Depths of Salvation (Love on the Edge)

by Lee,Molly E.

  Depths of Salvation

  Copyright © 2016 by Molly E. Lee

  All rights reserved.

  This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review. This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. This book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you’d like to share it with. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

  Visit my website at www.mollyelee.com

  Cover Designer:

  Regina Wamba at Mae I Design

  Editing:

  Karen Grove

  Second Editor:

  Nichole Strauss with Perfectly Publishable

  Interior Design and Formatting:

  Christine Borgford with Perfectly Publishable

  ISBN# eBook: 978-0-9973464-6-6

  ISBN# Paperback: 978-0-9973464-7-3

  Table of Contents

  Depths of Salvation

  Dedication

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  For Mom. You are always right—even when it comes to what daring hero I should write next.

  Sadie

  THE WEIGHT OF the scuba gear settled over my shoulders with a comforting familiarity, much like a pro-football player would feel with his pads. I moved through the water with fluid, arching motions, using the flippers on my feet to propel me toward the seafloor.

  I could swim this route with my eyes closed, and against a current if I had to. The cold temperature of the water threatened to puncture my suit, but my body adjusted quickly. The effort it took to push through the water at such a depth—one-hundred and twenty-feet—helped heat up my muscles, not to mention it was the best and most fun workout ever. I never understood people who ran marathons or did CrossFit, but drop me in the ocean and I could outlast even the best divers.

  I glanced over my shoulder, toward the surface where the sun’s rays broke through in columns, illuminating the sandy, ocean floor below.

  “You coming, Nemo? Or do you need me to hold your hand? Again.” I released the push-to-talk button on my Neptune Space G Diver Mask and eyed the lanky boy about fifteen feet behind me. He tried his hardest to keep pace with me, cutting his thin muscles through the water at a rapid speed. It wasn’t an easy feat, and I’d slowed my momentum, so he didn’t feel his diving skills were lacking. I enjoyed giving him a hard time. He was the youngest on my crew at only eighteen, but he was a hard worker, dedicated to the cause with as much passion, or more, than some of the most experienced marine preservationists I’d worked with before.

  “That was one time, boss. And it was only because I thought I had a shot with you.”

  I chuckled and returned my focus forward. “If I was ten years younger, honey, I’d be all over you.” The boy struggled with his confidence as it was, so I wouldn’t shut him down any harder than that. It had taken him weeks to speak more than three words to me—and months to call me by my first name instead of Ms. Jenkins.

  “I’m totally into the cougar thing.” His joking voice filled up my headpiece.

  I scoffed. “I’m only twenty-eight! Give me a few more years before you label me like that. Damn.” I swallowed hard.

  I may as well be a geriatric with how thriving my sex life had been since taking this job. I wasn’t exactly the catch of the island—a workaholic who spent more than fifty percent of her time underwater—but I’d had a few dates. They weren’t memorable and definitely weren’t bedroom material. I would’ve settled for a decent romp just to scratch the deep urge that had grown more powerful the longer I’d gone since my last decent encounter. It wasn’t that I didn’t want a relationship with someone, it’s just the men I’d met had always resented how much time I spent working, and they couldn’t handle the fact that they weren’t my number one priority. Someday I’d be able to put someone first, but not now. Not when my job was so crucial.

  My breath caught in my throat, the image of the sunken WWII cargo ship never ceasing to shock my senses. I’d seen it a thousand times since I was brought on by the island’s Head of Government to oversee the preservation of the ecosystem clinging to the giant ship’s rusting steel walls and crevices. Still, the sheer magnitude in size, let alone importance to the island above me, continued to punch me in the chest every time I reached the depths where it rested against the sandy ocean floor.

  “Which sector are we collecting from today, boss?”

  “I’ve told you a hundred times—“

  “You can call me Nemo, but I can’t call you boss? What the hell?”

  I laughed again. “Touché. Quadrant four. You stay on the perimeter, though. I lose connection with command central when I swim interior and will need you to stay within range to keep them updated on our progress.”

  “Copy that.”

  The muscles in my abs flexed as I continued to push, using my core to slice through the water and dive deeper toward the SS Falconer.

  What once was most certainly a beautiful steel-gray body, was now tinted green, with a variety of coral covering the exterior. Purple fans of algae swayed gently back and forth along the ship’s base as if welcoming me back.

  The new strain of algae—closely related to it’s red cousin, which grew at deeper depths than its green brothers—was one of the most exciting finds I’d had on a site in years, probably the most important one I ever would discover. Packed with antioxidant-like nutrients, the plant had cancer-fighting properties, among other disease-battling benefits. The massive purple plants grew around the ship, feeding off the delicate eco-system that had thrived there for the better part of fifty years.

