Darkness(8)

Chapter Five





The survivor was a man. His hair, the shape of his face, the width of his shoulders—Gina was certain about his gender even though she only had a few seconds before a swell got between them again, blocking him from her view. If he was calling to her, Gina couldn’t hear him over the noise of the sea. Couldn’t see him now, either, as the boat plunged down the back of a wave and tall peaks of steel-gray water topped with foam and littered with pieces of wreckage rushed past her on all sides.

But she would find him again.

No way was she leaving this guy behind.

Dropping the binoculars, she came about and went to full throttle, sending the boat flying over the watery cliffs and valleys toward where the man had been. He was lost, temporarily, she prayed, amid the waves. As she did her best to dodge the bursts of spray breaking over the bow, the possibility that this might be the man who belonged to the leg sent a shiver of horror down her spine. If so, his life hung by the thinnest of threads, and might depend on what she did in the first moments after reaching him.

She had adequate basic first aid skills, along with a small first aid kit tucked away in her backpack, which was secured in a compartment in the stern beneath a waterproof flap, but for so severe an injury . . . her mind boggled at the thought of trying to deal with it.

That concern was forgotten as she crested a wave and saw him there in the water almost directly below her, his head bobbing, his arms barely visible as they moved back and forth in front of him in a slow, treading-water motion. His face turned up toward her even as she spotted him. It was as pale as a corpse’s beneath short, soaked seal-black hair that was plastered to his skull. From that distance his eyes looked black, too, narrow slits above a triangular blade of a nose and colorless lips pressed into a thin, tight line. He saw her and gave another feeble-looking wave.

“Here,” he yelled.

She barely heard the hoarse cry, and would’ve thought her ears were playing tricks on her if she hadn’t seen his lips move. He waved again as she sent the boat toward him.

“It’s okay, I’ve got you,” she shouted to him as she throttled down and maneuvered the boat to bring it in as close to him as possible. The waves worked against them, sweeping him away before she could reach him. For a worrisome moment she lost sight of him once more. She cautiously juiced the throttle, forced to take heed because of all the objects in the water, many of which might be jagged enough to damage the boat if propelled into it with sufficient force. A moment later she was rewarded by spotting him laboring toward her with an awkward swimming stroke that made her think he might be injured. This time her eyes stayed glued to him even as she worked the wheel and throttle to close the distance between them.

Watching him struggle against the current, she realized that she might have spoken too soon when she’d assured him that she had him. Getting him on board was going to be difficult, she feared. But there was no other option: towing him to shore behind the boat while he held on wouldn’t work. The water was so cold that if he stayed in it much longer he would die from hypothermia.

“Grab on to the boat,” she yelled as she got close enough to see that his eyes were shadowed by dark circles and his lips were blue. His face was waxy white with cold, and so taut with effort that the strong, square bones of his cheeks and jaw were starkly visible beneath his skin.

He can’t last much longer. She knew it with an utter certainty.

Another stroke of his arms and his fingers brushed the boat’s starboard side. To her dismay, it instantly became clear that there was nothing for him to grab on to: the tubular sides were smooth and slick.

The increasing strength of the waves made the too-buoyant craft difficult to handle with any precision. The wheel vibrated beneath her hands as she fought to hold the boat steady long enough to give him time to climb aboard. It was useless: even as his fingers scrabbled at the rubber, the water caught him up and pulled him away.

Should she lean out and try to grab him? Gina’s heart urged her to do it, but her head said no: he might latch onto her like the drowning man he was. She was five-seven and toned, but slim. From what she could see of him he looked large and solidly built. If she were to get pulled into the icy water, instead of rescuing him, she would die with him.

All she could do was get the boat as close to him as possible one more time and hope that he could get himself into it.

Taut with anxiety, pulse racing like she was the one whose life was at stake, she did battle with the rushing waves.

“Try again,” she cried as the boat drew near, only to watch aghast as one of the unceasing waves broke over him without warning. He disappeared, swallowed up by the cascading torrent.

Her heart lodged in her throat. Nerves jumping, she scanned the roiling water in growing alarm. When his dark head broke the surface at last she let out a breath she hadn’t realized she’d been holding. Shaking his head, throwing off water droplets like a wet dog, he started swimming toward the boat one more time.

“I’m coming!” Shrieking now, with no guarantee that he could hear her over the relentless roaring of the wind and sea, she sent the boat shooting toward him. Its blunt prow slapped up and down on the water with a sound like a hand smacking flesh. The repeated fishtailing of the stern forcibly reminded her that the craft was too flimsy and light for the increasingly harsh conditions. It was meant to be used in clear weather and calm seas. Keeping her gaze firmly fixed on his dark head, she refused to acknowledge the quiver of fear that shot down her spine at the thought, or to worry about the ferocity of the storm exploding toward her. There was nothing she could do about what was coming—except get the survivor on board and then get both of them out of there as fast as she could.