Page 68 of Pull Me Under

‘You bastard,’ I whisper to the empty room. ‘You selfish, broken bastard.’

The words echo off the damp walls. No one answers. My father’s been dead for two years, liver finally giving out after decades of damage. I didn’t make it to the hospital in time. He died alone in a ward in Bristol, probably still thinking about H, and I didn’t even get to ask him why.

Now I have half an answer. Worse than no answer at all.

I bundle the letters back together, hands clumsy with shaking. There’s more in the box – I can see another layer underneath – but I can’t do this anymore. Not today.

I shove everything back in, close the lid, push the box into its corner.

Some doors should stay closed.

Chapter Sixteen

BRYNN

The training session Monday evening is brutal.

Cal runs us through scenarios until my arms are burning and my lungs ache. Rope work in the rain. Equipment checks in the dark. Communication drills where we have to coordinate without seeing each other, trusting only voices through the static.

I throw myself into it. Let the physical exhaustion burn away everything – the letters, my father’s ghost, the cottage that’s held its breath for twenty years while mine stopped making sense.

Jude’s there. Acting deputy means he’s running half the drills, and tonight he’s teaching throw-bag technique. Which means he’s standing behind me, adjusting my grip on the rope, and his fingertips graze the inside of my wrist as he repositions my hand and my pulse jumps so hard I’m certain he can feel it through the neoprene.

‘Elbow higher,’ he says, his breath warm against the back of my neck. ‘Release on the forward swing. Like this⁠—’

He demonstrates, and I watch his arm extend in the rain, the smooth motion of someone who’s done this a thousand times, and my pulse quickens, because he’s patient when he’s teaching. Focused. None of the bravado, none of the smirk. This version of Jude – careful, competent, his voice low and steady in the downpour – is worse than the cocky one.

The cocky one I can resist. This one makes me want to lean into him and stay there.

I throw the bag. It arcs out across the water, lands within a metre of the target.

‘Good,’ he says. Just that. Good. And he moves on to Bill, and the cold air rushes in where his warmth was.

Colleagues.

‘Casualty recovery,’ Cal calls from the platform edge. ‘Trelawney, Harding – you’re up. Simulated unconscious casualty, moderate swell conditions. I want to see communication, coordination, and a clean extraction. Three minutes.’

The practice dummy bobs in the training pool, face-down, arms splayed. Weighted to feel like a real body. I’ve done this drill a hundred times in other stations, other harbours, other lives. It’s muscle memory. Routine.

Except my partner is Jude Harding, and nothing about Jude Harding has been routine since the moment I arrived in this village.

‘I’ll take point,’ I say, not looking at him. ‘You stabilise from the platform.’

‘Fine.’

We move into position. Professional. Efficient. Two colleagues doing a job.

I lower myself into the pool and the cold hits like a slap – even through the drysuit, even expecting it. The wave generator is running, pushing swells across the surface that make the dummy roll and drift. I swim out, get my arms under it, start the turn. The weight is realistic – dead weight, the hardest kind, the kind that fights you without meaning to.

‘Bringing him in,’ I call. ‘Ready on the platform.’

‘Ready.’

I kick towards the edge, hauling the dummy with me. The platform is about a foot above the waterline – you need leverage and a second pair of hands to get a casualty up and over. That’s the point of the drill. You can’t do this alone.

Jude’s kneeling at the edge, arms braced. I push the dummy up towards him. He grabs the harness, takes the weight, starts to haul.

‘Lift on three,’ he says. ‘One, two⁠—’