and swallows them.
“Okay, how are we hiding what’s going on from Robin? You need to talk to her if she’s gonna take us to the right place.” I spot my Ray-Bans in my bag and pull them out. “Oh, how about this?”
I stand up, slip them onto Aiden’s face, and choke on a sudden burst of laughter. “Oh, my god.”
“Not working?” Aiden asks.
No. The sunglasses do not hide the light in Aiden’s eyes. The icy blue glow simply shines out around them, a preposterous sight that nearly makes me dissolve into laughter, despite the situation.
“Okay,” I stammer unsteadily, pressing my fingers over my mouth. “That’s – not – no. That’s the least incognito thing I’ve ever seen. You look like an alien who totally thinks they’re blending in on Earth. Or, some sort of robot pervert.”
I suppress another laugh as Aiden immediately tears the sunglasses off and hurls them at my bag.
“Hopefully the rain and the snapback will be enough, then,” he says, settling the brim lower over his eyes.
“Fine, then – we’ve just gotta get out there. Didn’t lose the note, did you?”
Aiden thinks about it, then shakes his head, looking surprised. “No, I didn’t. It’s easier when I’m not panicking.”
I let out a relieved breath, then catch his hands in mine and brush a kiss onto his knuckles.
“Okay, then let’s just not panic!” I rush back into the passageway and make for the stairs, pulling him with me. “We’ve got this. It’s gonna be-”
I step out on deck, only to be instantly slapped with a burst of icy salt spray. Aiden catches me by my waist as Moondancer rises and falls with an enormous shudder. A wave crashes over the deck and rushes almost all the way up to us. The wind is howling.
“Close the door!” Robin shouts over it all.
Aiden hastily obeys, and Robin turns back to her radio. She’s listening to a garbled voice from the other end. I can’t hear it clearly over the roar of the ocean, but it sounds like they’re giving her a weather update. Whatever the news is, it makes her curse violently.
“Sorry, I know it’s rough right now!” she starts yelling to me and Aiden. “I’m taking us back along the coast, I just want to make sure Christian didn’t take a knockdown in his dad’s boat-”
“Robin!” I shout, clinging tightly to the railing. “Christian is in serious trouble! We need to get to him right now!”
Robin briefly takes her eyes off of the ocean to look at me, startled and confused. “What? How do you know-?”
“We just do!” I shout wildly. “There’s no time to explain, but he needs our help!”
“We should call the Coast Guard-”
“There’s no time for them to get there!” I interrupt desperately. “There won’t be enough time!”
Robin stares at me with wide eyes, then shakes her bangs out of her face again. “Do you know where he is?”
“Keep going the way we’re going right now!” Aiden shouts back, keeping his head tilted down and his arm firmly wrapped around my waist. “I know the weather is bad, but we have to! Please just trust us-”
He breaks off as Robin does something that makes Moondancer’s engine roar. We go soaring forward, flying through the rising waves.
The weather has gotten so much more intense just in the few minutes I spent below decks with Aiden. The rain is cold and hard, bucketing down too fast for our jackets to help us. We’re all soaked within seconds. My freezing fingers can only grasp clumsily at the railings, and I keep having to close my eyes as the waves crash down around us. In part because I don’t want to see them. They’re menacing, steel grey, and way too big. Each one I catch sight of seems like more than enough to take down Moondancer. But somehow we just keep flying, with Robin at the wheel.
She shouts for us to hold on as the stern rises up, and we actually leap a wave, at an angle that makes my heart leap into my throat. Dark, fast-moving clouds sweep across the sky above us, pushed along on the rain-laden wind. They make everything so much darker, as if dusk is suddenly falling all at once.
Through it all I keep one hand on Aiden, making sure he’s right there beside me. I’m shivering in my jacket, my hand growing cramped and numb with cold around the railing, but my handful of Aiden’s shirt is toasty warm. My anchor in all the chaos.
I drag my wrist over my waterlogged lashes, then blink my eyes open again just in time to see Will descend to the deck like a streak of silver lightning.
“I found something!” he shouts to me, since Aiden left the ghost glasses stowed downstairs. “Orange smoke, rising up into the sky!”
“Robin!” I cling tighter to the railing, leaning over to her. “Does orange smoke in the sky mean anything to you? Will saw some!”
Robin’s eyes go perfectly round. “Christian must have let off a distress flare! Where is it?”
“Up ahead in the direction we’re going, between the coast and a string of rocky little islands!”
I repeat Will’s words for Robin, who lets out a burst of curses so extreme that she would put even Luca to shame.
“That’s exactly the place I went out of my way yesterday to avoid!”
“You mean that’s where the creature is?” I gasp, tossing my drenched hair out of my face. “The one all the sailors are afraid of?”
“Sorry, Robin, we have no choice!” Aiden shouts.
