Breathless (2 page)

Gabriel e turned to me, the smile dying on her face. “Oh my God, Edith, do you have to be such a baby?”

“I’m not a baby.” Despite my best efforts, I found myself squirming under the intensity of her glare. “I just . . . don’t feel good. Probably a little seasick or something. I think I need to go home.”

“Nah. You’l be fine. After we do this, I’l take you home.” Marty pinched my butt, making me gasp and tumble back onto the bench.

Gabriel e rol ed her eyes. “Seriously lame.”

Oh, God. Oh, God.
I searched the horizon for help. The waves burned orange as the sun made its descent into the water. The approaching night meant there were few boats remaining on the water and no sign of the Coast Guard.

Russel released Gabriel e and took his seat behind the wheel, then turned the key and revved the engine. “Let’s do this!”

Gabriel e clapped her hands. The rest of the squad cheered along.

Marty laughed as he slid onto the bench next to me. “This is going to be great.”

I was trapped—like a caged animal. My heart hammered inside my chest. Not a soft mass of tissue, but an iron wrecking bal determined to col apse my ribs. There was no escape. No stopping them. I dug my nails into the seat cushion, certain I was damaging the vinyl but not caring.

“Are you scared?” Marty’s sour breath stung the inside of my nostrils.

I turned away, sucking in my bottom lip to keep it from trembling. I would not let them see me cry.

“Don’t worry.” He pul ed me against him, his sweat sticking our skin together like paste. “I’l protect you.”

My stomach lurched, and I tasted bile on the back of my tongue.

Scott took his place behind the wheel and revved the boat’s motor. The growl was deafening. Russel stood up and pointed to a distant buoy, then jerked his hand back to Destin Beach. Scott nodded.

The red boat jumped forward, and Russel , mouthing a curse, jerked the throttle ful -speed. We flew through the water, and the speed flattened me against the back of my seat, leaving me gasping for the breath that was lodged in my throat.

Marty shouted wildly as Russel inched us closer to the stern of the red boat. When we were bow-to-bow, Gabriel e climbed up on the side bench, and, holding on to the rail, began to dance. The footbal players on the red boat clustered around their rail and encouraged her with shouts and whistles.

I pul ed my windblown hair back with both hands as I watched the approaching buoy grow larger ahead of us. If we made the turn at the speed we were travel ing, there was no way Gabriel e could keep her footing. I looked to Marty for help, but he continued to hoot like an idiot. Russel , oblivious, stared straight ahead.

I swal owed past the lump of fear wedged in my throat. “Gabriel e!”

Her eyes never left her crowd of admirers.

“Do you want to dance, too?” Marty pul ed me to my feet by my wrists. “Show ‘em what you got.”

He released me and I wavered, widening my stance to steady my balance in the jumping boat. Inch by inch, I shuffled toward Gabriel e, sliding my hands along the side rail, watching the buoy draw nearer. We only had seconds before Russel would make the turn that would bring us back to the beach. I had to get Gabriel e down before she fel overboard.

When Gabriel e was within reach, I slid my fingers around her ankle. She snapped her head around to face my direction, then shot me a seething look. “Please sit,” I begged.

She kicked her foot free of my grip and turned back to face the other boat, giving me a smug look over her shoulder before she released her grip from the rail and lifted her bikini top, continuing to thrust her hips.

We were at the buoy. “Gabriel e!” I shouted. This time I wrapped both my hands around her ankle.

“Get off me!” she shrieked. She gripped the rail and kicked out again. Her foot cracked into my jaw just as Russel jerked on the wheel, twisting the boat in the opposite direction. The blow sent me sprawling to the floor. I looked up in time to see Gabriel e’s wide-eyed gaze lock with my own a mil isecond before the force of the turn threw her into the air.

I screamed.

Russel turned toward me. After he’d noticed that Gabriel e was no longer with us, he let go of the wheel.

“Russel ! No!” Marty yel ed.

But it was too late.

We had been closest to the buoy when both boats made the turn to take us back to the beach. But when Russel let go of the wheel, our boat veered left and drove us straight into the side of Scott’s boat. The crunch of splintering fiberglass was loud enough to drown out my screams and the screams of everyone around me. The force of the impact ricocheted our boat into the air before it disappeared beneath my feet.

