by Nelson, Dara
Finally, after what seemed like minutes to me, Matt pointed to his watch. ‘It’s almost dawn, sweetheart, we need to get back above.’
I so did not want to stop, but I nodded my head. ‘Okay,’ I thought. Matt untied the rope from the railing and we followed it up.
Omoruyi was waiting for us. “I was just getting ready to contact you,” he said. “We have to get out of these shipping lanes and into fishing waters before the sun rises.”
“We know,” Matt said as we took off our wetsuits. Omoruyi went above and started the engine. We were in prime fishing territory fifteen minutes later. We set up the poles (without bait of course) so that we blended in better. Then he said, “I slept a little while you were below, why don’t you go catch a couple hours of sleep? We can switch at, say, eleven?”
“Sounds good, thanks Omoruyi,” I said as I led Matt below. We fed and then crawled into bed. Exhausted from spending the entire night in the water, I wrapped Matt’s arm around me, snuggled in close to him and fell quickly to sleep.
I was awakened a few hours later by the pain. Oh my God, the pain. My arms, my neck, my eyes, everything was burning. I tried to rub my arms to get them to stop hurting, but nothing helped. “Sarah!” I heard Matt say, but I couldn’t find him, it was too dark. It was pitch black. “Sarah, wake up, honey.”
My eyes fluttered open and tried to take in my surroundings. “Honey, you were dreaming.”
It took me a few seconds to realize what he had said then I curled into a ball and felt the sobs. “Sarah, it was just a dream. You’re fine now.”
I shook my head, “He’s hurting, Matt. He’s in so much pain down there. Oh my God, we have to find him,” I sobbed.
I felt Matt’s hand on my hair. “Honey, it was probably just a dream.”
I couldn’t stop myself, I turned and glared at him,. “It was not a dream,” I snapped. “It was him.” I regretted it the before I even said it, but I couldn’t stop myself. I squeezed my eyes shut and reached for him. “I’m sorry,” I whispered into his chest.
“Don’t be,” he said. “You’re sure it was him?”
I nodded. “Yes,” I whimpered.
“Well, hopefully that means we’re close. And it means he’s still alive,” he said.
Suddenly, out of nowhere, I had to let Matt know it was him, and only him that I wanted. I don’t know where it came from, I only knew it was there and nothing was going to stop me, nothing. I crushed my mouth onto his, finding his tongue with mine. I tried to pull him on top of me, but he resisted. “Honey,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth. “We can’t.”
But I could feel his body already responding. I linked quickly with him. ‘We can and we will, and don’t you dare try to stop me Matthew Pearl, just shut the hell up and enjoy it.’
He pulled back and grinned at me. ‘Do you have any idea how much you just turned me on,’ he thought before his mouth crushed down onto mine again.
‘Show me,’ I thought, stifling the groan that threatened to escape. ‘The floor,’ I thought. ‘The mattress makes noise.’ I wrapped my legs firmly around his waist, pulling him deep inside me as he tried not to groan while he took us down to the floor, where I stayed firmly on his lap, as we rode the waves in the water and our own waves at the same time.
I rested my head on his chest, trying quietly to catch my breath. ‘Sorry about the scratches,’ I thought.
‘Jeez, woman, don’t you dare apologize for that. They’re already healing. But the things I felt your body do, holy crap… that was amazing. Just thinking about it and I’m getting all worked up again.’
‘I can tell,’ I grinned. Suddenly his mouth was on mine again. ‘Again?’ I thought.
‘We have thirty minutes until we have to go above… and I’m using every… single… one… of… them,’ he thoughtWe emerged into the bright sun at eleven on the dot and Omoruyi went below to sleep. We sat on the bench seat in the shade while we scanned the water for other boats.
I grew anxious and impatient as the day seemed to drag on. I really needed to get under the water soon. We had the area mapped out into twelve grids and we managed to get through two yesterday. I was hoping to do three today. I went and snuggled into Matt and tried to draw some calm from him. He wrapped his arm around me and kissed my forehead. “I know this is hard for you, and I’m really sorry for that,” I said. “It’s hard for me too, because you still think that I don’t know what I want, but I do. I know that I’m here searching for my best friend with the only man that I truly love, that I love down to the depths of my soul. But I don’t know how to convince you of that. I hate that I gave you a reason to doubt me.”