Robin continues her stream of shouted profanity until the roar of the rain and waves drowns out her words. She doesn’t make one move to change our course, though. Even though the weather has gotten to the point where I can’t make any distinction between ocean and horizon. The frozen rain hammers down on us, the deck floods and drains itself and floods again, but Moondancer sweeps on.
Wild thoughts start whipping through my head – that I hope Faith isn’t camped out somewhere outside in this weather, that none of these too-big waves have the decency to chill out, that Christian is already in enough trouble to have fired his distress flare and we’re nowhere near him yet, that we’re headed into rocky waters which probably have dangerous formations and overfalls even when the weather is perfectly clear… waters that might be home to some kind of creature, too…
No, Jamie, stop it. You’re not gonna panic. Robin has this. Aiden has this.
I tighten my grasp on Aiden’s shirt, letting that one point of heat in the freezing cold keep me tethered.
“Will!” Aiden is shouting. “Go back and try to find Christian! Follow the smoke!”
Will springs over the side of the boat and zig-zags away as a streak of light. I follow him with my eyes, then blink hard as my enhanced Vision picks something out of the mist. A steep, sheer rock ridge off to one side of our boat, green in places with seaweed. The waves are so high that they slap against it with a muffled thump before they even break. The first of those tiny islands that Will was talking about, maybe?
I think so, because Robin lets our speed drop significantly. She starts carefully nosing Moondancer along the jagged rock formations, until the coastal cliff walls suddenly rise up out of the mist on our other side. We’re hemmed in now, traveling down a narrow path between the coast and the tiny islands. Moondancer only just has enough room to navigate here. I have no idea how Robin is getting us through it safely in this wind, with these waves.
We curve past one of the islands, and I let out a sharp gasp, leaning around the side of the cockpit to see. It’s so hard to make out in the misty rain and spray, but – there it is. Traces of billowing orange-red smoke, off in the distance ahead of us.
“There it is!” I blurt out, twisting around to face Robin. “There’s the smoke from the flare!”
“I see it!” Robin braces herself with one seaboot against the helm station as the waves rock us again. “I’m trying to think how we get there! It’s all shallows if we approach from here! We need to go around, come at him from the other side!”
I can instantly see why that’s a big problem. The spaces between the rock formations are irregular, jagged. Only a few of the gaps look big enough to let Moondancer pass through, and it’s impossible to guess which ones would be deep enough. The only other option is for us to backtrack all the way back to the start of the islands, but even if we wanted to – how do we turn around? We might have enough room, but that sounds like a slow, delicate procedure, and Aiden is starting to clutch at the railings in a way that tells me the noise in his head is rising and rising. His knuckles are turning white.
Icy panic makes a swipe for me. I struggle to force it down, turning back to Robin.
“What should we d…?”
My words trail off in confusion. I stare at her through the rain, bewildered and alarmed. She’s still steering Moondancer, but she’s… I don’t know. Something is wrong. Her head is hanging down, like she just fell asleep at the wheel. She’s not even looking where we’re going.
I let go of Aiden to start towards her, then retreat to the railing with a jagged gasp as the waves roll our boat again. My frightened eyes dart to the raging water, then do a sharp double-take.
“Aiden!” I shout, trying not to sound nearly as panicked as I am, “There’s something swimming under the boat-”
I break off, swinging around in confusion. Aiden just let go of the railing, and now he’s slowly staggering past me, making for the front of the boat. His head is hanging down, just like Robin’s. He’s not looking where he’s going, just stumbling forward purely by feel. It’s like he’s being led along, with no input from himself.
“What are you – Aiden – Aiden!”
Praying I won’t slip and smash my face into the deck, I scramble after him up the stairs, catching his arm just as he steps out onto the foredeck. I expect him to stop once I get my hands on him, so I’m nearly pulled over as he keeps stumbling ahead, moving like he doesn’t even feel me. He’s headed right for the tip of Moondancer’s nose. I only manage to stop him by hooking my entire arm around his waist, seizing hold of the railing again, and throwing all my weight backwards. Even then, he keeps trying to struggle forward.
I fling my soaked hair out of my eyes, struggling to understand, and – spot something in the water again. Something swimming at the bow of the boat, peeking up out of the water.
It disappears beneath a high wave, and Aiden suddenly stops struggling. He lifts his head, his fast-blinking blue eyes full of confusion.
“Aiden!” I seize a fistful of his henley, then spin him around to face me, pointing into the water. “There’s something in the water! Right there!”
He instinctively flings a hand out at it. A burst of golden light sweeps from his fingers and rushes forward, just in time to illuminate the shadowy shape of something flashing through the wave. Swimming alongside the boat. Diving underneath it.
“What the f-?” Aiden begins, then cuts himself off, blinking hard as a sound begins to wind its way up to us.
It’s coming from the other side of the bow. A beautiful, alluring, sultry voice, singing to us.