  The ship was more than four-hundred-feet long with over sixty interior rooms, not including the larger-scale areas like the kitchen, cafeteria, and cargo hold. Once a World War II carrier, this ship had met its cold death ten days after the war started, having suffered a hit to the bow from a torpedo. There were causalities, but not every passenger was lost.

  As the circle of life persevered, with death came rebirth. The ship now housed over four hundred different species of marine plant and animal life. My team was hired to preserve the ecosystem that had thrived here for decades, as well as remove some plant samples to test for medicinal value. So far, the most significant discovery in the plant section had been the purple algae, but there was another plant that had shown just as much potential—a type of seagrass that appeared to be a new hybrid of moss and algae combined.

  The problem was the only place we’d found it growing was deep in the ship’s center, in a former dorm room whose floor had split upon hitting the seafloor. It had since merged to the sand, the roots threatening to claim it fully, and it was an absolute b
itch to reach. Going full penetration inside the ship was always a risk, with a number of obstacles all equally equipped to end my life. That’s why I had Nemo, incase I had a short in my light system or got disoriented from being fully enclosed with no visible exits. He could alert command and find me in an emergency situation.

  The trek would be a breeze if I could breathe underwater without any gear.

  That would make you a mermaid.

  I rolled my eyes and glanced down at my watch displaying my readings. I had to check to make sure I hadn’t lost track of time and was drunk on the combo of oxygen and Nitrox I had to breathe in order to stay submerged at these depths.

  The gear hindered passage through small corridors and was wicked dangerous to the inexperienced. Even for someone like me, who was a certified and veteran diver, I understood the risks every time I ventured into the ship’s center. I’d known, read about, and heard about too many divers to count who had died exploring the interior of a ship, and perhaps this risk was one reason I was the fifth marine preservationist approached when the Head of Government started hunting for one to study the site.

  A shoal of shimmering yellow striped fish fluttered past me as I grabbed the sides of a large door which had long lost its swing. The entire ship was on its side, as if when it had finally succumbed to its demise, it had simply turned over to take a long sleep on the bottom of the ocean floor. I gave Nemo a thumbs-up and plunged inside.

  Didn’t matter how often I’d been here, every time I lost sight of the natural light from above, my body had a mini panic attack. An ice-cold fist squeezed my chest, the adrenaline in my veins screaming at me to turn and swim as fast as I could toward the surface, toward anywhere but here—a dark enclosure deep beneath the ocean.

  I slowly breathed in through my nose and out through my mouth, my brain telling my body to calm the fuck down. The sensation never entirely went away. My survival instincts were primal, and they called me batshit crazy for taking risks like this.

  The reward was beyond worth it. A million and one possibilities were thriving within the ecosystem that had set up shop in the Falconer, and their benefits—to not only my research but the island’s sustainability above me—were well worth my life.

  I moved cautiously, and with a calculation I’d learned from my time spent within the patina walls of the ship. Another school of fish, these ones tiny and blue-striped, swam by me as I clicked on my flashlight and navigated through a curtain of seaweed that had overgrown a series of upended tables in what was once the ship’s cafeteria. The sea life around here—fish, anemones, coral, the occasional sting ray and sea turtle—used to bolt in every direction in a mad scramble when I’d first arrived on site, but they’d grown accustomed to me by now and seemed to tolerate my presence.

  The acceptance was welcome and fueled the passion I had for this job. I’d never wanted to do anything else, and every day I woke up excited to go to work.

  But that is all you ever do.

  I propelled down a thin hallway lined with steel doors, some still closed from the last time the ship had breathed fresh air. The silence within the ship was near suffocating, especially if I thought about being trapped on the other side of one of those locked doors. We hadn’t moved to an exploration of those rooms yet, and it would no doubt be a difficult process. Not only because I’d have to bring in an outsider—we didn’t have a professional underwater welder on staff who could get all the locked rooms open—but because odds were more bodies would be trapped inside, how much left of them would be the gruesome discovery.

  It was a hazard of preserving an ecosystem within a WWII cargo ship. Not all crew members had made it out. We’d discovered a dozen bodies in the cafeteria, weighted down by overturned tables or kitchen equipment. Most had been nearly consumed by the marine life, feasted on until there were only bits and strings of flesh clinging to the pure white bones.

  A chill raced down my spine, and I swallowed hard. We’d retrieved what we could, and sent the remains to the local authorities in the United States where the ship’s birth had been in order to be tested for identification. I didn’t know if there would be anyone left desperately seeking closure, but it wasn’t my call to toss them aside and pretend they weren’t here . . . like some preservationists elected to do. I couldn’t separate the fact that they had once been living, thriving humans fighting for their country before they’d given the ultimate sacrifice. I wondered if they’d be proud that their lives were serving such a purpose in the world below the water that had claimed them.

