by May Dawson
At the docks, one of the shifters I barely knew--James--stepped in front of me and Kai. He stared at us both quizzically. "Arthur said no one else goes in or out."
"I'm just getting my sister’s stuff off the boat," I assured him. "We're trying to make sure everyone's got what they need."
He frowned, but reluctantly stepped out of my way. Kai started to go with me, and James held up his hand. "You don't need to go with her into the boathouse."
"He's the muscle," I said. "I need him."
James frowned. Just a few days ago, he would have told me to go away. But everyone knew now how Arthur felt about me. He hesitated as I towed Kai past him, and then raised the radio to his lips.
In a hurry, I headed into the boat house. When I closed the door behind us, we were submerged in the gloom and the smell of salt water and motor grease. I latched it, knowing that it wouldn't hold James up for long, but we didn't need long.
Arthur would be pissed, but if I brought his brother home to him, he'd get over it. He would understand what I had to do.
And even if he didn't...I needed every one of my men in my life, alive and unharmed.
As I quickly knelt to unknot the line and then jumped into the boat, the words felt like a prayer that ran through my head. Alive and unharmed. Alive and unharmed.
"How do I help?" Kai demanded.
Quickly, the two of us got the engine started. Someone slammed into the door, and it splintered inward.
Just as the door exploded in, we sailed out into the bright blue waves.
"Head to the east," I called over my shoulder as Kai took the wheel. I stood, searching the horizon for any speck or motion.
We headed toward a white piece of wreckage that bobbed on the waves. But when we reached it, there was nothing but the strip of plastic rising up and down with the waves. When I looked over my shoulder, the island seemed far behind us. My chest tightened as I remembered, yet again, that if our boat capsized, I wouldn’t be able to swim back.
The black fog still lingered above the waves. Curly wisps surrounded us, but in front of us it was so thick that I couldn’t see more than a few feet. I looked at Kai.
"You up for this?" I asked.
"No," he said, but he still turned the wheel toward the fog.
When our boat sailed into the fog, it smelled of sulphur and rot.
Kai pressed his bicep to cover his mouth and nose. "Jesus. Do you see anything?"
"I'm hoping Jesus is on our side right now, let's not take his name in vain."
Kai snorted. "Such a good girl."
There was some kind of commotion in the water deeper in the fog, but I couldn't see anything. As I frantically strained to see, I pointed the way to Kai, and he turned the boat in that direction.
The fog grew thicker around us. It seemed to linger in my mouth and fill my chest with thick, heavy air.
The wet racket of frantic splashing split the air. Droplets rained down on my face through the fog.
Suddenly the splashing was right in front of us. A tentacle reached through the air and then slapped down. The water was red with blood.
Logan burst out of the waves, gasping.
"Logan!" I called.
Kai was instantly at the side of the boat, reaching down for him. The two of us caught his biceps--his shirt was wet and torn, blood marking the stripes in his shirt as if he had been clawed--and heaved him into the boat.
He fell onto his side in the bottom and drew in a ragged breath. Urgently, his voice coming out in a rasp, he said, "There's something in the water. Don't go in."
"Something like a..."
"Like a monster," he said. "A sea monster."
"Are the others--"
"We were fighting it together," he said, rolling to his knees, his chest rising with a rapid effort that betrayed how hard it was for him to breathe.
There was a distant splash and a scream.
"Get out of my way," Logan told Kai, his voice rough with urgency, and despite Logan's wounds, he shouldered Kai aside, moving to the wheel. He turned us toward the noise. "Give me the rifle, please."
I unslung the rifle from my shoulder and handed it to him. He ordered, "Take the wheel, cut the engine. I've got a theory about this thing."
I took the wheel and immediately cut the engine.
Suddenly, the world was very quiet. The boat rode up and down the waves, which lapped against the sides. There was no more screaming. I couldn't even hear a splash.
He put the rifle into his shoulder, waiting for something.
The boat drifted, and the fog lifted.
Suddenly, the monster was right in front of us.