My mouth drops open. I recognize that voice. I couldn’t hear it before over the storm, but hearing it now – it has to be -
I turn back to face Aiden. His eyes are swimming with aquamarine light. He’s lost in the trance again, stumbling slowly towards the far side of the bow.
I beat him there and lean over the side, holding tightly to the railing. And there she is. Just her head and shoulders are peeking out of the water, but I recognize the silky dark green hair pooled around her, the iridescent scales spilling down her neck, her pale green skin and blushingly pink cheeks.
Most of all, I recognize that voice singing up to us.
“Coral!”
Startled, she stops singing and peers up at me through the rain, accidentally releasing Aiden and Robin from their trance.
They both follow my eyes right to Coral.
“Are you kidding me?” Aiden sputters, thunderstruck. “She can go in the ocean, too?”
“She is half-siren!” I stammer. “We must have stumbled back into her part of the forest, it must border the dead illusion’s territory!”
Robin’s eyes go perfectly round when she sees what we’re seeing. She starts frantically shouting something to me and Aiden. Her voice is broken up by the waves, but I catch the words the creature and from that I can surmise that this is who Robin was talking about before. The mysterious being haunting these waters for generations, striking fear into the hearts of the Port Sitka sailors. It was Coral all along.
Coral retreats further back from Moondancer, recognizing me all at once. She fled last time when she realized her magic wouldn’t work on me, but this time she hesitates in the water, looking frightened and uncertain.
“Coral, wait, wait!” I shout desperately, reaching a hand towards her. “We got off on the wrong foot last time! Partially because you, um – tried to seduce and then terrorize my boyfriend, but it was all just a misunderstanding! Please don’t make us smash our boat, please! We just want to talk to you! We’re friends of Thorn, and Violet!”
“What the fuck?” Robin shouts from the cockpit, staring at me in astonished incredulity. “You know her?”
“We – sort of! It’s a long story!”
Coral is still hesitating, twisting two handfuls of her long, glowing tresses. She glances anxiously over her shoulder, then opens her mouth and begins to sing again.
“No!” I blurt out frantically, seizing hold of Aiden before he can get away. “Coral, please! We’re friends, and we’re actually in the middle of an emergency, we – Robin, no, don’t!”
Robin isn’t walking along in her trance, like Aiden is. She’s steering our whole boat after Coral, who starts swimming backwards, leading us along. Directly towards the rock formations.
“Coral!” I try again imploringly, struggling not to panic. “Please!”
I don’t know if I should rush to Robin and try to force her out of her trance. If I do that I have to let go of Aiden, and he might go overboard. But we’re getting closer and closer to the black walls of rock rising out of the ocean with every passing second. Robin isn’t even looking up to see what’s happening. Her head is bowed, her eyes shining with Coral’s aquamarine magic. We’re all in danger if the boat gets smashed to pieces, but -
I can’t make myself let go of Aiden. I can’t.
“Robin!” I practically scream, then lower my head, tighten my hold on Aiden, and close my eyes as we soar towards the rocks.
A few seconds pass. I wait for the shattering sound of a lot of fiberglass breaking, the shock that’s about to wrack Moondancer, but – it doesn’t come. I slowly open my eyes, bewildered.
We’re gliding through a gap in the rocks, one I couldn’t even see from where we were before. It must be deep enough to let us pass through, or we’d have felt some sign of contact by now…
Baffled, still holding Aiden tightly as he struggles to get away, I lean over the railing to look at Coral again. She’s still swimming along ahead of us, singing beautifully, but she doesn’t seem particularly focused on it. She’s glancing anxiously over her shoulder, over and over again, like there’s something in the distance ahead of us that she’s worried about.
She sings Moondancer through the hidden opening in the wall of rock formations, then starts singing us along the far side of it. Leading Robin to where we were already trying to go…
Leading us to Christian, I realize suddenly.
I can see the traces of orange smoke again off in the distance, rapidly being swept away by the roaring, rainy wind. That’s what Coral keeps looking at.
“We see him!” I shout gratefully to her. “We’ve got it! Thank you!”
She stops singing and draws back, watching me as I whip around to face Robin. She’s just lifted her head, looking dazed, blinking aquamarine light out of her eyes. Aiden stops struggling in my arms and stands there panting, bewildered, ducking his head against the rain soaking us.
“Robin!” I point at the orange-red smoke. “He’s right there!”
Robin gives her head a hard shake, straightening up at the helm. Moondancer begins to fly forward again. Fast enough to soar straight over Coral, but – she’s already gone. Disappeared into the water.
There’s no time to think more about it, because the smoke of the distress signal is growing closer and closer. Burning out, I think. It vanishes completely right as we reach it. I steal a terrified glance up at Aiden’s face, but his eyes are still shining with white-blue magic. We should still have time…
My Vision is attempting to adjust itself again. Through the rain, the mist, and the darkness cast by the cloud cover… I see something.
