by Opal Carew
“Let me get dressed.” Waverly ducked back inside long enough to throw on her uniform.
“Is the weather too bad for flying?” Archer asked. “I don’t like this.”
“I’m not going to let another person die if I can help it.” She dared anyone to stop her.
Miguel spoke up. “Hey, don’t feel the need to prove something just because I was an idiot before. No one thinks you had anything to do with Vanessa’s murder. If this isn’t wise, you shouldn’t do it.”
Ted groaned again, drawing their attention. He seemed less alert.
Captain Alex kept asking him who’d attacked him. He wasn’t responding.
“It’s the right thing to do,” she insisted. “I can fly in this. It’s not that long of a flight and I’ll be heading away from the storm. The sooner we take off, the better.”
Archer wrapped her in a bear hug. “Be safe.”
“I promise.”
“Come back quick. I’ve got more things to show you in the clubroom.” He kissed her then, branding her with his passion. Or at least he hoped he had.
Then there was less time for talking as people did their jobs. Tosin helped the doctor get Ted situated and into the chopper. Banks called ahead to the hospital and let them know there was a patient en route. Captain Alex spoke with the authorities.
Archer watched as his girlfriend climbed into a helicopter to save someone’s life.
She was amazing.
He held his breath as she lifted off and watched until she blended into the darkness. His chest ached when he could no longer make out the blinking lights on the helicopter.
“Let’s go to the bridge. That way you can still talk to her until she gets there safe,” Miguel offered, nudging Archer inside.
They got there just in time to hear Ted command Waverly, “Turn off the radio.”
Archer’s spine went ramrod straight. Why would he say that? And why didn’t he sound as out of it as he had been a few minutes ago? His condition should deteriorate as he lost more blood, not improve.
A couple of clicks came over the air before Waverly said, “Okay, it’s off. What’s up?”
Captain Alex acted quickly, mashing a few buttons on his own control panel. “I’ve muted our end so he thinks she really did it.”
If Ted believed that, he would be the stupidest guy on the planet. Then again, there was no faking how much he’d bled. Maybe he was afraid or wanted to make a deathbed confession, just in case. “Good, thanks. We’re not going to the hospital. Not to any island, either. Take me back to Caracas. Or someplace else in South America we can reach easily. Anywhere I can rent a car and be on my way. You’re the pilot, use your imagination.”
Every person on the bridge went quiet. Dead quiet.
“Why should I do that, Ted?”
Archer wondered if he was the only person who could hear the barest hint of fear in Waverly’s voice. For her, that was a lot. There was a whole heap of fuck you in her tone, too. That scared him to the bone.
“Because I’ll split the profits from selling these with you.” A rustle, and then a pause.
“Where did you get a giant ruby and a bunch of gold coins?” Waverly asked, clearly letting them know what was happening.
“NO!” Archer shouted as he swiped his arm across the table. He sent papers, glasses, instruments, and who knew what else crashing to the floor. This couldn’t be happening.
His nostrils flared. He had to do…something, anything, but there was no way to reach Waverly. He couldn’t intervene or assist. Helpless, all he could do was listen.
“Let’s call it a parting gift from your boyfriend. I found them in his safe after I overheard him telling Miguel the combination this morning. Saved me a step. I was going for the gun so I could take you hostage and maybe get some ransom money out of him. I mean, I know that didn’t exactly work out the first time I tried it, back in Caracas, but first I didn’t think he gave a shit about you. And then when they said he was on his way, those assholes took forever showing up. How did I know your boyfriend was going to get there so damn quick? He must really like you. Which is great for getting top dollar. But this…this is way easier.” He laughed then, and it was clear he might be a couple rubies short of a necklace himself.
“So what’s in it for me?”
“I’ll give you a cut. How’s thirty percent?”
“Why shouldn’t I haul you back to the Divemaster and collect a reward the honest way?” she asked.
“Don’t antagonize the wackadoodle, Waverly!” Banks shouted, though he knew she couldn’t hear him.
Ted didn’t say anything to that.
But Waverly did. “Oh. Well, I guess that answers the question about where my gun went.”
Archer couldn’t breathe, couldn’t see. Miguel and Tosin were there, holding him steady.
“If I’m crazy enough to stab myself to get airlifted to South America, I’m crazy enough to use this.” No one would argue with him about that. “If Vanessa hadn’t seen me coming out of your room and ran off to tattle, I wouldn’t have had to shoot her. Then I could have waited until tomorrow and taken off before anyone knew this stuff was missing. The room searches were getting closer. I couldn’t take any more chances. I’ve never done anything like this before. I don’t particularly like it either. Couldn’t stand it on that ship, being ordered around, nowhere to go to get away and no other skills to earn a living. What good is a ship’s officer who doesn’t want to live on ships? It was driving me nuts. I need a way out. This is it. Sometimes you do what you have to in order to survive, right?”
“Right. I know exactly what you mean,” she said.
Captain Alex muttered something about background checks. There hadn’t been any dirt to find. Archer didn’t blame him, or Banks, or anyone except Ted himself for this disaster.
