Silence crackled for half a second.
Then Hollis snapped back, hot and smug. “You’re overreacting. They’re still racing. We’re still ahead. We finish the leg.”
Fly’s jaw tightened. He adjusted the tiller, Valor responding instantly, clean and fast. Mei corrected the trim without looking at him. Than braced, already feeling it.
“Sir,” Fly said, steady but unyielding. “This is my second warning. Conditions are no longer stable. I recommend altering course toward shore now.”
Hollis’s reply came fast and furious. “Negative. That’s an order. Hold your line.”
Fly acknowledged, clipped and formal. “Aye.”
The storm continued to advance, the horizon darkening another shade, the bay reshaping under pressure that had nowhere to go.
Harvard was still there. Pushing. Challenging.
Fly kept sailing, eyes locked on the water, already calculating what he would do if the bay decided to stop playing fair.
The wind came hard out of sequence, slapping the sails sideways before dying completely, leaving Valor sliding through a hollow that made his teeth set. The swell underneath her lifted, deeper now, longer, moving with purpose instead of pattern.
Fly didn’t hesitate.
“Bridge,” he called. “In. Now.”
She didn’t ask why. She moved fast, scrambling back from the bow, clipping in as she came. Fly saw the tether flash tight on the leeward side, clean and correct, her weight low and ready.
“Sir,” Fly said into the radio, voice sharp, command threaded through it now. “The swell is stacking. We’re turning toward shore immediately.”
Hollis’s reply came hot and loud. “Negative. Hold your line. You’re not pulling my varsity crew out when you’re schooling Harvard.”
Fly’s eyes never left the water.
The horizon was gone now, swallowed by a dark advancing mass.
What had been distant cloud only moments before now rolled across the bay like a living wall, low and fast, dragging the sky down with it. The wind shifted violently, a hard, cold blast that flattened the water one second and tore it apart the next.
The bay rolled beneath them, timing blown apart, wind fighting swell, the surface tightening into something dangerous and alive.
Whitecaps erupted everywhere at once.
The air smelled metallic, sharp with rain.
“Sir,” Fly said, louder now, every word precise. “With respect, we are not safe. My boat. My decision.”
“Gallagher,” Hollis snapped. “That’s an order.”
Fly’s grip tightened on the tiller. He looked once, fast and instinctive.
“I’m disobeying it. I’m not putting this crew in danger when I know what’s coming.”
“You goddamned golden boy! You’ll damn well keep that boat in the race, or you’re done. I’ll make sure of it.”
The first blast of rain hit. Sheets blasting across the deck.
The squall slammed across the bay so hard the far boats disappeared instantly, their sails swallowed by gray water and wind.
Mei, locked in on the main, windward side, hands steady, eyes on the sail.
Than mid cockpit, braced, solid, ready to move wherever Fly needed him.