“There!” I shout, pointing to the boat.
I barely needed to. Aiden and Robin see it only seconds after me, based on the soft gasp from Aiden and the stream of curses from Robin.
Christian’s dad’s boat really isn’t made for this, after all.
It’s so much smaller than Moondancer. Built to be light and fast, not to ride out waves like these. As evidenced by the way half of it is smashed against a steep, slippery wall of rock. The broken stern must be beached, or stuck on something. It’s caught on the foot of the cliff face, hopelessly stuck. A very bad situation, considering the bow and foredeck are still in the water, thrown up and down violently with each wave that passes. The entire boat is practically diagonal, and I’m struck with the instant fear that one of these waves is simply going to crack it in half.
That must be Christian on the deck. The young man clinging desperately to the stern, soaked from head to toe, visibly shivering. Unaware that Will is anxiously, protectively hovering above him.
Will looks up with obvious relief, seeing us coming, but Christian doesn’t. He’s focused on the – the door of the cabin, I think? He’s staring at it intently, and as we watch he makes a sudden, desperate dive for it.
A rogue wave slams the boat right as he tries to push off. Aiden, Robin, and I can only watch in frozen horror as Christian is thrown from the boat, where he hits the weedy rock wall, then limply, silently slips into the sea.
The next few things happen so fast. It all seems to fit in the span of a few heartbeats. Robin’s cry of man overboard!. Aiden leaping over the railing and diving straight into the ocean. The strange, sharp crack as Christian’s boat snaps, and the front half begins to sink. Will, not jumping into the water after Christian, but streaking across the ocean’s surface to me, where he blurts out -
“Jamie! There’s another lad in the cabin!”
I’m still staring in frozen terror at the place where Aiden disappeared into the sea, but at this I manage to drag my eyes away.
“Robin!” I bellow over the rain, cupping my hands around my mouth. “We need to get closer, as close as possible! But don’t run over Aiden!”
“Where is he-?”
Robin breaks off as Aiden surfaces on the other side of Christian’s boat, takes a few deep breaths, and disappears back under.
Robin urges Moondancer forward, somehow weaving her into the narrow passage between the rock formations and the cliff walls, until we’re nearly alongside Christian’s boat.
I take as deep a breath as I can in my panic, then swing myself over the railing and hop down onto the sinking bow.
At least it’s sinking slowly, I tell myself, an absurd attempt at optimism that I’m sure would make Aiden laugh at me. Fighting my hardest not to think about him down there in the stormy water, I half-run, half-slide down to the closed cabin door. There’s already water rushing over it, and when I seize the handle I realize just how heavy it all is. I pull desperately, plant my foot against the wall beside the door, and slowly drag it open, gasping with the weight.
Water immediately begins pouring down the little stairs. I throw myself to my knees in the doorway, peering down into the cabin. It’s half-flooded already. Canned food and tins of coffee are floating in the churning water, tossed around with the rush of ocean pouring in.
A dark-haired young man is slumped over on the floor in the corner, sitting there dazed, a little trickle of blood running down his forehead.
Breathing hard, I stumble down the stairs and wade through the rising water. “Hey! Can you hear me?”
No answer besides the slightest stirring movement of his head, so I take him beneath his arms and drag him to his feet, struggling the whole way. He’s just conscious enough to lean dazedly against me, with all his weight.
“Hey, stay with me!” I gasp, fighting not to let him drag me down. “Can you walk?”
He sort of stumbles forward, and I do, too, pulling him with me. Panting with my whole body, I stop at the foot of the tiny set of stairs, staring up in blank horror at the ocean surging down them. There’s nothing else I can think of to do, so I start trying to battle my way up them, fighting the pitching and tossing of the broken boat, the heaviness of the barely-conscious body I’m holding, the water pouring down on us.
I’m so cold and disoriented and soaked that it’s making me dizzy. My eyes are full of saltwater, and I can barely see through them. But I feel myself slip on the step, and nearly go sliding back down them. I catch myself on the railing, but I have to let go of the guy to do it, and now I only have him by one hand, and his full weight is pulling me down…
“No, no!” I blurt out desperately, my arm screaming under the strain. “Come on, please, please-”
My head whips around as there’s a sharp cracking sound from above us. I freeze in sheer panic.
An explosion of golden light bursts in front of my blurred eyes, and suddenly there’s no doorway above me, just the open sky. A familiar, strong hand – glowing golden – seizes me by my flannel.
I instinctively let go of the railing and fling both arms around the motionless man, holding him as tightly as possible. Just in time, because the hand grasping my flannel wrenches me upwards. I stumble out of the cabin and directly into the ocean, right as the bow of Christian’s boat breaks free of whatever it was snagged on beneath the water. It slips into the stormy sea, and vanishes.