“I’d like my gun back now, Ted.” Waverly sounded calm and almost friendly, though Archer knew she was seething inside.
“Um, how about no?” the punk answered.
“We both know that as soon as I land this helicopter, I’m of no use to you. What’s to keep you from shooting me then?” she asked.
Archer was wondering the same thing, and he couldn’t imagine this ending well.
In the background he heard Captain Alex calling in an update to the authorities. Why bother? There was nothing they could do either. Waverly was the only one who had even a bit of control over her future right now.
And he didn’t like her odds.
Ted didn’t answer again.
“Look…” Waverly tried another tactic. “You’re bleeding really heavily still. You’re going to need help to get fixed up. Give me the gun, and I’ll take it as a good faith gesture that you’ll keep your word on splitting the cash from the treasure. I’ll help you hide from Archer and back you up when the doctors ask where you got that gash.”
It said something that no one in the bridge reacted to her faux-bargain. Not a single person believed she would actually do that to him. Archer especially.
“Just fly, bitch.”
“If that’s the way you want it.” Waverly sighed. Then whispered, “I love you, Archer.”
“That’s sweet. But your boyfriend isn’t here to save you.”
“That’s okay. I’ve got this,” she said.
Right before a gunshot rang out and the communications with the chopper failed for real.
Archer didn’t care who heard—he howled, the sound tearing out of him like someone had ripped his soul from his chest. He crashed to his knees, unable to stand.
Everyone else in the room was still as statues, frozen by shock at what they’d just heard.
Not Archer. He went ballistic. “We’ve got to find her! What are her coordinates?”
Someone called out the final reading before everything had gone dark.
“It’ll take a few hours for the ship to get over there given the tides and this current, if we can even make it with the weather escalating and nighttime to contend wi
th. We could run aground. I don’t advise attempting it before dawn, if at all.” Captain Alex closed his eyes briefly. “In fact, I can’t do it. There are other people’s lives at stake on this ship. They’re my responsibility. I’m sorry.”
Miguel stepped up then. “Come on, Archie. We’ll take the Zodiac.”
“Is that prudent?” Banks asked, utter devastation twisting his features into an unrecognizable mask.
Captain Alex said, “No.”
At the same time, Archer, Tosin, and Miguel said, “Yes.”
“Wait.” Banks tried again. “Let’s think. Another senseless death, or three, isn’t going to bring her back.”
“Don’t talk like that! Like she’s gone!” It couldn’t be. Archer continued, “I’ll drop dead of a heart attack anyway if I have to sit on my hands for hours to find out what’s happened to her. She could be hurt. Without help, she might…no. I can’t take that chance. I wouldn’t be able to live with myself.”
“I said it wasn’t smart. But I won’t stop you.” Captain Alex admitted, “It’s what I would do if she was my girlfriend.”
So it was decided.
“Be careful, boys.” Banks did something Archer had never seen him do in all his life. He sank to his knees and began to pray.
The three divemasters slammed out the door and into the pouring rain. They prepped the boat without bothering to shout above the wind. Then they strapped themselves into life jackets. Just before they climbed in, the thing bucking so hard they clipped themselves to it with lines and carabiners, Archer turned to them. “This is crazy. I should go alone.”
“No way,” Miguel said immediately. “You can handle the navigation and the driving solo, but you can’t reach the spotlights from back there. Without those, you won’t make it more than a quarter mile before you’re lost or hit something on the surface and put a hole in this thing.”
“You’re wasting time,” Tosin agreed. “We’re doing this together.
With that, they launched the boat and took off, leaving the relatively safety and ultimate comfort of the Divemaster behind them, possibly for the last time.
Archer had never been so scared in his life.
Not because of the waves, or the storm…
But because he didn’t know what he would find when they reached Waverly’s final transmitted coordinates.
It was the longest thirty-five minutes of his life.
The rough ocean tossed the guys around like a rubber ducky in a whirlpool.
They’d circled the area Waverly had last radioed from at least a dozen times and didn’t see her anywhere. He wasn’t sure what he’d expected but was starting to feel foolish. It was entirely possible that his rash decision could get them all killed.
He refused to think about the possibility that Waverly was already waiting for them below the surface.
Every bit of him hurt.
“Archer, I hate to say this,” Miguel shouted from up front. “But…I think we’ve got to call it for the night. It’s getting rougher. We’re in trouble. I don’t even think we should try to make it back.”
Tosin didn’t say anything. Instead, he nodded, looking green.
“Fuck!” Archer yelled, then admitted defeat. “You’re right. Find someplace to beach this thing and ride the storm out. We can start searching again as soon as it’s clear.”
In his mind, he apologized to Waverly for giving up. I’m sorry. We tried our best. Hang on. Please, don’t you quit, too.
Chapter 24
“It’s okay. I’ve got this.” Waverly hoped her bravado eased the agony Archer was likely suffering while listening in on this conversation.
If she was going to have any hope of surviving this, shit was about to get even more fucked up than it already was. Before giving Ted too much time to consider what she might be up to, she lashed out with her right hand, grabbing for the gun.
BANG!
