“The leprechaun.”
Bhandari muttered, “He’s gone. Mind’s broke.”
He couldn’t look away. As a kid, leprechauns had been half joke, half warning—spirits you never mocked, because they’d twist your luck until you didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Somewhere between the mischief and the menace, he’d learned how to live, learned that humor could charm fate into letting you walk away from things that should’ve killed you. Maybe that was why he grinned now.
“Little bastard looks like my great-uncle Eamon,” he muttered. “Same beard, same temper.”
Bolt wheezed, “You’ve lost your mind.”
Cormac cackled softly, voice cracked. “He’s paddling faster than we are! Gonna steal our Lucky Charms!”
Bolt groaned and nearly dropped his paddle, laughing. “You’re an insane shamrock.”
“Shamrock, maybe. But lucky, yeah.” Cormac spat salt. “Now row, Bolt. Zeus’s after you, we’ve got pandas ready to kick our asses, and I’ve got me lucky charms to protect from a leprechaun.”
“Fat pandas,” Panda muttered.
“You’re tougher than little green men,” Barnhardt said.
“And taller,” Bolt added. More laughter.
The cadence was now deep in his shoulders. “Maliciously delicious,” Cormac replied, teeth flashing white in the dark. “Keep paddling.”
Chase snickered. “Kung fu, baby.”
Fog thickened until sky and sea became one. The boat sliced through liquid glass, the only sound their ragged breaths.
They dug in harder, delirium turning into momentum.
Hours blurred. The world shrank to pain and motion. Muscles locked, hands bled, breath came in ragged grunts. Around them, other boats faded into fog. Only the slap of paddles kept time.
Bolt’s voice faltered, hoarse. “Can’t feel my arms.”
Cormac rasped back, “If your paddles are moving, they’re still attached.”
They were ahead by a mile. No other boat lights flickered through the fog, and no shouts carried across the water. If they kept their pace, Boat Crew Two would take the win, the one every class talked about. The promise of heat and food waited just beyond the finish line, hot chow, a shower that didn’t sting like needles, a dry rack, maybe a fistful of pain meds to quiet the fire in their joints. But more than any of that, Cormac knew exactly where he wanted to be for the rest of his life.
Right here. Working alongside these amazing bastards who refused to quit.
They fed every ounce of need he’d ever had for connection, for shared suffering, for the kind of brotherhood you could bleed beside. He could feel it even through the numbness. This was the life he’d been chasing without knowing it. The rest of the world could have its warmth and soft beds. This was where he belonged.
They rounded the point blind. The Pacific gave way to the slower roll of the bay, water flattening under their hull. A wind out of the east pushed against them, cruel, constant. Every stroke was defiant.
Cormac was the first to hear it. A thin cry, distant but real. He froze mid-stroke. “Hold.”
Bolt blinked. “What now?”
“Listen.”
The sound came again, faint, frantic. “Help!”
Bolt shook his head. “You’re still seeing your fairy.”
“Not this time.” Cormac’s gut twisted. He turned toward the noise. “Starboard side!”
Chase’s voice boomed. “Something in the water! Move!”
The boat veered. The fog parted just enough to show a flash of white, foam, board, a human form slipping under with a mop of copper hair.