The monster slapped the water with two tentacles, roaring furiously from a disgusting, gaping maw. The monster gripped Callum in one tentacle. Callum struggled to push away the tentacle wrapped around his body just as the monster slammed him into the water again.
The monster raised another tentacle high in the air. It gripped Josh high above the water. Josh was still, his face the deathly white of a man who’d gone too long without air. I almost screamed, but I bit back the impulse. Logan took careful aim.
Another tentacle shot up. The monster wrapped Nick in its grip. My Nick. Nick had a knife in his hand and, and as he coughed up water, he was already twisting for another chance to strike.
Now that every one of the guys was above the surface of the water, Logan pulled the trigger.
The round slammed into something just under the surface of the water, something dark and oily and moving. He pulled the trigger again and again. The sounds resounded, shattering the quiet of the ocean.
The monster's tentacles slapped the water again. This time, its arms uncurled as the monster sunk beneath the surface.
Without hesitation, Kai looked over his shoulder at me and said, "Stay on the boat. Someone has to, to get us out of here."
Then, before I could protest, he planted his foot on the side. He dove crisply from the boat, his long, lean body locking out and his arms ahead to part the water. The dark water parted for him.
He swam desperately for the others.
Just as quickly, Logan threw the gun aside and launched himself into the water. The two of them disappeared into the waves, along with the oily monster slowly sinking away.
I grabbed the rifle and checked that it still had rounds, then waited, searching for any sign the monster might be coming back. I had to make myself useful while Logan and Kai dived and then surfaced, searching for the bodies of our friends.
There was sudden motion in the water right by my feet, and my heart squeezed with fear. The impulse to step back in case the monster reared out of the water was so powerful that I barely managed to fight it back.
But I did.
Kai heaved himself out of the water, drawing a frantic breath. Then a second head surfaced, with shaggy gold-streaked blond hair above a still, white face.
I knelt at the edge of the boat as Kai tried to heave Josh out of the water. "You won't be able to get him." Kai was gasping for breath as he treaded water. He was exhausted from the struggle to bring Josh to the surface.
I didn't bother to answer him. I caught Josh's wet t-shirt in my hands, frantically trying to find something to grab. His weight pulled my momentum forward so that I almost tumbled in on top of them both. As I set my foot against the boat wall and kept my weight low, leveraging every bit of strength I had, Josh half rose out of the water.
Kai shoved up on his legs. I grit my teeth and yanked, and Josh exploded out of the water as I pulled him in. I fell backward. He landed on top of me, his weight flattening me to the bottom of the boat.
I grunted and rolled him off me. Then I scrambled to my knees to look at him. He looked so still. So dead. I tried to take his pulse, but my hands were shaking and my fingers kept slipping against his slick skin.
"Come on, Josh," I murmured desperately as I tried to start CPR chest compressions. "I need you. Kai needs you. Who else is going to nag him to cheer the hell up? You
can't leave us."
Frantically, I pinched his nose and breathed into his mouth. When I covered his slack mouth with mine and breathed air into his lungs, I couldn't help remembering all the times I'd pressed my lips to his before. Keep it together, Piper. I breathed for him twice and then returned to locking my elbows out, my hands folded together on his diaphragm, as I made his heart beat.
"Come on," I murmured.
In the distance, I heard Logan shout, "I've got him!"
Nick, he must have Nick. Please. My heart was rattling along a thousand miles a minute. I didn't have time to panic and think about the losses we may have taken.
I covered Josh's mouth with mine again. I'll breathe for you until you breathe yourself. I don't know that I can go on breathing if you don't. Tears blurred my eyes, but didn't slow me down.
As I resumed chest compressions, I told him, "You're my favorite, you know. But if you don't come back to me, you lose your slot."
Some crazy part of me expected him to react. My jokes didn't make him laugh or even open his eyes. I kept going, breathing for him and then making his heart beat, as my biceps and forearms began to ache. My CPR class in high school hadn't prepared me for how exhausting this really was, maintaining that frantic pace to the beat of the Bee Gee’s Staying Alive with no partner to take over for me. Doing this for someone I loved was different than doing it for a dummy.
