Chapter 20
It’s pitch black. I’ve lost all sense of time and direction without my sight.
The wind and waves batter us relentlessly. The pitch of the boat is at the mercy of the sea.
We use our legs to create tension against the side of the hull by pressing our feet firmly against the opposite side, keeping hold of each other tightly, an unspoken agreement to not lose each other in the dark. For hours that feel never ending, we withstand the storm.
Every so often, the ocean bottoms out underneath us, leaving the boat briefly suspended in mid-air, and my stomach roils in protest. Water surges over the side of the boat in one dip, only to funnel back out the next. All we can do is hold on so it doesn’t take us with it.
The temperature has dropped. Each intake of water in the boat feels like fresh ice against our trembling skin. If the amount of water collecting inside the hull doesn’t sink us, the loss of heat will be what does us in.
Over and over, wave after wave comes. We don’t speak. Words aren’t
going to save us.
Then … A low, thunderous vibration permeates the air, drowning out the sound of water and ragged breaths and even the heartbeat inside my chest. I don’t need to feel or hear it to know my heart has stopped beating altogether, because I know what’s coming.
I’ve only experienced the middle of a swirling sea storm once before, but it’s a memory I will never forget. The way the air became impossibly more ferocious, rattling my eardrums and the trees and the entire grove,
only for that awful piercing silence to follow, when the water rose and swallowed half of Alaha. Many lost their homes that day, some their lives.
I fold into Acker. He doesn’t hesitate to wrap his arm around me.
Placing his lips directly against the shell of my ear, he yells so I can hear him. “Don’t let go! No matter what. Don’t let go.”
He pulls me in tight against his body, tucking my head under his chin, using his legs and the arm not holding me to brace us harder against the inside of the boat.
Rain no longer falls but whips through the air like tiny needles.
Lightning, the first we’ve seen in hours, spears from the sky. A sharp clack of thunder splits through the sound of roaring wind like a whip. Acker tightens his arm around me. It’s a painful embrace but one I’m grateful for as I clench his soaked shirt in my fingers.
Then, like blowing out a candle, the wind and rain stop. Acker’s and my own sharp breaths fill the stillness. The stern of the boat dips forward.
Acker reinforces the tension in his arm and legs to stop us from falling forward with the tilt. The bow nosedives head first into the deep trough between waves, and we’re in free fall.
I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the inevitable crash of wood slamming into the water below, for when our boat splinters apart and we
meet our end.
But it never comes.
“My gods.” Acker’s voice is barely a whisper, but it resonates in my ear nonetheless.
I open my eyes and lose all my held breath in a rush. Flashes of lighting come from every direction, like arms reaching across the sky and into the sea and everywhere in between. We can see the churning water and the wall of clouds and driving rain swirling around us as gigantic waves roil in the heart of the storm.
A bolt of lightning hits one of the waves, illuminating the water underneath the surface with a bright blue glow before it fades to black once more. The air is electrified, and despite being thoroughly sodden, all the hair on my body stands on end.
Another jagged line of electricity comes down from overhead, seeking the path of least resistance before striking the water not far from our boat,
illuminating the water around us again.
I gasp.
Acker curses.
Long, dark tentacles surround our boat, winding around us in the churning water. The bottom of the wave I was expecting to be our final blow seems to never have come and we begin our ascent up the face of the next swell, almost like we’re floating above the water’s surface.
Almost like we’re being carried.
Acker doesn’t let go of me. Not when the boat felt like it was going to be ripped apart at any moment and we were going to go overboard. Not in the center of the storm and not when we breach the veil of the storm’s eye.
He never lessens his hold, not even when his arms shake.
He never lets go.