I could fly.

Or at least it felt like I could in the seconds I was airborne. Then gravity plucked me from the sky and hurtled me into the ocean. Colder-than-expected water greeted me and held me under. I fought the urge to scream, knowing I would drown if I did. I kicked hard, reaching for the surface.

Stil underwater, I opened my eyes, but immediately wished I hadn’t. The sun’s orange glow seemed impossibly far away. Fire replaced the air in my lungs. My vision blurred and I ground my teeth to keep my lips from parting. Final y, my head broke the water, and I cried out in what was more of a shout than a gasp of air. I rubbed my stinging eyes. I was alive . . . but for how long? When would help come? Would I be able to tread water until it did?

I fought to stay afloat, pul ed down by the weight of my terror—a heavy knot wedged inside my gut. My arms flailed and my breaths came in short, ragged bursts. If I didn’t get a grip soon, I was going to be dead in seconds. I forced myself to slow my breathing and pul in air as if I were sucking through a straw. With each breath, the tightness in my chest eased and the spots cleared from my vision.
A panicked soldier is a dead soldier, he just doesn’t know it yet
—isn’t that what Sir always said?

The sound of crying broke my thoughts. I searched for the source but couldn’t see past the splintered fiberglass, coolers, and vinyl seat cushions that floated around me. I swam forward, grabbed onto a cushion, and clutched it to my chest, giving my legs a reprieve. The buoy, which had been close enough to touch when we began our turn, was now yards away, an oddly-angled body draped over the bottom rung. I recognized the pink bikini bottoms as the one Gabriel e had been wearing.

My stomach lurched and I jerked my head away, feeling the tightness beneath my ribs return. “It’s okay. I’m okay,” I muttered over and over.

The unseen crier began to wail.

I shook my head in an effort to clear my mind of the sound. “It’s okay. I’m okay.” Hysteria twisted my words into a yelp.

There was a splash and someone screamed. I twisted in the direction of the sound only to come face to face with an orange and white cooler.

I heard Scott’s yel of “Oh God!” fol owed by another splash. He screamed, then shouted, “Shark!”

An icy bal of fear plunged into my stomach, threatening to drag me under the surface with its weight. I stretched my arm behind me and pushed back in the water, away from the screams. Before I had completed two ful strokes, something cold and slippery brushed along my calf.

I froze, too afraid to breath.

A girl screamed behind me. “Scott, no! Scott!”

I heard a gasp for air fol owed by more thrashing in the water.

I closed my eyes and tried to focus. Surely I had imagined the brush against my leg. My fear was getting the best of me. The smart thing to do was swim like mad in direction of the shore . . . wherever that was.

But then I felt it again—another brush against my leg, hard enough to make me bob in the water.

My jaw trembled so violently that it chattered my teeth. I was going to die.

What would Sir do if he were in this situation? My stepdad had served eight tours in Iraq. He’d survived landmines and ambushes. There was no way he would let some fish get the best of him. No, he would wrestle the beast like it was nothing more than a guppy.

But I was nothing like Sir, or the son he longed for.

Something bumped me, knocking me underwater. I came up sputtering. So pathetic. What would Sir say if he could see me now?

Soldiers don’t cry, they act!

I swal owed down a quivering breath and nodded. I needed to act.

The sun was setting to my left, which meant I needed to swim straight to get back to shore.

Are you waiting for a printed invitation?
the voice of my stepdad demanded.

“No, sir!” I shouted before taking a deep breath and diving headlong into the ocean.

The first tug at my ankle only startled me. The second shot needle-like ribbons of pain up the entire length of my leg. I tried to scream but was pul ed under the waves. Saltwater flooded my mouth. A glittering fish tail the length of my body passed before my eyes as I thrashed my way back to the surface.

I broke through the water and gasped, only to be jerked back under.

Fight!
Sir’s voice thundered in my head.

Despite the saltwater burning my eyes and blurring my vision, I could see them. I couldn’t make out what they were, but at least five large shapes swarmed around me.

I doubted even Sir could withstand such a fight.

