Page 61 of Pull Me Under

‘Taught yourself from YouTube, did you?’ The words slip out before I can stop them.

Her eyes meet mine, and there’s the faintest hint of a smirk. ‘My grandfather taught me to tie knots before I could write my name. But thanks for the condescension. Really sets the tone.’

‘Just being thorough.’

‘Mm.’

She doesn’t believe me. Fair enough. I don’t believe me either.

I move her to equipment next – life jackets, throw bags, the portable radio, the casualty care kit. She identifies each piece correctly, demonstrates proper usage, answers my questions about protocols with detailed knowledge that suggests she’s memorised the manual. Possibly twice.

‘VHF procedures,’ I say. ‘Talk me through a Mayday call.’

She does, perfectly, including the phonetic alphabet and the specific format for position reporting.

‘And if the radio fails?’

‘EPIRB activation, flares in sequence of three, and if all else fails, the international distress signal is both arms raised and lowered repeatedly.’ She pauses. ‘Do you want me to demonstrate, or can we move on?’

There’s a challenge in her voice. A dare.

‘Water recovery,’ I say, ignoring it. ‘Get changed. Drysuits are in the locker room back at the station.’

She disappears along the pathway that leads to station and I’m watching her through the door, letting out a breath I didn’t know I was holding.

Cal appears at my shoulder. ‘Well?’

‘She knows her stuff.’ I hate admitting it. Not because it’s not true – because I’m the one who told Cal exactly this three days ago, and being right is somehow worse. ‘Theory is solid.’

‘And practically?’

‘We’ll see.’

The water recovery drill is conducted in the sea pool at the back of the station – a concrete rectangle. During summer it’s an outdoor swimmer’s haven, apart from when the RNLI commandeer it for purposes just like this. In March, it’s a freezing dip of hell with the natural tide, sometimes 1.5 metre waves crashing over the man-built walls. When Kit completed his initial training, a wave so big hit, it flung him against the wall. He wore those vivid bruises like a badge of honour, thinking he was the man, until they turned to a mustard yellow and he was teased out of The Ship.

Brynn emerges from the station in the spare drysuit, hair tucked under the collar. Neoprene doesn’t leave much to the imagination, and I’m not imagining – I’m remembering. Which is worse. I have to look away before my brain supplies any more unhelpful comparisons between this version of her and the version I can’t stop thinking about.

‘Right,’ I say, voice almost a croak. ‘I’ll be the casualty. You need to get me out of the water and onto the platform using standard recovery technique.’

‘You’re the casualty?’

‘Problem?’

Her jaw tightens, too quick to mean anything. ‘No problem.’

I lower myself into the pool – the water is bloody cold – and let myself float, arms spread, playing dead weight.

‘Casualty is unconscious, unresponsive,’ Cal calls from the observation deck. ‘Water conditions: moderate swell. You have three minutes.’

Brynn doesn’t hesitate. She’s in the water before Cal finishes speaking, strong strokes cutting through the chop as the wave generator kicks in. She reaches me in seconds, and then her hands are on me – one under my arm, the other across my chest – and she’s turning me onto my back, securing my airway, kicking towards the platform.

Her grip is firm. Professional. Exactly correct.

I keep my body limp, keep my eyes closed, keep pretending I’m unconscious while my heart hammers against my ribs because her hand is on my chest and the last time she touched me like this we were both considerably less clothed and I need to think about fish quotas immediately.

Wave dynamics. Eight-second period. Amplitude modulation. The thermocline boundary between⁠—

‘Securing casualty for extraction,’ she calls out, and then she’s hauling me up – using leverage and the platform edge, exactly the way she’s supposed to – and I’m out of the water, on my back, staring up at the clouds hanging low in the sky while she kneels beside me and starts the mock assessment.