Chapter 235: Reid
This is the worst thing I’ve ever seen.
By the time we clear the spray and line up on her beam, he’s dragging her across the deck—fist in her hair, hand at her throat—her mouth open on a sound I can’t hear over the weather. Her wrist hangs at a wrong angle. Blood slicks one arm. My blood went cold then.
Now it’s sand in my veins.
He throws her.
She hits and slides and I see the shard before I can make my brain refuse it—a long knifed piece of glass, and then she’s on it, and then she’s not moving. Blood fans under her, fast, too fast, rain turning it into thin rivers that find the scuppers. Her small body goes limp, pale, the wind pushing wet hair across her face like a shroud.
“Ram the boat!” I roar. “RAM HER.”
“We’ll roll her if we hit beam-on—” Jake barks, fighting me and the wheel at once. Cruz snaps, “You’ll flip both vessels—”
“I don’t give a flying fuck. Get me close enough and I’ll jump. If this boat sinks, so be it.” I don’t recognize my voice. It scrapes steel.
They argue for a heartbeat that costs blood, and I scream so loud it tears something in my throat. Jake shoves the throttles. He works the swell—not straight in, but smart, quartering, sliding the troughs. The red bow shoulders in, closer, closer, until the Vigil rears in our window like a wild thing.
“Door!” Jake shouts.
I slam the side door open. Spray punches into the wheelhouse. The moment hulls kiss, I go. Cruz is a shadow at my shoulder, then air, then deck. One heartbeat later Jake is with us and the red boat, unmanned, drifts off the swell, slewing starboard.
We run.
We hit the bow. The spot where she fell is empty, nothing but a smear of red, glitter of glass, gear rolling useless in the rain. My vision tunnels. I wheel, scanning, throat raw, and—
He has her.
He’s scooped her up, both arms under her like she weighs nothing. His face is wrong, eyes too big, whites showing. “I didn’t mean to kill her,” he says, almost conversational, almost pleased. “Not really.” He looks down at her face like he’s admiring something he made. “But I can’t have her dead in front of me. I need to get rid of it.”
It clicks in my skull like a gun racking. “No!” I lunge. Cruz does too. Jake’s voice breaks on her name.
Too late.
Nick steps to the rail and throws her overboard.
The men on the Grayling scream—a raw, tearing sound—and it cracks something in me clean through. Grown men, terrified for my girl. Helpless.
I’m not.
Shoes off—one kick, then the other—and I hear somebody on the Grayling shout, “No! You’ll die in that—” but I’m already running. Two steps, three, rail, air—
The ocean hits like knives.
Cold hammers every inch of me at once. Rain has turned the surface to black static; underneath is worse—dark and heavy, a hand closing over my head. My lungs seize and try to gasp; I crush the instinct down and kick. The swell lifts, drops, spins. I dive, open my eyes into the sting, see nothing but green-black blur and bubbles, come up, rip air, go under again.
Where. Where.
Panic wants to scatter me; I force my mind into a grid and turn tight circles, scanning. Another wave shoulders me sideways; I swallow a mouthful of salt and choke on it. Then—like a struck match in the dark—fire.
Copper hair, dull under rain but still itself, a flare of gold where the wave crests lift it.
I go. Harder than I’ve ever swum. Arms burn, shoulders bite, ribs complain, none of it matters. I take another hit of seawater and don’t stop until she’s in my hands.
“Got you,” I rasp, and it comes out a prayer. “Got you, baby. I’ve got you.”
She’s limp. Unconscious. Her lips are a deep, wrong blue-purple. When I slide my hand around her side to pull her in, something caves under my palm—soft where it should be hard. I flinch, adjust, drag her up against me with the other arm, keep her chin above water. Broken ribs. My stomach flips; I lock it down.
“Madeline,” I say, mouth to her temple. “Stay with me. Don’t you fucking do this. Breathe. Breathe. I’ve got you. Please—please, hold on.”
The Grayling swings in to windward, engine feathered, her bow working the sets like a seasoned hand is on her. A heaving line arcs out; a horseshoe buoy hits the water two yards wide, then a second line snakes down with a canvas civière—basket stretcher rigged for rough lift. Hands everywhere on their rails. “Here! Here!” Noah’s voice—young, stretched thin. “We’ve got you—bring her to us—easy—easy!”
I turn us, keep my body between her and the Vigil, and catch a glimpse across the chop—Jake on top of the bastard, fists and fury, Cruz jamming an arm around Jake’s chest, trying to peel him off without giving up the advantage. The Vigil slews, ugly and unattended. There’s no chance in hell I’m taking her there.
“Here,” a Grayling deckhand yells, knuckles white on the line. “Get her in the sling—watch her side—watch—easy!”
I muscle her into the civière, cradling her head, guiding her broken body so the canvas takes it, not the hard edges. Her blood blooms pale in the water, ribbons fading to nothing. “I’m right here,” I tell her, even if she can’t hear me. “Right here. Don’t sleep. Stay.”
“Haul!” someone shouts above. The line goes taut; the stretcher rises, water pouring off its corners. Hands reach, grab, pull her onto their deck.
I turn to the ladder, fingers dumb with cold, and find rungs. My muscles don’t want to work; I make them. Up, up. Air saws in and out; rain needles my face; the world tilts and I hang on.
I go up the ladder.