“Yep,” I lied. “Nervous, I guess. As you said, I’ll be fine.”
He nodded and helped me out of the car, but I could see the wary look in his eyes. I walked over to join the others, Nico following behind. Sebastian was signing some papers while Felipe and Tiago were hauling the gear toward the small boatwe’d rented. Nico headed toward the small office at the edge of the dock to get the keys.
After giving the clipboard back to the rental guy, Sebastian shook the guy’s hand. The man headed back toward the truck he’d come in. Sebastian glanced at me and pursed his lips. He looked worried. “Maddy, you don’t look good.”
“Thanks, you’re pretty hot yourself, big guy.”
Ignoring my jibe, he said, “We haven’t even set foot on the boat yet, and you already look seasick. What’s going on?”
I shook my head. “Nothing. Don’t worry about it. I… I’ve never dived before. I think the anxiety is getting to me. All the talk about how dangerous cave-diving is. It’s starting to get to me.” The lie came easily enough. I actuallywasa little worried about that, but it wasn’t the truth. Not really. Something else, something more existential, was wrong.
Sebastian seemed to buy my line, though. His face softened. “That’s understandable. This isn’t ideal. Of all of us, Felipe has the most experience, but even he isn’t fully certified. What we are doing is a big no-no, safety-wise. But I’ve seen the map on that scroll. We only have to go about a hundred and fifty feet into the cave. We should be fine as long as everyone holds the guide rope and everyone sticks to the plan. We’ll take care of you. I promise.”
His words did little to actually calm me down, but I gave him a wan smile and shrugged. “I know. I’ll be fine. Thanks, Sebastian.”
Nico returned a few minutes later with the keys. “Good to go.”
We grabbed the rest of the gear and helped Tiago and Felipe load it onto the boat. I gasped at how heavy everything was. A new fear shot through me. A mental image of myself loaded down with all this stuff, plummeting into the darkest parts of the ocean, the pressure building as I tried to swim back up.Suddenly, I was terrified of diving. Great. Why not continue stacking anxiety on top of anxiety like some kind of shitty, emotionalJenga?
Felipe went back to the car to grab the few bags we’d brought along, and Nico pulled me aside. “You’re gonna let me know if you feel anything, right? I can tell something is off with you. Do you think it has to do with the vial?”
I hesitated at first, unsure if I wanted to verbalize it, but under his intense gaze, I couldn’t keep it hidden. I nodded. “Maybe. I just feel weird. It’s hard to explain. Hopefully, it’ll fade soon.”
He rubbed a hand up and down my back, looking worried. “Offer still stands. If it gets to be too much, you speak up. Got it?”
“Yeah. No problem.” That was another lie. No matter what happened, how freaked out I or my wolf got, there was no way I was turning back until I had that vial.
This boat was nowhere near as nice as the one Nico and I had been on the night before. It was a dive boat used for guided scuba diving, so it was more like a big, covered pontoon boat. Two benches sat along each side of the boat beneath a thick canvas roof to keep the sun off. The steering wheel was at the front and didn’t even have a chair. It was barebones, but it would get the job done.
Nico pulled away from the dock and headed toward the mouth of Bakar Bay. Last night had been nothing but relaxation and exhilaration. Today, my wolf was pacing, growling, and panting in apprehension. She knew we weren’t going on some pleasure cruise. She sensed what we were doing, and she was uncomfortable.
Once we were out in the open sea, I walked up to Nico and pressed myself against him, wrapping my arms around his waist. He glanced back. “How are you doing?”
I shook my head, trying to think of how to put it into words. “It’s almost like a tug at my chest. Something is calling to me, beckoning me. It’s really weird.”
Leaving one hand on the wheel, he patted my arm with the other. “It’s all gonna be okay. Stay focused.”
Nico anchoredoutside the mouth of the bay, and we all got dressed in our wetsuits. There wasn’t really anywhere to get undressed privately, so Nico and Sebastian held towels up. Sebastian chivalrously kept his head turned away as I stripped down and pulled on the wetsuit. I’d never struggled so hard in my life to put something on. I panicked for a moment, thinking the wetsuit was the wrong size, but I finally got my arms through the sleeves and let Nico zip up the back while I panted and sweated from the exertion.
The others did a similar dance with the bulky suits. I turned and gazed out at the sea while the guys dressed. The next thirty minutes were spent with the three of them giving me and Tiago lessons and pointers on how to use the gear. Gauges, ballast, something called a buoyancy control device, and hand signals. The okay sign was simple enough. Then there were others I had to remember: a hand waving back and forth meantsomething was wrong, thumbs up meantrise, thumbs down wasdive… it went on and on, but there was no way I’d remember all the signs. Instead, I decided to focus on the few I was most likely to need.
After going over the safety procedures, we went on a test dive right where we’d anchored. Flipping off the back of the boat was the most difficult thing. I knew, for a fact, that I’d be fine, and it was only water behind me, but something in my head didn’t want to do it. All the extra weight attached to me was messing with my body awareness. Once I finally managed to flip back into the water, I had a few more moments of disorientation.What seemed like a billion bubbles flashed past my face, the roar of my breathing hissed in my ears, and I struggled to orient myself in the water. It was a very strange feeling. After a half hour, though, I was surprisingly adept. Not a master diver by any stretch, but after a bit of practice, I felt less worried about that aspect of the mission.
We all climbed back aboard and stripped off the gear, leaving our wetsuits on. Nico hauled up the anchor, and we made for the location on the map. My excitement at learning to dive vanished. My wolf whined deep within me as we neared the spot. An electric tingle danced across my skin, growing more pronounced the closer we got. By the time he dropped the anchor, again ten yards away from a stony cliff wall, it was like I had my finger stuck in a light socket. Chills and goosebumps seemed to buzz across my skin. I bounced nervously on my feet and clenched my neoprene-gloved hands together tightly to keep them from shaking. My eyes were locked on the cold black stone as if it were some great mysterious obelisk that contained the mysteries of the universe instead of granite or limestone.
“Everyone ready?” Nico asked as he pulled his air tanks back on.
“Ready as I’ll ever be,” Tiago said, strapping on his flippers. “If nothing else, I’ll have a helluva story to tell when I get home.”
Nico came over to help me put on my gear. He looked a little ridiculous, waddling toward me with the flippers on. If he’d had his mask down and neoprene hood pulled up, I don’t think I could have taken him seriously. He finished buckling my flippers and looked up at me. “How’s it going?”
I glanced at the cliff wall again, then back at Nico. “Can you feel it?”
He slowly shook his head. “Not sure what you mean.”
It was like I was coming out of my skin. The buzzing, electric tingle was going over every inch of my skin, and there was aslight high-pitched whine in my ears. The closer we got to the cave, the worse it got. Nico seemed totally unfazed. This was my blood, my wolf, my ancestry at play here.
I vaguely gestured toward the cave. “Being here. That’s what has me all messed up. It gets more intense the closer we get. This is what I’ve been feeling all morning. It’s this place. My wolf knows we’re going there, and there’s some kind of… I don’t know… attachment or connection to it.”
