I draw again, harder this time, and get even less air.
I don’t know what’s failed yet. Only that my regulator isn’t delivering what it should, and that I’m starting to sink, my buoyancy compromised as my breathing turns shallow and uneven. The coral below feels much closer than it did a second ago.
I glance up at the surface, then at my depth gauge. I’m still shallow enough for a direct ascent. Safe, on paper. But my limbs are heavy, flooded with lactic acid, and the idea of swimming straight up without a solid breath in my lungs feels… uncertain.
I force myself to look down instead, tracing the path of the bubbles.
The hose leading from my regulator is still there—but when I reach back and grab it, it shifts in my hand far too easily. The connection at the first stage is no longer seated. The metal fitting looks wrong, jagged at the edge, and as I move it, the leak worsens.
My pressure gauge needle jitters, then drops.
Understanding hits all at once, cold and absolute.
Air is escaping faster than I can use it. My tank is venting into the ocean.
I’m out of time.
There’s no fixing this downhere.
The only thing left to do is move—fast—and hope my body remembers how to obey before my lungs decide they’ve had enough.
I start kicking toward the sun, as rapidly as my tired, heavy legs will take me, but they don’t feel like they belong to me anymore. My lungs are close to bursting. Every cell in my body is screaming for oxygen, but I try—try—not to let panic take over. I know better. I know it’s the worst thing I can allow. Panic chews up oxygen and floods your blood with cortisol. It makes your limbs move too fast or not at all. It kills you faster than the pressure ever could.
But the current drags, the bubbles around me distort everything, and my limbs are moving like I’m trapped in syrup. My vision is shrinking at the corners.
Just when my limbs start losing their rhythm entirely, a hand finds me.
It stops my useless flailing with one firm grip, steady and certain in a way nothing else feels right now. The moment I feel it, something inside me quiets.
I turn, dizzy and disoriented, and there he is.
Holden.
His mask is fogged slightly, but I can still seehispanic burning behind his eyes—just below the surface, barely held in check. His regulator is already in his hand, not his mouth. The other hand comes up to my chin, fingers firm, confident. He tilts my face just enough to part my lips with pressure I havedefinitelyimagined before, and then he slides the mouthpiece into place.
I don’t think. I breathe.
It’s sharp, painful, electric—and perfect. My lungs burn, but the relief is almost euphoric. I nod—barely—and he nods back, just once.
Something about his movement feels like a silentgood girl, but that might just be the oxygen deprivation talking.
Then the regulator is gone again, and back in his mouth. He inhales. Deep. Steady. And hands it back once more.
The rhythm begins. My breath. His. Mine. His.
I’m floating, barely coherent, but he holds me up—literally, then more than literally. His arm slides around my waist, solid muscle tightening against me as he kicks for the surface.
He doesn’t look away.
Not once.
His eyes stay on mine, watching, checking, promising. Even as everything starts to double in my field of vision. He’s blurry now—twomasks,foureyes, and a mouth I’ve already spent far too long thinking about now duplicated, which feels truly unfair.
I manage one shaky breath before he takes the regulator back, and I’m pretty sure I smile—drunk on hypoxia, fear, and Holden Wilkes.
But the second I do, something shifts in his face.
His frown deepens. His four eyes flick over me—measuring, assessing, recalculating—and then he kicks harder. Faster. Like that smile was a sign of something slipping he can’t afford to lose.
