Page 82 of Salt Kiss
He says goodbye and hangs up anyway.
Breakfaston the yacht is served continental style: fresh pastries, yogurt, cut fruit. I treat myself to a lingering meal on the deck, the cool morning breeze toying with the light zip-up of Mark’s I’m wearing, the crew milling behind me as they eat as well, and then I take the wide steps down to the second level to the dojo, to see if Isolde’s there.
She is—this morning she’s whaling on a freestanding bag, her hair once again escaping her braid to stick to her neck. It’s the same combination that she’s doing over and over again, punchjabkick, punchjabkick, the punches landing with heavy smacks, the kicks rocking the bag back on its stand.
The rain is gone today, but the skies are still gray and the water is still choppy, meaning the yacht is still bobbing and rolling with the water. And every time she kicks the bag and it rolls backward, it doesn’t roll forward on its own and she has to grab it and resettle it back onto its base.
“Want some help?” I volunteer, walking inside. I kick off my shoes before I get on the mats, the smile spreading easily across my face when she looks at me. All she has to do is look at me and I smile, like her gaze is enough to lift weights from my shoulders.
I smiled at the sunrise in Carpathia too, at the sight of roses blooming along the side of the farmhouse.
Isolde pushes her braid off her shoulder, unsticks some hair from her neck. “I’m sure you have much more interesting things to do than hold a bag,” she says politely, but I’m already to the item in question now, shifting it forward so I can stand behind it and hold it in place.
“It’s either this or bother Captain Duval some more. I think I know which she’d prefer.”
Isolde studies me a minute, like she’s trying to sort out which would be better manners, to object or to relent. I don’t give her a choice, leaning in to brace my shoulder against the bag.
“Come on,” I say. “Let’s see what those art history muscles are made of.”
This earns me a determined little huff—something I file away for later, that this quiet, mannerly heiress has a competitive streak—and then she’s back in position with her guards up. Punchjabkick, punchjabkick. Each strike solid enough for me to feel through the bag. She’sstrong.
“How long have you been doing this?” I ask. “Martial arts?”
Her rhythm doesn’t break as she answers. Punchjabkick. “Karate since I was twelve. Jiujitsu and Krav Maga since I was eighteen.” Punchjabkick.
“Why?” I ask, even though that’s a stupid question to ask. Obviously the answer will bebecause I like it.
But she doesn’t act like it’s a stupid question at all. She stops striking for a minute and stands up straight, dropping her guard. She looks frozen by it. Like I’ve just asked her to solve a Diophantine equation without a calculator.
“I think,” she starts, and then stops. Tries again. “I was enrolled after my mother died. It was the only thing that made sense for a long time. Not school, and not home, because she wasn’t at our home anymore. But I’d go to the dojo and there was this thing that was as easy as moving your body left or right, up or down. It carried me through those years.”
Everything she’s saying about martial arts is in the past tense. “Is that still why you do it? Because it makes sense?”
She’s looking at her hands when she answers. “No. No, that’s not why anymore.”
But she doesn’t clarify, doesn’t say anything else, and I don’t press her.
Whatever’s on her mind, I don’t think she’d tell me anyway.
A faint guttural noise,like a wounded animal, ruptures the night.
I sit up in bed, having gone from fast asleep to heart-poundingly awake in an instant, already getting to my feet. I almost reach for the utility knife I’ve been keeping in my bedside table when I hear it again. Through the door connecting to Isolde’s room.
I lunge for the door, and to my surprise, it opens easily at my touch—it’s not locked from her side. Pushing that unnerving knowledge away, I’m already crossing the small sitting room to her bedroom, scanning for danger, my skin humming with awareness, my pulse kicking with adrenaline. I don’t know how someone could have gotten on the boat this far out from the Azores, which means that whoever’s hurting her is with the crew—
Except when I make it into her bedroom, she’s alone. She’s alone, in bed, her eyes shut and her hands flexing against the blanket. Her chest is rising and falling in short, rapid jerks. I hear the noise again, the miserable, helpless moan, and it all comes together.
A nightmare.
She’s having a nightmare.
It doesn’t occur to me to leave, to let her endure this on her own. I know all too well the torment crouching inside the shadows of night; I know how impossible it is to endure, to wake from. I stride over to her bed and crouch beside it, taking her hand.
“Isolde,” I say softly. “Isolde, it’s Tristan.”
She snaps awake with a gasp that doesn’t seem to work because her shoulders curl and her eyes are wide and panicked, and I also know this too well. Without thinking, I order her in the same hard voice Mark ordered me: “Breathe.”
Her eyes slide to mine, and I see her try, try to drag the air in, but nothing’s working right; she’s too disoriented, too shot full of adrenaline.