Something nudged my back. I twisted around, only to find nothing there. Fear amplified my pulse into deafening waves inside my head. Another bump, but this time something cold slid around my leg and wrenched me further down. I fought the scream that rose in my throat and clawed for the surface, but whatever held me felt like an anchor. Sinking deeper, I watched, helpless, as the orange glow of the sun melted into the inky blue of the oceans depths.

I am going to die.

The realization drained the fight from my body. My muscles burned in relief.
Soon, now. A couple of minutes at most, and it will all be over.

I couldn’t believe death was actual y happening. My death. I’d often fantasized what it would be like to die. To me, death wasn’t the hooded skeletal figure come to drag you, screaming, into the abyss. Death was an out. An escape from late nights spent studying under the blankets to earn my meager slightly-above-average grades. An end to the Air Force Academy applications strategical y placed on my breakfast plate. And if I was gone, I could be with my brother instead of here. Where I was hated because I’d let him die.

But now, as certain death loomed in front of me, I was unable to remember a single line of poetry I’d written for just this moment. Gone were the words to wel -memorized prayers. Instead, the only thought running through my mind was this:
I hope it doesn’t hurt.

I closed my eyes and waited. Had it even been a minute? Seconds felt like hours. My heart beat wildly, echoing inside of my head like footsteps in a cavern.

When I thought I might go crazy with anticipation, my ankle was released and what felt like a row of razor blades cut into the side of my neck, popping my aunt’s pearls free from their strand. Reflexively, I opened my eyes and brought my hands to my neck, pressing a couple of pearls into my stinging wounds. Blood clouded my vision with a red haze.

I gasped, which I immediately regretted, as my mouth flooded with water. The raw flesh of my neck burned white-hot from the ocean’s salt. I wished death didn’t have to hurt so much or that it would go faster. My vision began to blacken around the edges, but the unconsciousness I desperately hoped for wouldn’t come.

I considered inhaling the water in my throat—that would speed up the process considerably. And yet, I couldn’t bring myself to do it.

You’re weak!
Sir’s voice roared in my head.

I nodded in agreement. I couldn’t kil myself. I could only lie stil and let something do it for me.

Just then, my head was jerked roughly by something pul ing my hair, and I found myself looking into the eyes of a girl not much older than me. An angel? I quickly abandoned that notion when a corner of her mouth pul ed up into a cruel smile. Her jet-black eyes never blinked. She was definitely more demon than angel. Did that mean I was going to hel ?

I held my hand up to clear the blood clouding the water and she pul ed back, hissing, the sound as clearly heard underwater as if I had been standing on the shore. Her midnight-blue hair swirled around her like a cloak. She was beautiful in her hate.

My heart pounded out a frantic warning that reverberated throughout my body. This was not what I wanted. The creature in front of me was not sent to set me free, but rather to devour me whole. Her bottomless eyes promised to savor every moment of my lingering pain.

I had to get away. I kicked for the surface, but she reached out and wrapped cold fingers around my throat.

My need for air was excruciating. With the last of my energy, I pried my hands around her slender fingers, which in turn, dug into my skin.

Her twisted smile was the last thing I saw before my world went black.

My throat felt like it had been scoured with steel wool. Each cough wracked my body with agony, forcing tears from my closed eyes. I shook my head slowly from side to side, hoping to calm the ocean waves crashing inside of my head. There wasn’t a place on my body that didn’t ache.

Someone exhaled sharply, then said, “She’s breathing.” The male voice was warm and thick, like honey. I couldn’t be sure, but I thought I detected a note of relief.

What was going on? Had I been rescued? I tried to lift my arm but my body felt foreign and useless. Moving wasn’t an option, and even though I knew the tide brushed against my feet, the water seemed miles away from where I was.

“Rest,” he whispered to me.

Rest? I would have laughed if I was able. It wasn’t like I could do anything else but lay there. I tried to open my eyes but I was unable to fight the velvet warmth of unconsciousness that pressed against me. Maybe I was dying, after al .

I heard a sound of female disgust. “Can’t you see how badly injured the thing is? It would be cruel of us to leave it in this condition. Al ow me put it out of its misery.” Hers was the voice of an eerie lul aby, and I cowered inside my lifeless shel .