Page 40 of Stranded With the Grumpy Mermaid
The case is bigger than it looked from above, a hard-shell equipment case with the Belle’s registration stenciled on the lid and a crack running the length of one seam like a lightning strike. It’s wedged nose-down against the chockstone. The next lift shifts it again.
I get a hand on the grab-handle as the water sucks out and pull. Nothing. I plant a foot and pull harder. Still nothing.
The boom of the next surge is already building. I scramble back into the crack and let the water pass over me. It seems that the sea and I are finally, after five years, having an argument directly.
As soon as the water drops, I go back down. I wedge my shoulder beneath the case’s high corner and heave on the out-cycle, letting the retreating water take some of its weight.
The case grinds against the stone. Moves.
I heave again.
It tips free so suddenly I nearly follow it down the slot. I catch the handle, drag the case against my chest and exhale a short, shaky breath. I got it. I have our salvation in my hands.
I start up and the sea breaks the rules. The next surge comes early and doubled. I have no time to reach the crack. It hits me hard enough to rip both feet off the rock. The world goes white, then green, then over. No up anywhere. The case wrenches at my arms. My shoulder slams into the wall and pain flashes all the way down to my fingertips.
The gulch rolls me. My gills keep working. I can breathe. I still have no idea which way is out. The rope comes taut like a struck string.
A hard haul. Then another.
Rafe is hauling me up.
I stop fighting for up. I crush the case against my chest with one arm, soften my body and let the line tell me where to go. When granite finds my feet, I walk it. When it disappears again, I ride the pull.
Another haul. Green turns white. White turns bright. I break the surface into sunlight and spray. Rafe hauls me the last body-length with a sound I have never heard a human make, and then I’m over the lip and sprawled on warm granite with the case still locked against my chest.
I cough seawater, suck in air and roll onto my back. Alive.
He’s on his knees beside me before I’ve caught my breath, hands moving over my shoulder, my scalp, my ribs, checking everywhere at once. He’s shaking so hard his glasses sit crooked.
“I’m okay.” I cough, hard, spitting out salt water. “Bruised, not broken. Told you.” Another cough. “Can’t drown.”
“You were down so long.”
“Best cardio workout of my life.” I say it snark-flat because he needs it and because I need it, and his forehead drops onto my collarbone. Just for a second.
I put my rope-burned hand in his hair. We’re both shaking now. Beside us, the case drips onto the warm granite, orange as a shout.
Then we open it.
The crack in the seam did its work. When Rafe tilts the case, seawater runs out across the granite. The flare gun sits in its molded cradle, soaked but not visibly damaged. I have no idea if it’s salvageable. We set it aside to dry.
The flares, six of them, are racked in their loops like fat red cartridges, and my heart is already counting before my hands move.
Rafe checks them one at a time. Water seeps from the first casing. The next is swollen. Another has white crust around the primer. One after another, they go onto the granite beside his knee, ruined.
The last flare sits in the top loop, wedged into the driest corner of the case. Rafe pulls it free.
Dry rattle. Sound casing.
One.
For a second neither of us moves. The ruined flares are scattered across the wet rock between us. The good one fits easily in Rafe’s hand.
It will only matter if somebody is close enough to see it when we fire. A boat on the water. Lights in the dark. Somebody looking our way. Otherwise that red streak disappears over an empty ocean and we’re right back where we started.
Hope should feel bigger than this. Instead it’s a little red cylinder Rafe can close his fingers around.
He looks at it, and his whole face changes. His shoulders loosen. The fear that had him shaking over me a minute ago disappears beneath a grin.