“Sarah, don’t blame yourself for any of this. This wasn’t your fault. This was Malina, all Malina. She pushed us all to our limits and it’s pretty amazing that the only effect we suffered was a little doubt. It could have been so much worse. And as for convincing me, well, after this morning I’d have to say that you’re doing a mighty fine job of that,” he grinned as he leaned in to kiss me.
I pulled back and stared at him. “This isn’t just about sex, Matt. If it was it’d be easy.”
“Easy, am I?” he said smiling. I stared at him for a few seconds, then attacked him, kissing him hard as my tongue found his, guiding his hand up to my breast, reaching down between his legs and squeezing. He groaned and I pulled back. It took him a few seconds to catch his breath. “Okay, you’re right,” he gasped, “if it was just sex it would be easy. But how can there not be any doubt at all, Sarah? You haven’t seen him in months and the last time you saw him you weren’t sure. So how you possibly know for certain until you do see him again?”
“I just do, Matt. The same way I knew not to be afraid of you when I first saw you on the pier. The same way I knew that going on this adventure with you was the right thing to do. The same way I knew that the Elders weren’t being honest with us. The same way I knew when Malina was going to attack us. I don’t know how I know these things, I just do. The only time it’s ever been messed up for me was when I watched that DVD, when I watched you die. If I hadn’t shut down so quickly, I might have been able to figure it out and save us all this heartache. But the truth is, shutting down was the only way I could survive at the time. It’s the only way that I was able to stay alive at the time, but it also messed something up in me, something that took a little while to fix, but it is fixed now, Matthew, I know it is.” I couldn’t say anymore now, I had too many emotions coursing through me, and to tell the truth, I really wasn’t sure. I was trying to convince myself just as much as I was trying to convince Matt. I didn’t want to hurt him anymore. I didn’t want to hurt Carlos anymore.
Matt studied me for a bit, then he nodded and wrapped me in his arms. “Alright, honey, I believe you. No more doubt.” His hand gently brought my chin up. “I love you, Sarah Pearl.” His mouth came down on mine with one of those kisses. I knew I should stop him, I really couldn’t afford to be flustered and stupid right now, but there was nothing inside me that could stop him. The fact of the matter was that, despite how they affected me, I truly loved these kisses and I never wanted them to stop. The only thing that stopped this one was Omoruyi’s voice as he cleared his throat. Matt pressed his forehead to mine. “Sun’s down, let’s go find him,” he said. I nodded as the boat’s engine roared to life.
We had a busy night, searching grids two, three, eight and nine, but found nothing. Thankfully I had a dreamless sleep the next day, but after searching grids four, five and ten, finding nothing and knowing there were only three grids left before we were out of the shipping lanes and into the open ocean, where the currents were like a washing machine… well, my hopes were dying along with a piece of my heart.
The next day at dawn, we sat at the stern of the boat with our feet dangling in the water. We had just finished searching the last three grids – six, eleven and twelve, and found nothing, and I could feel the panic building in me. “Maybe we should start back at the beginning, we must have mi
ssed something,” I said.
“Sarah, the current wouldn’t have pushed him that way,” Matt said.
“But, maybe he’s stuck underneath something and the current can’t move him. Matt, we can’t just leave. He’s down there, we have to find him,” I sobbed. He wrapped his arm around me. “Okay, honey. We’ll try the first grids again, but not until tonight. The sun’s coming up soon. We have to move the boat, okay?” I nodded into his chest and Matt turned and nodded to Omoruyi. The boat roared to life and began to move toward the fishing ground.
Suddenly an image appeared in my head, an image that only Carlos could have been dreaming about, because I was wide awake and he and I were the only two who had seen this. It was Carlos and me, passionately kissing, in the broom closet that we had been forced to hide in when Matt was bringing someone to the interrogation room and he had given us explicit orders that he didn’t want this person to see us or know we were in the building. It was a tiny space and we were as close as two people could be and, well, things had happened that we couldn’t stop – kissing, grabbing, groping – just about everything short of sex – which probably would have happened if there had been enough room for us to take our clothes off.
