Chapter 63: Madeline
I lose track of time after a while. The sea has that effect on me—hours start to blur, the rhythm of the waves numbing everything else. I don’t know how long we’ve been sitting here, but I know it’s been long enough for my fingers to go completely numb now. I wiggle them inside my gloves and blow on them, but it doesn’t help much.
Jake shifts beside me, his gaze flicking to my hands. “You should go inside,” he says, voice low, steady as always. “Even just for a bit. Warm up.”
I open my mouth to agree—because yeah, I’m freezing—but before I can get a single word out, there’s a deep whoosh from the side of the boat. A sound so powerful, it vibrates through the deck.
I whip my head toward it, heart lurching.
Then—another whoosh, and a plume of mist explodes into the air. So close I can see the way it catches the sunlight.
“Oh my God—” I’m already on my feet, gripping the railing.
Jake’s voice cuts through the rush of wind. “Reid!”
One sharp hand signal, and the engines slow until the whole world seems to still. The water goes calm except for the ripples around us.
And there—right there, just off the port side—a massive humpback whale rises from the surface. The water rolls off its slick black back, sunlight sliding along the scars like silver threads. My breath catches in my throat. It exhales again, the sound echoing deep through my chest, and then the great, sweeping motion of its body as it dives—the fluke lifting high, grand and deliberate before disappearing beneath the waves.
I can’t stop smiling.
My whole body feels alive again, blood rushing to my cheeks from the cold and the thrill.
“Jake, look—look, she’s huge!” I grab my camera, fumbling with the lens. “Hold on, I’ve got it—” Click. Click. Another dive, and another burst of air erupts beside her.
I gasp. “There’s a second one!”
Jake’s already scanning the water, eyes sharp, focused, and he nods once, signaling toward Reid again. Reid moves to adjust something at the stern, then returns to the railing, that stoic face of his softened by the faintest smile. It’s small, almost imperceptible—but it’s there.
And that’s when it hits me.
We found them.
Hours of nothing but wind and cold, and now—the reward. The reason I do this.
For the next three hours, it’s like a dream.
Every few minutes, another breach of water, another plume of air, another glimpse of sleek gray skin breaking the surface. At one point, there are four—maybe five—moving together, their rhythm synchronized like some kind of dance. I can hardly write notes fast enough. My camera never leaves my hands.
“That one,” I say, pointing to a smaller fluke with a deep scar along the edge. “That’s #1224B. I recognize her from my first day—she had that injury on her dorsal.”
Jake leans in a bit to look where I’m pointing. “You sure?”
“Positive.” I grin, the words spilling out in one long rush. “It’s interesting though—she was alone that day, but now she’s with three others. I wonder why. Maybe the fish are better here, or maybe—”
He’s watching me again, not interrupting, just listening, and for a moment it’s hard to remember the cold or the time or that Reid is a few meters away watching the same thing.
We follow the pod for nearly four hours, careful not to get too close, but close enough to hear their breaths break the surface, deep and steady. The sound fills everything—my chest, my head, the air around us.
By the time Reid steps up from the controls and signals to Jake, the sun’s already starting its slow descent, bleeding orange into the water.
Jake gives a small nod back and turns toward me. “We’ll have to head in soon.”
I lower my camera reluctantly, snapping a few last shots. “Okay.”
The whales spout one more time, like a farewell, before slipping under the surface. I smile at the ripples fading away. “That was good,” I say softly.
Jake’s gaze lingers on the water, then on me. He nods once. “Yeah,” he says quietly. “It was.”
And for a moment, the only thing that exists is the hum of the engine restarting, the slow push of the boat through the waves, and the quiet satisfaction settling deep in my chest.
Reid turns the boat back toward the harbor, throttling just enough to slice through the still water without jarring the hull. The harbor’s a faint blur on the horizon now—so far it looks like it belongs to another world entirely. My cheeks sting from the cold, but my chest feels light, full, alive.
I start packing up my things, wrapping my camera in its cloth and securing the lens caps, my fingers fumbling from how stiff they are. “This is going to be so much data,” I say, smiling down at my notes. “But I’m excited. It’s… a lot, but the good kind of a lot.”
Jake crouches beside me, helping gather the equipment. He’s close—too close—and I can feel the warmth of him through my jacket when his shoulder brushes mine. He passes me a case without looking, his voice low.
“Then you’ll need to warm up before you freeze solid. Come up to the wheelhouse.”
I glance up, caught off guard by the same offer he made earlier. “I don’t want to bother Reid—”
Jake cuts me off, firm but quiet. “You won’t.”
He’s already standing, tall enough that I have to crane my neck to look at him. There’s no space for argument in his tone. So I nod and shoulder my bag.
He heads toward the stairs, and I follow, the boards creaking under our boots. The wind’s sharper now, slicing through the quiet hum of the engines.
Behind us, I hear voices—Finn and Liam. They’re arguing, loud enough to carry over the motor.
“I told you it wasn’t tight enough!”
“It was—you just didn’t double-check your end!”
Jake stops mid-step, frowning over his shoulder. “What now?” he mutters, his tone clipped. He turns back toward them, irritation tightening his jaw.
I keep moving, passing the row of storage lockers along the starboard side, tucking a loose strand of hair under my beanie. I don’t think anything of it—just another day, another small mistake the guys will laugh about later.
Then—
“Madeline, no!”
Finn’s voice rips through the air, sharp with panic. So much panic.
I don’t even have time to turn before I hear the heavy snap of a rope coming loose, the metallic screech of a latch giving way—
—and then a door slams open.
The impact hits hard and fast, knocking the air from my lungs. The world tilts, a blinding flash of white, and then—nothing.