Waverly had never been shot before.
It hurt like a motherfucker.
Nothing like in the movies. Adrenaline didn’t do shit to numb the blinding pain. Fortunately, it appeared that the bullet had hit her upper left arm. She didn’t need that to clobber Ted, who seemed stunned by the reverberations of the deafening blast in such a small space.
More good news, she wasn’t dead.
Waverly lashed out, fueled by pure rage and indignation. She punched him where it would hurt most—in the stab wound he’d given himself. Judging by the amount of blood on the bandage, he might have done a better job of that than he’d intended.
Which might have been why he didn’t react fast enough to stop her.
With an oomph, he dropped the gun.
Waverly didn’t pause to think about what she was doing. Survival instincts and her military training kicked in. She snatched the gun, put her finger on the trigger, pointed it straight between Ted’s eyes, and squeezed. Twice.
To be honest, she didn’t even feel bad about his brains splattered on the window.
If it was her or him, she knew which one she would pick. All day long.
Unfortunately, the gunshots had damaged more than her flesh.
When she tried to radio the Divemaster to let Archer know she was okay and about to come home, the damn thing wouldn’t work. In the next few seconds, instruments started going dark. Fuck. One of their bullets, or maybe bits of all three, had clipped some important shit.
If it wasn’t for the storm, which seemed to have intensified, she might have tried to find her way to the Divemaster without some of those tools. Over open ocean, with nowhere to put down quickly, and—oh, yeah—blood slicking her arm, there was no way she was risking it.
Waverly groaned as the pain intensified. She scrunched her eyes closed a few times, trying to see better. In range, a blip of an island with a wide, flat beach beckoned her. It was going to have to do.
It was her worst landing ever.
Later, she couldn’t even recall most of it. Though she wasn’t really a religious person, she might have believed she had a guardian angel helping out.
But when she turned off the engine, she was down in mostly one piece.
For a while she just sat there and stared. Thanked every power in the universe for helping her save herself. Then she prepared to rough it for a while. No one was going to be able to reach her tonight.
She debated sleeping in the helicopter, but it was pretty exposed on the beach and if it toppled, or sank into the sand as the tides changed, she could be trapped and drown. Given the state of her arm, she couldn’t wrestle Ted’s body out anyway. The thought of sharing the space with him all night long…
So much nope. Not happening.
Waverly tried to get the radio going one more time without success. So she grabbed the first aid kit and her backpack, then jumped out of the pilot’s seat.
She trudged up the beach far enough to huddle at the base of a thick copse of trees. First she treated herself as best she could, using strips of bandages and thick gauze pads—thank you, Ted—to put pressure on her wound without going full-on tourniquet. Her military days had made her aware that she could do permanent damage if she left one of those on for longer than two hours, and it was going to be several times that before help arrived.
They couldn’t reach her, never mind find her, in these conditions.
She didn’t think her arm was bleeding enough to be life-threatening. Then again, if she passed out and couldn’t make a tourniquet once it turned for the worse, saving her arm wouldn’t really matter, now would it?
Hard decisions.
After she’d patched it up as best she could and applied the most pressure she felt comfortable with leaving on long-term, she took the Mylar thermal survival blanket out of the first aid kit and wrapped it around herself. A fire was out of the question given the rain and wind, but it wasn’t particularly cold out. This would do.
Comfortable? Not especially.
Survivable? Hell yes.
To keep herself from throwing a pity
party, she used her teeth to tear open a pack of dried fruit then chugged an entire bottle of water, hoping her body got busy replacing some of her lost blood pretty damn quick.
She estimated she’d been out there less than an hour when she wondered how she would survive an entire night without going bonkers.
Waverly used her good arm to collect the fallen palm fronds she could reach without jostling her injury too much and began to stack them up. She wasn’t cold, but it made her feel more secure to have some barrier, however flimsy, between herself and the storm.
When she’d run out of resources, she rested up against the tree trunk that formed one support for her lean-to shelter and wondered how she’d pass the rest of the time. Maybe she could write Archer love letters in the sand. Or draw pictures of positions she wanted to try fucking in once she had healed.
Before she could, a light glinted in her eyes.
Something painfully bright after the deep midnight she had gotten used to.
It was only there for a second, then gone.
Then it came back. And stuck.
Could it be a searchlight?
Holy shit!
Waverly stood up, using the Mylar around her as a reflector. She ran toward the surf then, making it about halfway before a familiar gray rigid hull inflatable boat beached itself on the sand with a landing nearly as poor as hers had been in the helicopter.
She gave it a four out of ten, at best. It was the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen.
Until Archer came flying over the side, tearing up the beach toward her.
Then that was the most wonderful thing she’d ever seen.
She supposed they could have cried, flung themselves at each other, or any other number of things. Instead, they stood there, about a foot apart, wind whipping their clothes and hair, grinning like fools.
“Imagine meeting you here,” Archer said before his face darkened. “Ted?”
She shook her head. “Dead.”
Then he closed the gap between them and crushed her to him.
“I’ve never been so relieved in my entire life to see someone,” he said. “It might be best if I never let you go again.”