“Stop the boat,” I yelled. Omoruyi killed the engine and I turned to tell Matt what I had seen, but my heart leapt into my throat instead. Oh, the pain that was on his face. His mind was still linked to mine from our time in the water. His eyes were squeezed shut… he had seen it too. “Matt?” I whispered.
“No, Sarah, don’t. Not now,” he turned and looked at me and the pain in his eyes killed me. I wanted to curl up in a ball, I wanted to disappear in my head, I wanted to go into a coma again. I couldn’t bear to see his pain. His beautiful fingers brought my chin up and he shook his head. “You’re not going anywhere, missy. Now, concentrate. Where is he?”
“I can’t,” I groaned.
“Sarah, goddamn it, he’s still my best friend. I need you to find him Sarah, find him and bring him back.”
I nodded, took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I reached out my mind, searching, trying to find any spark. ‘Carlos!’ I thought. ‘Please, Carlos. I’m here, I’m right here, but I need a little help. I can’t find you.’
‘…Hide…..and…..seek?’ he thought and I gasped, squeezing Matt’s hand so hard that he winced.
‘No more hiding, Carlos. Show me where you are, please?’ I thought.
‘….Give…up…then?’ he thought.
‘Yes, I give up, you win. Open your eyes, please? Show me where you are.’
‘But it burns, Sarah.’
‘I know it does, honey, and I’m so sorry. But if you open them and look around, just once, really fast, then I’ll get you and make the burning stop, okay?’
‘Promise?’ he thought.
‘Promise.’
‘On the count of 3, k?’ he thought.
‘Ready, Carlos,’ I said as I linked with Matt too.
‘One… two… three.’
Matt and I both gasped at the pain. We squeezed our hands together and pushed through it. ‘There,’ Matt thought. ‘The stern, see the stern, he’s pinned under that smokestack that we saw behind the stern, the one that broke off.’ The image went black. I grabbed my mask as Omoruyi started the engine.
“Grid 7, Omoruyi,” Matt said. My head dropped to my chest as the sobs began. Matt’s arm came around my shoulder, but I pushed it off.
“No,” I gasped. “I don’t deserve you. All I ever do is hurt you.” I leaned away from him as far as I could go. He reached over and pulled me onto his lap. I tried to push away on his chest, but I had no strength in my arms, I was sobbing too hard. I gave up and buried my face in his chest. He kissed my temple.
“Sarah, nothing that has happened has changed how I feel about you. If anything, it’s made me realize even more how much this, us, means to me.”
“I’m so sorry,” I whimpered.
“I know,” he said as the boat came to a stop.
Omoruyi said from behind us, “We only have a few minutes, please hurry.” We turned and nodded, then looked at each other.
“Ready?” Matt said. I nodded and we dropped into the water. It only took us a few seconds, but it seemed like it took forever. As the stern came into view, we both veered left, quickly finding the smoke stack. We moved around to the far side and that’s when we saw him. ‘Oh my God,’ Matt thought.
‘How?’ I thought. ‘How are we going to get him out?’ The only part of him that was visible was his head and the right side of his chest, the rest of him was buried under the broken smokestack.
‘I doubt we can lift it, let’s try digging so we can pull him out, okay?’ Matt thought. I nodded and we moved to both sides of him.
‘Carlos, we’re here,’ I thought
‘It’s about friggin’ time,’ he thought. ‘What took you so long? Ahh ahh… don’t do that, it hurts.’
‘Sorry, but we have to,’ Matt thought, ‘but we’ll try to hurry.’ We dug at a feverish pace. ‘Try pulling now,’ Matt thought.
I reached down and grabbed his hand, and he screamed. ‘Don’t touch me, please don’t touch me.’
‘I’m sorry, Carlos, but we have to. We can’t get you out unless we touch you,’ I thought, trying to sound calm, when my insides were anything but. I pulled as he grimaced, but he moved a few inches.
