Page 104 of Everything You Hate
The wave hits.
The deck vanishes under my feet. The world tilts. The rail tears from my grip. Cold. Black. Water everywhere. The shock of it stops my heart. My lungs seize. Salt fills my mouth. My nose. My eyes.
I kick. Arms burning. My body remembers what my brain has forgotten—swimming lessons at eight, a pool in Bel Air, my father watching from a lounge chair with his phone. One arm forward. Then the other. Kick from the hips. Don’t panic. Panic drowns you.
I break the surface. Rain hammers my face. The wind screams. I can’t see the boat. Can’t see Abel. The water is black.Churning. Waves roll through me. I taste diesel. Salt. My own fear, metallic and sharp.
“Abel!” The wind takes my voice. “ABEL!”
Another wave. It takes me under. The cold is absolute. My clothes drag. My boots are anchors. I kick harder. My lungs burn. The surface is somewhere above me. I can’t tell which way is up.
My hand breaks water. Air. I gasp. Another wave hits. I go under again. Deeper this time. The darkness closes. My arms are lead. My legs are lead. The cold has worked its way into my marrow.
I kick. One more time. Hard as I can.
The surface doesn’t come.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Dean
“Mayday. Mayday. Mayday.”
I freeze with a dock line in my fist as the radio at my belt crackles. What idiot saw the wall of clouds approaching and thought,yeah, let’s go sailing?
Jesus.
“This is sailing vessel—this is Abel Merrick. Vessel in distress. Position approximately two miles northwest of Port Haven breakwater. Taking on water. Engine failure. Two souls on board. Mayday.”
Everything in me goes cold. Abel. On the water. In this.
Why?
He knows better. He fucking knows this is not weather you fuck around in.
The weather station’s been calling gale every ten minutes. I checked it myself.
“Abel,” I bark into the portable, already untying the bow. “Say again your position. Who’s the second soul on board?”
There’s a silence, then a burst of static. “Scarlett,” his voice blares, high and thin with panic. “It’s—she’s the other. I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Dean.”
The wind shreds the next words. I don’t hear them. I’m already running back toward the office. The only thing in the world is the sound of her name, flickering between static.
She’s out there, somewhere in the black sweep of the Sound, and I have to get to her before the cold or the waves or whatever sentient malice the Merrick family conjured tonight finishes the job.
I throw open the office door and trip over Doug’s throne on my way to the wall phone. Bodhi took Doug and Captain to the farm to ride out the weather, and the office is empty, eerily still, other than the howling of the wind.
The marina office radio sits on the counter behind me, volume cranked to compete with the storm.
The Coast Guard response comes through a half-second later, crisp and controlled: “Abel Merrick, this is Coast Guard Station Port Haven. Copy your Mayday. Stand by for position confirmation.”
I snap up the wall phone and dial Zade?—
Headlights splash through the window, and I turn in time to see Zade’s truck rocking to a halt in front of the office.
I drop the phone and shove out the door. The dock pitches under my boots. Wind shoves me sideways. I grab the rail. The harbor is chaos—whitecaps, boats heaving against their lines, the breakwater a dark smudge through the gray.
Dean