The weight in my arms immediately starts pulling me down, too, but there’s a powerful arm locked around my waist. I just keep my eyes closed, holding on tightly to the guy I pulled out of the cabin. Choking on seawater, I feel myself lifted, and then shoved somewhere.
My eyes flutter open. I’ve been placed on a slender shelf of rock jutting out from the cliff face, just above the surface of the ocean. Aiden is in the water right in front of me, shouting to Will as he shoves the guy I’m holding the rest of the way up onto the ledge with me.
“Will, wherever you are-”
“I’m right here!” Will tells Aiden, although he can’t hear it.
“Check the cabin again, make sure that was everyone!” Aiden shouts, then turns back to me, shaking his head as I hold out my hand to pull him up.
“I can’t find Christian!” he screams over the rain, his blue eyes full of panic and ice-blue light. “I’m getting thrown around too much down there to see anything-”
Human! a bubbling, melodious, worried voice calls out, passing easily through all the chaos and noise. Over here! Quickly!
Aiden twists around, and so do I. We both go blank-faced with disbelief as we spot Coral in the water, frantically waving her scaled arms over her head.
Right beside her, clutching dazedly to the rocks of the cliff, only his head and arms out of the water, is Christian. He’s slowly sliding down, barely conscious enough to hold on.
Aiden dives.
I want to dive after him, but I’m afraid to let go of the half-conscious man I have in my arms. I can only watch the water’s surface with my heart in my throat, struggling to breathe –
Then let out a shuddering gasp of relief as Aiden surfaces again, struggling to keep someone in his arms. Christian. He has him. I nearly burst into tears as Aiden starts swimming back towards me, dragging our rescue with him.
I have no idea how, but Moondancer is slowly managing to get closer to us without smashing herself into the cliffs. The power of Robin, I think dazedly. Right as Aiden stops in the water by the ledge, Moondancer stops just a few yards away from us.
Keeping myself between the man we’ve already rescued and the edge of the ledge, I fling myself flat and reach into the water to help Aiden. I manage to catch Christian’s arms. Aiden gives him an enormous shove, letting out a roar of effort.
Despite the wind, the rain, and the weight of someone unable to help, we manage to shove and pull him up out of the water. Aiden scrambles onto the ledge after him, soaked and gasping.
Will surges up out of the ocean, his green eyes full of relief.
“That was everyone!” he shouts.
Moondancer has drawn about as close to us as I think she can get.
“Back on the boat, Jamie!” Aiden roars in my ears, in a voice that leaves no room for argument.
My drenched hand reaches out and closes around the railing of Moondancer’s foredeck. This a jump, and I’m scared. I freeze for a second, then gasp in surprise as Aiden lifts me and almost throws me back onto the deck. It should be a hard landing, but – somehow it’s soft. The electric snap of Heliomancer magic against my cheek tells me why.
I scramble back to my feet, blinded by the rain, instinctively reaching for him. But instead of Aiden I find myself with two armfuls of Christian, who Aiden is practically handing to me.
I throw myself backwards, dragging Christian the rest of the way on board. His full weight lands on me, briefly knocking the breath out of my lungs.
I roll him off of me, then realize what felt so horrible about the way he landed on me. He’s so, so motionless…
“Aiden!” I gasp, kneeling over Christian in blank terror. “I don’t – I don’t think he’s breathing!”
“Call Luca!” Aiden shouts back, struggling to get the other man upright on the rock ledge.
Thanking every god I’ve ever heard of for the waterproof case I invested in before we left, I wrench my phone out of my pocket, hit call on Luca’s number, and nearly wail with dismay.
“There’s no service, Aiden! The call won’t go through!”
Aiden, still struggling to get Christian’s friend into his arms, looks over at me. His eyes flash with shimmering white-blue light.
“Oh, yes it will!” he shouts back.
My phone very briefly glows golden, then starts ringing. The call connects, and Luca’s bright, cheerful voice reaches me from the other end of the line.
“Hey, Jamie! What’s-?”
“Luca!” I gasp, holding Christian’s immobile face in one hand, struggling not to burst into panicked tears. “I’ve got somebody here who sort of started to drown, but we got him back on board-”
“What?”
“But now he’s not m-moving, Luca, he’s n-not breathing-”
“Shit, okay. Jamie. It’s okay. Take a breath.” Luca’s voice regains its calm with remarkable speed. “You’re gonna answer some questions for me, and then I’m gonna walk you through what you need to do, alright?”
What to do? Is there anything to do? And isn’t there someone else who should do it? Anyone else besides me, probably? But Aiden is still trying to get Christian’s friend on board. I look desperately at Robin, but she’s fighting her hardest to keep the boat still for Aiden.
There’s just me.
“Okay, I’m – I’m listening!” I stammer to Luca, cold all over with fear.
