The Girl Beneath the Sea (Underwater Investigation Unit #1)(81)

George whispers to me, “These men are killers.”

I know. And right now, they’re on their way to get my father. When they see the Kraken, they’ll have no use for us.

My dive gear’s in a locker by Sonic’s feet. There’s no way I can get him to move an inch, much less get the upper hand.

We hit a wave from the port side, and George and I roll to the side. I can hear him groan as his aching shoulder strikes the hull.

Sonic braces himself against the impact, and his gun points away from us for a moment.

Sometimes it’s all about instinct. It’s the only way you survive situations like this. George knows this too.

“We can’t stay here like this,” he whispers, putting his body between Sonic and me. “They only need to keep one of us alive until they find it.”

A huge wave rocks us.

Now, Sloan.

I fall toward the bait knife, pull it from its sheath, and stick a toe in the weight belt, sliding it toward me.

Sonic fires his gun, and the bullet hits the deck in front of me.

“Don’t hit the fuel tank, asshole!” George screams.

I try to distract the SEAL to give George a chance. I bounce to my feet, grab the weight belt, and run along the gunwale for the bow of the boat.

Sonic fires behind me, and I hear the windshield break. I don’t look back. Hopefully this will give George enough of a distraction to do something if he can. Right now, my main concern is one hundred feet below me.

My hands are still bound, and I don’t have my scuba tanks. I don’t have my fins. I don’t even have my mask.

All I have is a knife, thirty pounds of weight, and one breath of air . . .

I jump anyway.





CHAPTER FIFTY-SIX

AMPHIBIAN

My earliest memory is the water. It was actually my mom calling me to step into the ocean. She stood there in her blue bikini, a sleek giant, the surf surging past her ankles as she beckoned me closer.

It wasn’t the water that scared me. It was the way the wet sand shifted beneath my feet. The ground had been so sturdy until then; now it couldn’t be trusted. Under the onslaught of a wave, it literally slipped away beneath your feet.

“Sloan . . . come on, sweetheart,” she called to me.

But it wasn’t her soothing voice that made me step in.

It was the giggling of my brothers as Dad tossed one of them into the water, farther out, much farther.

They were out where the waves came rolling in as whitecaps, bounding around like sea creatures playing in the surf.

“Come on, Sloany, it’s okay,” Mom said.

Robbie jumped up on Dad’s back and wrapped his arms around his neck. It was just play, but I didn’t know that at the time.

I was two.

Dad was in trouble.

I ran.

I ran past Mom.

I dived into the waves.

I swam.

I couldn’t see my mother, but I heard her calling to me. She was too stunned to chase after me. I must have seemed possessed.

I fought the current.

I tried to paddle through waves taller than me.

I swam as hard as my tiny body could.

Daddy needed me.

The current pushed me under. I kept swimming.

Mom’s muffled cries sounded so far away.

I paddled. I kicked. When my head poked above the waves, I breathed.

They say that swimming is instinctual for humans—that it taps into some ancestral ability. I believe this.

I caught a glimpse of Dad staring in my direction, trying to understand why Mom was yelling. Part of me knew he was no longer in danger, but I kept swimming. My brain only understood one purpose.

The waves kept throwing me around, and at some point my arms tired.

Just when I was ready to cry for Mom, powerful hands lifted me out of the water. I saw the bright sun making a halo around Dad’s head.

I giggled.

He laughed.

Mom waded her way over to us as Dad put me up on his shoulders. I didn’t understand the look in her eyes then, but I understand it now—I was Daddy’s little girl. I was a sea creature like him. I wasn’t an interloper like Mom, who kept close to the shore. The water was my home.

It was where I belonged.

But it wasn’t where I wanted to die.

And it’s not where Dad is going to die either.

Not today.

The weight belt I’m grasping is pulling me down. The knife is in my right hand.

Ten feet.

I slide the blade between the plasticuffs and my wrist, nicking the skin slightly. I twist the handle and cut the thin binding.

My arms free as the weight belt pulls my left hand toward the bottom.

Twenty feet. I’m at two atmospheres and feel the pressure in my ears.

The bottom is a dark abyss. The divers lie somewhere below me.

Thirty feet. My lungs feel the crush of the ocean. You’re never supposed to hold your breath when you scuba dive—but this is free diving, and the physics are different.

Forty feet. My ears are really hurting. I didn’t equalize the pressure. I might blow out an eardrum.

Fifty feet. The sea is crushing my body like a can as the air in my lungs begins to compress.

It’s only pain.

Sixty feet. I see the glimmer of a flashlight on the bottom.

Dad.

I’m coming.

A dark shape glides between the light and me.