He shifted on the board, squinting toward the horizon. The light was strange now, thin and metallic, clouds thickening where minutes ago the sky had been clear. He knew weather better than most, but storms in California moved like secrets. They looked harmless until they were on top of you.
He should’ve gone in.
Instead, he glanced toward the dark strip of beach where Coronado’s base lights blinked faintly in the distance. He didn’t know what happened behind those fences, only that men in perfect formation ran there at dawn, silent and relentless. Navy, he’d heard. Maybe Marines. He didn’t care. He just knew they moved like purpose wrapped in skin.
Purpose.
That word had been gnawing at him for months, biting at the edges of every thought. Lifeguarding filled the time, and he was well aware he was drifting. He had plenty of money, a roof over his head, and a job that would make most people happy.
But he felt like a beach bum; the lack of challenge chafed. He wanted more than whistles and sunscreen and endless chatter about tourists and tides. He wanted to matter.
He caught the next swell instinctively, paddling hard until the board lifted. The drop hit his stomach like freefall, spray cutting his face as he carved down the wave’s clean line. The world narrowed to muscle, balance, breath, the single instant where everything held. Then the wind shifted, sharp and cold, and the sky split open.
The wave he rode warped under him, heavy and mean. Thunder cracked overhead. He tried to cut out early, but the backdraft yanked him sideways. The board shot out from under him.
The impact stole everything, sight, sound, direction. Salt burned his eyes. The world turned white and green and black. He kicked for the surface, lungs screaming, broke through once, sucked air that wasn’t there, then the next wave hit and rolled him again.
The leash jerked, tugging his ankle. He reached for the board, but his fingers met nothing. Panic clawed up his throat.
Don’t lose it. Don’t you bloody lose it.
He treaded water, scanning for shore, but the rain blurred everything. He was farther out than he’d realized. The lifeguard towers were gone. The land was just a gray smudge. His chest burned. He started swimming, picking a direction that felt right, pulling through water thick as quicksand.
Lightning split the sky. For a heartbeat, the world turned silver. He saw the base, floodlights gleaming on the edge of the storm, and men running. Dark figures against pale sand.
Then the thunder came.
The sound hit bone-deep, vibrating through him, and suddenly he wasn’t a lifeguard anymore. He was a boy again, ten, alone in the world except his M&M. The loss dragged at him. The current shifted again, stronger now, yanking him sideways into deeper water. He fought it, muscles burning, each stroke slower than the last. The rain turned to needles, pelting his back. His breath came ragged.
“Help!” he shouted, voice shredded by the wind. He doubted anyone could hear. The shore was a blur of lightning and darkness.
A wave rose behind him, towering, black. He turned, too late. The crest broke over him, hammering him under. The world went white again, then darker than dark.
He tumbled, arms flailing, lungs seizing. When he finally broke the surface, the board slammed into his ribs and spun away. He gasped, swallowing seawater. Something primal screamed in his chest. He fought. There was no way he was giving up.
He kicked again, harder, but the sea pulled like gravity. He barely got his face clear before another surge rolled him. The sound of thunder blurred into shouting, distant, unreal. For one insane second, he thought he imagined it.
He tried to call out, but salt filled his throat. The current twisted him again.
The last thing he saw before the wave took him under was his mother’s face, the soft curve of her sweet smile, and then nothing at all.
Cormac Kavanaugh had stopped feeling his fingers somewhere around Wednesday. Maybe earlier. It didn’t matter anymore. His hands were raw, salt crusted into every split in his skin, and the weight of his body had long since stopped belonging to him. Pain was just geography now. Something you moved through.
The instructors called it a sleep period, as if sleep had anything to do with it. Ninety minutes. Long enough for the mind to remember what rest used to be. Short enough for the body to revolt when you asked it to move again.
The tent smelled like seawater, mud, and unwashed men burning through the last scraps of themselves. Bodies shivered in damp cots, muscles twitching in half-dreams, salt stains gleaming white under the low red lights. The rain outside had eased, leaving only the slow slap of water against the steel pier and the muttered groans of men fighting nightmares that were real before they closed their eyes.
Cormac lay flat on his back, staring at the underside of the canvas roof. His eyelids felt like lead, but his mind wouldn’t shut down. His pulse was a steady throb in his ears, his hip flexors on fire. Every joint ached. He tried to stretch his toes. Nothing. Just a dull echo in the void where his legs used to be.
He could hear Fisher breathing beside him, ragged, shallow. Someone snored once, then gagged awake. Another man whispered a prayer. The word Amen came out cracked and small, like a child’s.
Cormac closed his eyes and saw home, but not the kind he’d left. Not Boston’s brick row houses or his brother’s badge gleaming under bar light. This was deeper. Older. He saw green fields, shamrocks spilling over stone walls slick with rain, the smell of peat smoke curling into the sky. He saw his grandmother’s hands, leathery and strong, twisting a clover stem until it broke clean between her fingers.
There’s always one, Mac, my little lad, she’d said once, voice rough with whiskey and love. One that’s got four leaves when it shouldn’t. If you find it, you keep it. Means you’ve got luck the world can’t steal.
His lips cracked in a smile that wasn’t really a smile. “Aye, Gran,” he muttered, voice barely a breath. That was his gift. He could always find that four-leaf clover.
Outside, a bell clanged, once, twice, thrice, metallic and mean. Somebody had quit. The sound cut through the tent like a verdict. A shudder ran down the line of cots. Nobody spoke, but every man heard it. Then five more times.