“It’s gonna be alright, Jamie. Just do exactly what I say.”
~~~~
I sit silently in our cabin, cross-legged on the floor with my back to the wall. Gazing across the room at the bunk beds.
Aiden slips through the door, spots me, and sits down beside me. He gently presses a mug of hot, sweet coffee into my hands.
I set my inhaler aside and take a long, grateful sip of it, realizing as I do that my hands are still trembling. The coffee helps, though. It helps even more that Aiden wraps one of those big, muscular arms around me, squeezing me up close against his side.
“You okay?” he asks softly.
“Oh, yeah,” I answer unsteadily, my voice trembling like my hands. “I’m f-fine. My sanity is still – totally immaculate.”
Aiden huffs out a soft, affectionate laugh, then nuzzles his nose into my hair. “You did good, Linden.”
I silently gaze at the bunkbeds, still trying to wrap my head around everything that happened. The sight of Christian asleep in one bunk and his friend passed out in the other is the proof it all went down.
It feels incredibly, infinitely good to see them both dried off, warm beneath their blankets, breathing deeply and steadily. Moondancer is still riding some rough waves, but Aiden’s eyes aren’t glowing anymore. Means we’re safe, and so are they.
“Why didn’t you hear the other one?” I ask softly, my gaze drifting to Christian’s friend.
“He’s not from Ketterbridge.”
Pure luck, then, that Christian is. Pure luck that we were already on another boat, near enough to come save them. No, not luck… Fate.
I rest my head against Aiden’s shoulder with a quiet sigh. The cold and numbness are starting to melt away as I lean against him, leaving me raw. Now that the adrenaline rush is fading down I can feel all the bruises I took during that experience. I can feel how exhausted I am.
He wraps his arms around me completely, holding me to him. I tuck my head into the nook of his neck, breathing deeply. He smells like ocean, instead of his usual vetiver. But the scratch of his rich beard is no different, and neither is the way his huge hands cradle me against him. The intimate familiarity of it all finally begins to smooth out my fluttering, racing heartbeat.
And the cabin is so nice and toasty warm. I’m pretty sure I know who to thank for that.
“Where’s Will?” I ask quietly.
“I sent him home. We spent a lot of his energy today.”
“For fair reasons, though!” I reach up to stroke my fingers along Aiden’s jaw. “Does your head hurt?”
Aiden considers, then blinks in surprise. “Only a little. I almost didn’t notice.”
I smile to myself, nuzzling my nose against his neck.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” he murmurs softly, his fingertips winding through my hair.
“Yeah, just… just don’t normally get trusted to do someone else’s breathing for them, because I need my inhaler just to breathe for myself. And, um, you know, I sort of thought he was going to die while I had my mouth on him, s-so there was that, and also I was – I was thinking about how if he did die, there’d just be – nobody to blame besides – besides me, and that – was – that was…”
“Yeah,” Aiden murmurs softly, sympathetically. “I know the feeling you’re talking about.”
It dawns on me slowly that this is how Aiden always felt before he had me and the ghosts, and now the rest of our little team. Every time, it was all completely on his shoulders… and he did lose people, because he was trying to do it all alone. When I think about how young he started having those experiences…
I drag in a shaky breath, hugging him closer to me. “I can really see now why you were so unhappy being a Guardian before. Why you wanted to give up your Covenant.”
Aiden draws me back and gives me a tentative, searching look, a trace of anxiety coming into his voice. “Are you wishing I had, now? Stopped being a Guardian? I keep worrying that one day we’ll have a rescue that’ll make you change your mind.”
I shake my head, dragging the sleeve of my flannel beneath my nose.
“No,” I answer, then nod at the bunks. “Look.”
Aiden turns his gaze on Christian and his friend, asleep in the warm golden light of the cabin. He gazes at them thoughtfully, then stamps a gentle kiss onto my forehead.
We sit there together for a few minutes, wrapped up in each other’s arms.
The silence is broken by the sound of the door opening and closing at the end of the passageway, then booted footsteps coming down the stairs. Robin steps into our cabin, the only one of us still completely soaked.
She looks at us, then at the two in the bunks, then back at us.
“You two are completely out of your minds, you know that? That was – I’ve never seen – and what were those golden flashes of light I kept seeing in the rain?”
“It’s a long story,” I mumble, rubbing my eyes.
Robin lets out a heavy sigh, squeezing some rain out of her braid. “Are you guys alright?”
“Yes,” Aiden rumbles tiredly. “Thank you for getting us in and out of there without smashing the boat up. I have no idea how you did that.”
Robin shakes her head admonishingly. “I can’t believe you just did that. Any of that. You’re actually not supposed to jump directly into the raging ocean if you see someone drowning, you know. You’re supposed to toss them a lifeline.”
“Christian didn’t seem in a fit state to catch one,” Aiden says, leaning his head back against the wall.