Matt moved from side to side, digging as fast as he could. ‘Keep pulling,’ he thought. Pretty soon he was out far enough for me to grab under both arms, but I couldn’t grab both hands, his left one was too mangled. I shoved both feet into the sand, trying to get a good foothold, and pulled as hard as I could. Suddenly I was on my back, with Carlos on top of me. Matt swam over to me and lifted him off me. We both put our arms under him and began quickly swimming towards the surface (though vampires do breath, it’s not physiologically necessary – we mostly do it out of habit from our human lives and for the sense of smell).
Omoruyi was waiting for us at the stern. “Hurry, we must hurry,” he said as I saw the sun appearing on the horizon. Carlos was, thankfully, unconscious. The pain from pulling him out must have knocked him out. Omoruyi grabbed under his arms and pulled him onto the back of the boat then he ran to the helm and started the motor. Matt and I barely had time to jump onto the swim platform before the boat was flying through the water. We steadied each other and crawled over to Carlos. We lifted him and carried him below where he wouldn’t be seen if we were stopped. We laid him on the floor and we went to work. I found a bucket and filled it with warm fresh water, grabbed a washcloth and said, “Get his clothes off, we have to wash the salt off of him.” Matt tore off what little was left, it looked like several creatures tried to take a bite out of him, but only got cloth. Yes, it crossed my mind that Carlos was naked in front of me, with my husband two feet away, but no, that couldn’t bother me right now. There was too much work to be done first. I didn’t want to rub, I was afraid that his skin might rub off, so I just gently squeezed the washcloth over him, starting at his head and working my way down. Matt grabbed another washcloth and did the same. We looked at each other when we neared the bottom of his belly.
“Ummm, I’ll do his feet and legs, you do his…” Matt said.
“Gee, thanks,” I said as I squeezed the cloth so that the water dripped over his crotch – and despite the state he was in, the pain he was in, I couldn’t help being impressed with what was resting against his left thigh. I forced my eyes to look away, several times, since they seemed to be drawn back as if they were metal and his shaft was a magnet. We finished and then I gently rolled him toward me, trying not to notice that it flopped onto my knees when I did. “Pull his clothes out and then do his back, while I hold him.” Matt had almost finished when Carlos suddenly started thrashing and coughing. All the seawater inside him came out onto my forearm – which was cradled under his head – along with a few small fish and two tiny hermit crabs.
I smiled at Matt. “I suppose I deserved that,” I said
. “Can you put some towels on the bed? We need to move him up there.”
Matt laid the towels down, then stepped aside, “You move him Sarah.” My eyes begged him not to make me do that. “You’ll be gentler than I can be,” he said as his hand rested on my cheek. He kissed my forehead. “It’s okay,” he whispered. Since I was between the bed and Carlos, I got up and moved around to his other side while Matt held him on his side. I locked my eyes on Matt as he laid him on my arms, and I kept them locked on him as I picked Carlos up and gently laid him on the bed, quickly covering him with the sheet. Then I made my way to Matt’s arms. He held me for a few minutes then said, “We need to get out of these wetsuits, Sarah.”
I nodded, then looked at him. “Ummm, where? The bathroom’s not big enough to change in.”
Matt rolled his eyes at me. “Sarah, stop being so sensitive. He’s a wreck and completely out of it, do you really think I’m worried that you’re going to fall into his arms if you get naked in front of him? Please give me a little more credit than that.”
“I’m sor–” I began to say but Matt’s finger came to my lips and stopped me.
“No,” he said, “I’ve heard that enough. I know you’re sorry, Sarah. I don’t want to hear that anymore.” He reached behind me and undid the zipper on my wetsuit, as I pulled down the zipper on his. We both peeled our wetsuits off then dried off with towels. I pulled on a sundress while Matt threw on a t-shirt and sweats.
“Hungry?” I said as I moved around the corner into the tiny kitchen.
Matt nodded and followed me. “What are you smiling at?” he said.
“Nothing,” I said, but an idea had come to me, and he was about to find out what it was. I put four pints of blood into the small microwave and handed two to Matt when it was done.
After we finished, he smiled, “Seriously, Sarah, what the hell are you smiling at?”
I leaned up to his ear and whispered, “I’m not wearing anything under my dress,” as I guided his hand between my legs. His shocked look quickly turned into hunger as his mouth found mine… I didn’t need to tell him twice.