Don't fail me now. I had to keep going.
There was a powerful splashing at the edge of the boat. I glanced away from Logan's chest but began muttering the number of compressions aloud so I wouldn't lose it. "Nine. Ten. Eleven."
Callum heaved himself out of the water. He flopped onto the wet deck of the boat and laid there, prostrate, as if he didn't have any strength left in his body. His blood mingled with the water running in rivulets across the floor of the boat.
I pressed my lips to Josh's again. He's dead, Piper. Breath. You're kissing a dead man. Breath. Shut up, shut up. I would never give up on him.
But even so, I was not compressing as hard as I had begun. I was exhausted, and my arms were beginning to fail me. I leaned my weight into his body more as I pushed down, trying to compensate for my exhaustion, and dared to look back at Callum.
He was trying to fish Nick out of the water. Nick was conscious--thank God--but he seemed weakened by his wounds, and he didn't seem to be able to lift himself out. Logan and Kai were treading water, trying to muscle him into the boat.
"Hang on," Logan said impatiently, and he swung himself up into the boat, his muscles straining. Then he reached back and caught Nick's wrist. Together, Logan and Callum swung Nick out of the water. The way they had to pull him straight up was so awkward it hurt to watch--he grit his teeth to hold back a cry as if it felt like his arms were being wrenched loose of their sockets--but then he was in the boat.
Logan held his hand out again toward the water. Kai ignored him, instead reaching up and catching the edge of the boat. But he was exhausted, too, and his muscles strained uselessly for a few seconds before he finally heaved himself out of the water.
"Fifteen," I said out loud again. The guys turned to me as I bent over Josh, pressing my lips to his. Breath. Breath.
The boat was eerily silent. There was no sound except for the waves slapping the side of the boat.
Then Logan cleared his throat. "We need to get in to pack lands. There's no telling what's coming next."
"Bring us in," Callum said, and his voice was husky.
One. Two. Three. The muscles in my arms were twitching now.
Logan said something quietly to Kai, and then Kai moved to the wheel.
Logan knelt at my side. Then, as if he suddenly remembered what he was supposed to do, he rose and moved to Josh's other side. "Let me take over."
"After the next set of breaths."
"Got you on the next set of breaths."
I breathed for Josh two more times, and by the time I came up, Logan already had his hands folded over Josh's sternum. He pushed my hands aside. He resumed the compressions. As Josh's sternum compressed deeply each time, Logan’s biceps stood out sharply, his wet t-shirt straining over his arms and the muscle of his chest.
The compressions looked brutal, and Josh's chest looked wrong somehow. Maybe we had broken his ribs trying to save his life. Logan had just started, so it was me. I probably broke the ribs of this man I love while I was trying to save him, while I was obsessing over the memory of all the times I'd put my lips against his to kiss him instead.
As the boat skimmed back through the waves toward the island, Logan performed CPR without hesitating or even looking up. He was perfectly focused, as dedicated to saving Josh's life as I was.
While I was trying to fight back heartbreak and a deep sense of dread and to deny the knowledge rising up in me now, I knew I'd never forget Logan's face as he knelt over Josh. Logan fought for Josh’s life like he would’ve fought for mine.
Nick was beside me, gathering me into his arms. Even as he drew me into his lap and shushed me, pushing my hair back from my damp face, I couldn't control my shaking arms enough to hug him back. I’d been strong when Josh needed me, but now that Logan had taken over, I was falling apart.
Logan pressed his mouth to Josh's again and then, as he rose to start the compressions again, he said, "Blondie, I'm going to need you to work your magic."
I stare back at him, my lips parting. I didn't have any magic. He knew that better than anyone.
"You can do it," he said. "You saved Sebastian, Blondie. I know you did. This isn't enough."
"He was underwater for a long time," Callum said softly. He was at the side of the boat, the rifle in his shoulder, looking out for another threat. "He almost took that monster out by himself, but it got a lucky shot in and then it took Josh under. He’s gone."