“No, but – still!” Robin runs her worried eyes over Aiden, then me. “You sure you’re not hurt?”
“We’re okay.” I tilt my head back and let her see my eyes, so she knows I’m in earnest. “We’re just glad everyone’s alright.”
Robin is obviously relieved to hear it. She looks at us with a very warm expression in her eyes. I get the sense that she deeply appreciates what we did, even if we’re getting a little scold for it.
“Alright may be pushing it,” she laughs weakly, pushing her drenched bangs out of her eyes. “But we’re back in the inlet, at least, so the squall isn’t so bad here.”
Aiden glances at the window in our cabin, but it’s too blurred with rain to see out of. “Are we docked?”
“We’re anchored. Got us in a nice little cove.”
That explains why the waves aren’t shaking us the way they were before. I can take another big sip of my coffee without spilling it, thank god.
Christian suddenly stirs in Aiden’s bed. Robin crosses our cabin to him, then gently rests a hand on his shoulder.
“Easy, now,” she murmurs.
Christian slowly rolls onto his back and looks up at her.
“Skipper?” he mumbles, bewildered.
“Hey, kid.” She gives his shoulder a very gentle pinch. “How are you feeling? Alright?”
“I…” He stares up at her in blank confusion, running a dazed hand over his hair. “I guess so… what – what happened…?”
“The ocean punched you right into a cliff,” Robin tells him, in her calm, steady voice. “We were afraid you hit your head, but it seems you just got the wind knocked out of you. And then a lot of seawater knocked into you.”
He sits up a tiny bit, dropping his gaze to the blanket covering him. “Where are my clothes?”
“We took them,” I explain, then wince apologetically when he looks over at me in bewilderment. “Sorry, but I didn’t want you two to get hypothermia, and that’s what our friend who’s an EMT told me to do, so. They’re hanging up to dry.”
Christian, who hastily laid back down with a wince after his attempt to sit up, stares at me in blank confusion, then looks up at Robin again.
“But I… I don’t understand…”
“We found you in some trouble, Christian,” Robin explains calmly. “We saw your flare.”
“My flare…” Christian thinks about that for a second, then sits bolt upright with a sharp, jagged gasp. “Oh my god, Demir! He was in the cabin, he was trying to find the backup radio – we took a knockdown while he was in there and I couldn’t get to him-”
“It’s okay,” Robin smoothly interrupts, pointing at the top bunk. “We got him. He’s right up there.”
Christian’s eyes focus on the arm hanging down from the top bunk. He reaches up slowly, feels Demir’s pulse through his wrist, and falls back against the bed, weak with relief.
“Is he okay?” he rasps softly.
“We think so.” Robin straightens up to take a look at Demir. “Something fell in the cabin when you took the knockdown, knocked him out. But he woke up for a minute, and he was answering our questions alright. So far as we can tell he just has a little cut on his forehead.”
“But our friend said you should both go to the hospital when you get back to Port Sitka,” I add tiredly. “Just to make sure you’re okay.”
Christian gives his head a slow nod, staring up silently at Demir’s arm.
“I told him we’d be fine…” he rasps hoarsely.
He sits up again without warning and looks imploringly at Robin. Dragging a trembling hand over his face, suddenly on the brink of tears.
“The squall came at us out of nowhere! It wasn’t on the weather report, I swear – and Demir hasn’t sailed before, he was trying to help, but – and the radio was just gone, because we took two knockdowns! I couldn’t see anything clearly, for a second I even thought that I saw a woman swimming in the water, and I couldn’t even focus on that because I was afraid we were gonna pitchpole, and – I – I tried my hardest, but we just got thrown right into those rocks-”
“You did good, Christian.” Robin gives his shoulder a squeeze, then uses it to ease him back down onto the bunk. “As well as you could do, taking a boat like that into something like this. Nice work getting the flare off. It was a big help in finding you.”
Christian pauses, his eyes full of relief.
“Don’t start fretting,” Robin adds. “This was a good day for your cred, if anything. Every sailor worth their salt has had the ocean take the reins right out of their hands at one point or another. And now you can claim a bona fide brush with the Sitka Siren.”
Christian blinks hard at her, his eyes opening very wide. “I can? That was her?”
Robin nods in solemn confirmation. “Mhm, so get excited for everyone at the pub trying to buy you a round so they can get the story.”
Christian lets out a ragged laugh, then runs a dazed hand over his hair again, swallowing hard. “Are – are you sure Demir is alright?”
“Seems that way to us. When he woke up he was mostly concerned about where you were.” Robin straightens up, listening to something. “There are a few others here who want an answer to that question, too. Back in a minute, okay?”
“Okay,” Christian murmurs softly, closing his eyes in exhaustion.
Robin gets up and slips out into the passageway, leaning over to speak quietly as she goes past us. “Keep an eye on him.”
