It isn’t fear.
This time, finally it’s rest.
28SOL
I come back in pieces.
Disjointed. Unmoored.
Steady beeping too measured to be the engine, too shrill to be the call of a sea bird. And there’s light—white and horrific. Pain that’s everywhere and nowhere at once. A cold, bruised ache sitting under my skin as if I’ve fallen from a high beam and been put back together wrong.
My ribs hurt.
My chest.
My head from the stitches pulling tight in my scalp.
Oscar.
His name lands heavy and I see him in the ocean. Feel his hand slipping from mine, his eyes rolling as the freezing water took advantage of the glitch in his blood sugar.
Like an idiot, I try to sit up. The world lists with savage force and my stomach lurches with it. Nausea obliterates me. I clamp my eyes shut and groan, forcing it down, knowing I can’t be sick everywhere because I’m not on the boat. I’m not at sea. And this is a different storm.
Jack.
Warmth nudges the deep cold infesting my bones. A thought that skids sideways before I can cling on and I scramble after it, which is another mistake. Mental gymnastics are beyond me and Oscar and Jack are so blurred together my stomach heaves again. Acid climbs my throat and I turn my head too fast to escape it.
The room spins like I’m riding a brutal swell.
The kind that sinks boats.
The Sirona?—
“Shh. Sol. It’s okay.”
Jack.
The low rumble of his voice wraps around me, holding me close. With another wretched groan, I force my eyes open and there he is.
Chair dragged close.
Elbows on the mattress, both hands wrapped around one of mine as if he’s been anchoring me to the bed by sheer will alone.
Relief hits me.
I’m dizzy all over again.
“Oscar…”
“He’s all right.” Jack frees one of his hands to hold my face. “Hypothermia hit him different, but he’s pulled through.”
Pulled through.
My stomach reacts before my brain doesand an emotion I can’t decipher drains from me so fast my vision flickers. Nausea rises stronger than before and I rip out of Jack’s hold, my whole body heaving.
Somehow, I don’t puke. And Jack catches me before I get too far away from him. Hand on my throat, the other steady on my shoulder. Like he’d planned for this, and I hate it. The mess of it all. The thoughts I can’t line up. The seconds, minutes, and hours that slip through my fingers.
I lose time.