"I can't bring anyone back from the dead," I whispered.
I was not that kind of powerful. The only person I knew who was that powerful was my father. That kind of power came through evil. My father brought people back from the dead—and he had stolen my innocence to do it.
"Just try to heal him," Logan demanded, and then he leaned forward to breathe for Josh again.
Nick murmured into his ear, "If anyone can do this, you can. Just try, sweetheart."
"He's dead if you don't," Logan said, before covering Josh’s mouth with his again.
Anger burned in my chest. I knew that. But I didn’t think I could save Josh. Why did Logan have to be so cruel about it?
"Just shut up and keep going," I snapped.
I knelt next to Josh again, but this time, I pressed one palm to his cool forehead and the other to the hard lines of his jaw. His once-kissable lips were slack, his lashes laying wet and spiked above his cheekbones. I loved this face so much. My fingers trembled against his cold skin.
I squeezed my eyes shut because I couldn't look at that precious face and still focus. Instead, I imagined Josh in front of me, alive and breathing.
If he were here, alive, I would press my palm to his face like this to keep him from teasingly turning away from my kisses. I felt so petite beside him. Especially when he pinned me against a wall to kiss me. His blue eyes were always so steady and intense on mine. They reminded me of that first day we’d met, when his fingers had skimmed the bruises on my face, and his tender, aching touch had begun to heal me.
I'd felt the heat coming off his body when we were so close, and I could feel his heart beating. It sped up when we were close, the same way mine did. Our hearts beat wildly for each other. I could hear it now, his heartbeat thundering along when he gathered me close against his chest, his strong arms holding me against his body like he'd keep me safe all my life...
"Piper," Logan said urgently.
Just as my eyes flew open, Josh rolled over onto his side and retched sea water into Logan's lap.
"That's the thanks I get for putting my mouth on yours," Logan said drily, looking down at the damage. "Which, by the way, will never again be men
tioned."
"Josh." I was so thankful to see him again that the world went blurry again. Even though I was grinning, hot tears slid down my cheeks.
He fell onto his back, groaning, and clutched his ribs with one arm while he threw the other out across the deck of the boat. He seemed exhausted, and yet even as he coughed, a low, ragged sound like he still couldn't draw a full breath, his eyes searched for me.
His deep blue eyes still sparked with joy when he saw me, even if he was half-drowned and half-dead.
"Oh, Josh," I said, and when I leaned in to kiss his cheek, he wrapped his arm around me even as he winced.
"Be careful," I said, hovering my hand over his ribs. "We probably hurt you during CPR."
"I don't need to be that careful," he rasped, hugging me to his side. "The important thing is I got my girl back."
Logan rolled his eyes as he got to his feet and stepped over Josh's legs.
"Wow, Piper." Nick's eyes were wide as he looked at me. "You can... heal people?"
"Maybe it was a coincidence." I bit down on my lower lip.
"Don't do that," Logan scolded.
Josh coughed raggedly, and when he was done choking, he squeezed me gently. "Look at that. When you sell yourself short, you make me cough. Better knock it off."
I shook my head. "Reunited for two minutes here and you're already scolding me again?"
He managed to wink even though he wasn't strong enough yet to raise his head off the deck. "You like it."
"We've got incoming," Callum said, his voice urgent.
I looked up and across the back of the boat to the horizon.
Dozens of boats were pursuing us toward the island.
Chapter 7
As soon as the boat hit the docks, Callum knelt to scoop Josh up. Logan was already shoving my shoulder, pointing toward the shore. "Go, go!"
I jumped onto the dock, and the guys and I all sprinted up the sandy trail toward the house.
Arthur ran toward us, halfway down the trail. "Thank God," he said when he saw Logan, and he clapped his shoulder, his face blank as if he were overwhelmed with feeling.
Then he grabbed my wrist and towed me with him as we all rushed toward the house. "You. You are in so much trouble."