Aiden and I give her a nod of agreement. It’s not a hard task, because Christian simply lays silent on the bunk. I think he forgot that we’re here. He slowly rubs his eyes, then opens them quickly as Demir stirs in the top bunk.
Demir’s head pokes out from under the covers, his damp hair all tousled up, falling forward over the little white strip of bandage on his forehead.
With his eyes half open, he gathers the blanket around his body and drags himself towards the ladder. Aiden starts to move to help him, but he’s down it before Aiden can even get to his feet.
Christian sits up sharply, letting out a gasp of relief.
“Demir… oh, my god, I’m s-so sorry, I never should have brought you-”
He breaks off as Demir drowsily crawls into the tiny bunk and crams himself in beside him. He snuggles himself under Christian’s blanket, pulls his own blanket over both of them, then folds an arm over Christian’s chest and buries his face in his neck.
“You’re okay?” he asks softly.
Christian bites his lip, then nods, wrapping an arm around him. “Are you?”
Demir nods, and Christian lets out a long, slow exhale. Holding him tightly, silently.
Aiden and I steal a swift, smiling look at each other. He gets up, helping me to my feet.
A burst of fast footsteps on the stairs stops us before we can slip out into the passageway. Kendrick comes bursting into the cabin, followed swiftly by Xavier. Kaden hurries in a moment after them, his eyes wide with worry. All three of them are out of breath, spattered with rain.
“Shit, Christian!” Kendrick rushes over to the bunk and drops down to his knees beside it, stammering through his words. “Holy shit, dude, are you okay?”
“Yeah,” Christian says tiredly, accepting the hand slap Kendrick offers him. “Are you guys? Sounded like you were in some kind of trouble…”
Xavier lets out a thin sound of disbelief. “We’re fine, don’t fucking worry about that!”
Christian nods, his eyes warm with relief, then freezes as Kaden asks – “Who’s this, Christian?”
Christian glances down at Demir, who’s fallen back asleep, cozily snuggled up against his side. “This, um…”
Kendrick’s eyes open very wide again. “Wait a second… isn’t this the foreign exchange student your brother brought back with him from grad school earlier this year, so he’d have somewhere to stay over spring break?”
Christian sits up, blushing deeply all of a sudden. “He’s – so, there – was-”
He’s cut off as Xavier bursts into laughter, Kaden lets out a low whistle, and Kendrick breaks into an enormous grin.
“Oh, man,” Kendrick laughs. “Does your brother know about you and his friend?”
“Are you guys naked under there?” Kaden snickers, using his cane to start lifting the blankets.
Christian swats it away, letting out a deep groan that’s half a laugh, the blush in his cheeks darkening. “For fuck’s sake, shut up! This isn’t how I wanted y’all to find out! We were just supposed to come pick you guys up!”
Kendrick, Xavier, and Kaden all grow serious again immediately. Kaden folds an arm around Christian from behind, giving him a grateful squeeze.
“We’re so sorry,” Kendrick says, quietly and earnestly. “We didn’t know it was gonna be that dangerous!”
“Nobody could’ve, with the weather turning like that,” Robin says firmly, from the doorway. “We didn’t get the report, either. Someone must have fucked up. It happens.”
“Still,” Kaden says anxiously, wincing at Christian. “We’re sorry, man…”
“It’s okay,” Christian breathes, laying back down, running a hand over the bruises I left on his chest trying to save him. “Except… oh, no… dad’s boat… he’s gonna kill me.”
“No,” Kaden says firmly. “No, trust me. He’s just gonna be glad that you’re okay.”
Aiden gently tugs on my hand. I let him lead me out into the passageway, and Robin slips out ahead of us.
“You two,” she says quietly. “We need to talk.”
“Fair enough,” Aiden yawns. “Can we all sleep and eat first, though? Please?”
“Yes. But after that!”
“We will,” I promise. “We’ll talk.”
Robin gives us a nod, then heads out onto the main deck. We need to sort out how we’re getting everyone home. Thankfully the boat that picked up Kendrick, Kaden, and Xavier is anchored beside us in the cove at the moment, so we should be able to figure something out. Besides, it’s a good problem to have. The trouble of having people who need to get safely home.
I peek over my shoulder just once before we leave the cabin behind. Christian is sitting up, talking to his worried friend and cousins, assuring them that he’s okay. Demir has wound an arm around his waist in his sleep, a situation which Christian is blushingly trying his hardest to ignore.
I feel an exhausted smile climb into my eyes, watching them.
Aiden’s words drift into my head. I keep worrying that one day we’ll have a rescue that’ll make you change your mind.
No. Not a chance. It may sound backwards, like a ridiculous result to come from a rescue like the one we just did, but – I feel even more sure of that than ever before.
I let my Guardian lead me back out into the storm, certain to my soul that I wouldn’t change anything, anything about being with him.
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