  Finally, I made it to the lowest level of the ship, and four doors down a small hallway, to the room that housed the seagrass. I halted just inside it, my eyes zeroing in on the slowly swaying strips of blue, the tint almost metallic and shimmering underneath the beams of my flashlight. I had to be careful about how much I extracted for testing—just as we had to with the purple algae. If we took too much or handled it abusively, then we could throw off the growth rate and possibly kill its progression completely.

  I reached behind me and grabbed the plastic bags I’d brought to hold the samples, before retrieving the tweezer-like pinchers I needed to gently remove a few strands from the floor. I kept my hands steady, and my body as light as possible, so I wouldn’t brush up against any portion of the plants. I slowly moved my hand toward it . . .

  “Boss.” Nemo’s voice sounded in my ear, and I jerked back as I felt the water roll around me from behind. I turned my head to investigate the source of the movement, desperately hoping it was a sea turtle or something else equally non-threatening.

  “Nemo, what the hell?” My eyes landed on him and my heart raced, fueled by both shock and anger. “You’re never to come into the structure without a partner! You know the rules. You could’ve gotten lost or stuck, and I wouldn’t have known!” I took a deep breath to slow my pulse and checked my readings. We had fifteen minutes left before we needed to book it to the halfway mark between here and the surface.

  “Sorry, I couldn’t reach you for some reason. Command needs us topside.”

  I shook my head and swam toward him. “I don’t care what command wants, you never come in here alone again, do you understand? You have years of training before you can do this . . .” I stared down at the bright yellow retrieval rope that was attached to my belt and trailed out of the room. I couldn’t believe he’d managed to follow it without snagging his gear on any of the crowding structures within the ship. I’d had to bail out plenty of rookies before in areas less cluttered than this. The fact that Nemo was capable of making it here safely spoke volumes about where he’d go in this business. Not that I would tell him that.

  “Understood, boss . . . Sadie.” His soft blue eyes gazed behind me, the wonder of the room sinking into them.

  I grinned, unable to stay mad at the kid for too long. I glanced back at the plants behind me. “What did command say?” Typically they never radioed down unless it was an emergency. “Not more pirates?” The cold fist was around my heart again for an entirely new reason. Pirates had grown too interested in our ship a few weeks ago, but we were able to get ahead of them and make it back to the island before they made a connection.

  “No. Liz said you were needed and that I was to make you understand the importance of the word urgently.”

  Damn. I sighed and nodded, wishing I’d been faster to get to the room and could leave it with something but rushing an extraction could damage the integrity of the plant.

  I motioned for Nemo to tuck out backward, and we left empty handed.

  The ship that operated as our base on the ocean’s surface above the Falconer was closer to a sports yacht than a vessel, but it had a cabin for each of my crew, where we could sleep comfortably for weeks if we chose to, and plenty of cargo space for all our gear. And, thankfully, it was the only ship in sight as we broke surface. Nemo had said it wasn’t pirates, but I couldn’t help the relief that uncoiled in my chest as I climbed on deck, noting its still-pristine condition and its lack
of any foreign boats around it.

  I carefully stored my gear and wrapped my long, wet hair in a topknot. Liz sat rigidly at her designated station in the pilothouse, her eyes sharpened on the controls without really looking at them. My gut turned over. Liz was normally the most easy-going of the crew, electing to play music over the loud speakers to break the tensions of a long day with a dance party. Seeing her so tense was enough to replace my sea-salted mouth with a sour tang.

  “Liz?” I touched her shoulder, drawing her attention.

  She blinked a couple of times and then straightened, her short blond hair brushing the tips of her cheeks. “Is Nemo on board?”

  I nodded as she looked over my shoulder.

  “Good.” She turned to Matthew, her first mate, and gave him a quick jerk of her head. He quickly punched in some coordinates and took the wheel. The ship slowly roared to life and turned toward the familiar direction of the island.

  I scrunched my eyebrows. “We weren’t due back on land for another week. Did our supplies spoil?”

  She shook her head. “We have bigger problems.”

  I swallowed hard. “Explain.”

  “You remember a few months back when the Head of Government held a meeting with a bigwig gas corporation and us?” She bit her bottom lip, her eyes turning up in thought. “Slade Pipelines?”

  “Yes.” I crossed my arms over my chest. “Don’t tell me—“

  “I am.”

  “You’re fucking joking!” I flung my arms in the air, pacing in front of her, unable to keep my anger in check. “They agreed. They said they could spare the mileage it would take to safely go around our site.”

  “Something changed,” Liz said. “I just got the call. They’ve submitted new technical schematics to Henrick with the pipeline’s new route, and there is a big-ass line right through your Falconer.” Her eyes softened. “I’m sorry, Sadie. I’ve got no power to fight this.”