Eleri bobbed with the waves for a few moments as she slowly turned in a circle. Looking for the Calypso yielded nothing, but she tried not to worry.
Beside her, Hannah did the same and, by the worry that pleated her brows, came to the same conclusion. They were alone out in the water. But why?
Hitting the button on her vest let a woosh of air into it from her tank. The unit tightened against her chest, but buoyed her higher in the water. The waves had been smacking her around—a good reason to keep her regulator in, but now she needed to take it out. Getting her head higher up made it less likely she’d swallow sea water.
Pulling the mouthpiece out and holding onto it, she turned to her dive buddy. “Did we move too far? Or did they move?”
Several yards away, Hannah bobbed and then suddenly disappeared. Holding her breath, Eleri counted for three beats, hoping it was a wave and that Hannah was just sitting in the trough as the peak split the distance between them. The breath gushed out of her lungs as—a moment later—Hannah’s head appeared in her vision again, none the worse for wear.
“We're in the same place. Well. . .” Hannah lifted her wrist, checking the high-end dive watch she always wore. It recorded her depth, dive time, and even her GPS location. “Actually, we're in almost the exact location where we went down.”
Hannah was moving toward her now, and Eleri offered her own strong strokes to bring them together. She knew she shouldn’t be burning her energy when she couldn’t see the boat, but the fact that it was missing made her want to tether herself to Hannah while they made their decisions. But Hannah was hard to hold onto, once again turning fully around and searching the blue horizon that stretched in all directions.
No matter how she strained, or tried to pop up higher in the water, the Calypso was nowhere to be found. Of all the times that she'd gone on a dive, Eleri had never come up alone. Not before now. Her heart was beating far too fast, though she lied to herself that it was from the strain of the dive.
It was only on her third rotation—when she’d basically given up on just spotting the research vessel—that she heard it. Turning to Hannah, she saw the other woman pulling on the cord that would release her emergency signal: a three foot, inflatable tube that could be seen from a distance. “Shit! Hannah, deflate. Get down.”
But the air was fast, the tube unfurling even as Hannah looked at her oddly. She probably couldn’t hear the boat coming as the sound of the air wooshing from her tank and into the plastic tube was filling her ears. With a quick thought—that signal could not go up!—Eleri reached for her dive knife and lunged forward out of the water.
With a five inch tear now marking the side, the signal device deflated and settled on the surface of the water. Though Hannah was looking at her as though she’d gone mad, Eleri was already pushing the button on her own vest, releasing the air and feeling the water slosh past her head as she sank slightly. Shoving the regulator back in her mouth, she tugged at Hannah, who seemed to have not caught on that there was a boat approaching quickly. Too quickly.
If nothing else, they needed to get low enough so the engine’s blades wouldn't be a problem. Had the crew of the Calypso seen this other boat and hightailed it out of the area? That seemed entirely possible, and it would mean that their team wasn’t that far away. But right now, Eleri and Hannah sat so low in the water that their vision was blocked by the choppy waves.
Finally understanding, Hannah shoved her own regulator back in her mouth and, in a smooth, practiced move, disappeared under the waves. Eleri’s own instinct was to flip upside down, mermaid style, but flipping her fins in the air here would only signal her presence. She’d just destroyed Hannah’s beacon in an effort stop them from being seen.
If the Calypso had seen it necessary to abandon them, then she and Hannah needed to get underwater fast. Eleri grabbed at the floating corpse of the signal tube and dragged it under with her. She was grateful this had not been a long dive and she was not—at least, not yet—worried about their remaining oxygen. Apparently, she wasn't sinking fast enough for Hannah, who grabbed onto her ankle and tugged her slowly deeper into the ocean.
Even so, it was necessary for Eleri to grab her nose, shake her head, and work her jaw in an attempt to make her ears equalize. She sank for the second time. She knew this was not smart, immediately going down again. But they would not go so far this time—just low enough to stay out of sight of the approaching speedboat.
When they were far enough under, Eleri looked up and watched. Barely able to see a mark in the distance, she could still tell it was the underside of the boat, and it was fast approaching. She could hear it now. Turning, it startled her to find Hannah panicking.
Hannah hadn't even seen the video of Allison's murder, but it appeared something here triggered Hannah. Grabbing her friend’s hand, Eleri tugged and began the slow work of swimming her away. Despite Hannah's panic, moving was smart. If they could put some distance between themselves and the boat, they could come up to the surface, use their snorkels, and save their oxygen. Moving farther also made it less likely they’d be spotted.
Even as she thought that, the noise of the engine cut, the boat coming to a stop right behind them. The lack of sound almost brought Eleri to her own panic. What if the boaters had spotted them? What would that mean? Were they just friendlies out for the day on a cigarette boat? Did they stop because they saw divers and no dive boat around?
Though that story made sense, Eleri knew it wasn't true.
Right then, in the silence, she noticed another noise, one she’d missed given the overwhelming sound of the first boat. But now it was clear, as the sound traveled faster, if not sharper, under the water. She turned her head the other way. Even as Hannah continued to tug at her hand, pulling her farther away from the scene, Eleri spotted the second boat on the horizon. This one was coming from the opposite direction.
Then it, too, stopped.
The distance between the two small boats remained rather broad. Eleri had no idea what was going on. She didn't know if she and Hannah were swimming towards or away from the Calypso. She didn't know how long they could be stuck here with the boat stopped, or whether these smaller boats had seen them.
Surely, the divers couldn’t be spotted now, the women were too far underwater, the surface too choppy to peer through. Even if someone managed to get eyes under their boat, the two women were too far away, with the seaweed and algae and distance obscuring them.
They should be safe, Eleri thought as a way to console herself. Stopping underwater and managing to float without much movement, besides that put upon them by the current, Eleri motioned again toward the surface.
Hannah refused. Her panic was would run her out of oxygen faster than most anything else. And—in a situation like this—they needed more O2, not less. They had to conserve what they had left. Which meant one, not sucking it down in a panic-induced fit and, two, getting to the surface to breath the free air there.
With a nod, clear and soft and yet full of authority, Eleri pointed again to the surface. She began swimming upward, tugging at Hannah. Though Hannah resisted slightly, she didn't fight hard, for which Eleri was grateful. Underwater, Hannah would have definitely overpowered her. When they broke the surface, Eleri put her finger to her lips, pulled out her regulator, and put in her snorkel, staying just below the surface. Quietly, they breathed air from above the waves and waited for the boats to pass.
They waited.
And waited.
And waited.
Until the sky began to turn dark.