That left me with telepathy. Or the hope that wherever he was and whatever he was doing, he had enough self-esteem to know I was thinking about him.
Night fell. Up ahead, the trawler we’d been tracking for months and months loomed in the distance.
I killed the lights on our boat and shut the engine off, dropping the anchor. Silence cloaked us, one that Alexei wouldn’t fill unless I forced him. I’d learned that about him and the dark—the way it enveloped him and took him to wherever he needed to go to be a different soldier to the one I’d left at home.
He’d sorted our gear into piles.
I claimed mine and swapped my board shorts and tee for a wetsuit. Checked my tanks and attached my respirator. Second nature tasks that took Alexei a little longer.
He liked his privacy. I gave it to him until his edged voice broke the silence. “We are ready?”
I turned to face him. He had his wetsuit on, the hood still lowered, oxygen tanks fixed to his back. “All set. Remember what I said about ascending. I’m not in the market for an embolism.”
Alexei rolled his eyes but tipped me a nod. He was a good student. A quick learner. But ascension had proved the hardest part of the dive for him. Sometimes, he panicked and rose too fast, and we didn’t have time for me to chase him tonight. Not if we wanted to get everything we needed before the sun came back.
We did our final sweeps: Me of our dive gear. Alexei of the security measures he’d taken to ensure we remained undetected. Then we rolled off the side of the boat and into the frigid ocean.
Honestly, I’d done colder dives, but the icy water still hit me hard. Maybe I was getting old. Or less enthusiastic. Either way, the shock of the plunge was getting less fun every time I did it.
We acclimatised and double checked the guide rope attached to the boat. Then we descended and the ocean swallowed us up.
It was a long swim to the trawler. When we reached it, I ditched my tanks and respirator, swapped my fins for boots, and surfaced, slowly, in the shadows of the ship.
My lungs burned, muscles on fire. But I didn’t gasp for air. I took slow, controlled breaths, topping up my oxygen before I moved to the next phase.
Boarding a boat undetected was easy if you knew how. And I did. I secured an escape route, then climbed the hull, slipping onto the deck on the opposite side to where the crew had gathered to drink and eat their evening meal.
I crouched low for long minutes, breathing and listening. But Alexei had done his work on the radar, and there were no security cameras.
Move.Get this done so you can go home.
I rose and crept through the boat, covering ground fast, assessing every inch as I laid the bugs we needed to pinpoint the date and time we’d come back and do this a different way.
The trawler was big enough that it took some time, but I had to be fast. I’d left Alexei underwater. He’d become an expert diver in record time, but keeping him alive was my top priority.
Also, however good at this I was, the adrenaline coursing in my veins hurt my joints, and I wasn’t here for that.
Twenty minutes later, I climbed overboard and returned to the water. The cold shocked me again, and it took a hot second to force enough air into my lungs to get me back to Alexei.
I found the line that linked me to him and reattached it.
Then I sucked in a long breath and sank beneath the surface, kicking against the current while my lungs expanded with the effort, exertion straining every nerve, my brain throbbing with the pressure.
I reached Alexei and swam deeper to meet him. Despite my anxiety, he was ready and waiting. He fit the respirator in my mouth and sweet oxygen reached me.
Again, I was mean with my intake. Breathingsteadily, delaying instant gratification. Taking the slow head rush while Alexei kitted me up. For the second time that day, I found myself grounded by his hand on my arm, my soul a spiked combination of gratitude and resentment.
Apparently I couldn’t handle being touched by anyone who wasn’t Decoy—who wasn’tSeth—while I missed him this much.
I got my bearings and we made the long swim back to the boat, reaching it with just enough air in the tanks to justify the spot I’d dropped anchor.
“We could be closer, I think.” Alexei ripped the hood of his wetsuit off. “For all of it. Is a long stretch without air for you, no?”
I tugged my suit down, shivering as the night air hit my cold skin. “It’s manageable. I’d rather worry about running out of air than blowing you out of the water when the time comes.”
“That will only happen if we make a mistake.”
“Mistakes happen.”
