As Mia leaped off the yacht, time slowed down. While still in midair, she uttered the oldest prayer of all. “Help.”
The shock of the icy water stole all the breath from her body. She sank through the gloom. Her lungs demanded air, but she denied them until they turned hollow, until they felt as if they were turning inside out. She heard the muffled sounds of bullets stitching the water.
Her eyes were open, but it made no difference. She was no longer sure what was up or what was down. She couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move, couldn’t focus. She was going to die here in the dark, and then drift slowly down, down, down until the pressure crushed her bones.
No! Mia began to thrash blindly, her arms and legs flailing at the water. Finally her head breached the surface. She drew in a ragged breath that was a painful mix of air and water. Salt water burned her nose and throat. The light was bleeding from the sky.
Where was the yacht? She dog-paddled in a frantic circle. There it was, about forty yards away. As fast as she could, she swam away from it. A spot between her shoulder blades itched. Any moment she expected a bullet to punch through her. Did she need to dive down again, to avoid being shot? Or was it more important to gain distance? She chose distance.
When she snatched a glance over her shoulder, the yacht was about a hundred yards away, and Vin and Oleg were turned away from her, looking into the distance. Were they worried that the sound of their guns had carried? Or maybe they had decided that there was no point in trying to kill her if the water would take care of things soon enough.
No matter what the answer was, they had stopped shooting at her. She thought it likely she was now out of range. And Mia was already tired. So tired. She arched her back and tried to float. But water sheeted across her face, filling her mouth with the ocean’s briny, bitter taste. Coughing, spitting, and snorting, she instinctively jerked up as if she could somehow sit up, sit up on top of the ocean. Instead, she began to sink again.
The panic surged back. She fought the water that burned her nose and throat. And suddenly she was vomiting into the ocean, vomiting ocean water and her lunch and, it felt like, even her breakfast and last night’s dinner. Her arms and legs were churning, keeping her afloat, but she was moving too fast. There was nothing to hold on to. The only way she had managed to learn to swim as an adult was by reminding herself that the water was contained with a pool, that the pool was finite, that she could always make her way to a point where she could stand up, or to a ladder she could climb up, or to a lip she could cling to. Even then, she had always picked an outside lane for practice. Now there was nothing for miles. Nothing but water.
She knew the sea couldn’t be sucking her down, but it felt like it was. And soon it would win.
No! Mia told herself. She could not afford to panic. She could not afford to lose her strength. She continued to move her arms and legs like eggbeaters, but she deliberately slowed down, trying not to waste energy.
Last year Mia had seen part of a special on drowning. She caught it as she was flipping through channels and then watched the rest, horrified. In one home movie, shot by someone unaware that he was also filming a death, children played in the waves, splashing and frolicking while a man just a few feet behind them drowned.
It wasn’t like it was in cartoons, when the victim called out or waved for help before going down for a third time. The man’s head had been low in the water, unmoving. Even so, his mouth was open, a small dark dot. His hair hung over his eyes. One hand appeared for a second, then the other.
“The victim,” the announcer intoned in a sonorous voice, “is using all his energy and oxygen just to keep his mouth above water. As is common in these types of cases, he appears to be climbing an invisible ladder. He doesn’t have enough air to call out. He doesn’t have enough energy to swim toward shore or to wave for help. All he has is less than a minute before he goes under—for good. The last thing that will happen is he will lose consciousness and make a final effort to breathe. This is known as the terminal gasp. Water will then move passively into the airways. Death will follow.”
That documentary had featured prominently in Mia’s nightmares for months.
Now she was living it.
If only something would float by that she could cling to. Wasn’t the ocean supposed to be filled with garbage? Where was some when she needed it?
If only she had a life vest.
Although that’s stupid, she berated herself. Why not wish for a helicopter with a guy from the Coast Guard in the basket?
Her arms and legs were even slower now, and not by her choice. Slower and heavier. Heavy as lead yet limp as noodles. She told herself she was conserving energy.
What good had jumping off the yacht done her? No good at all. She was alone in the middle of Puget Sound. Pretty soon she would stop being able to tread water and she would die here. Would it be a calm death? she wondered. The way Vin had half promised? Or would she be panicking to the last, even if she was too weak to show it?
Maybe when the end came, it would be easy to let go. To take that last breath.
Then she pictured Gabe’s face. The face he wore when he forgot that he was supposed to be a surly teenager. Forgot that he was supposed to be the man of the house. When he showed that he was what he was—still a boy, a boy mourning his father. A boy who needed a steady adult to guide him.
And Brooke? She was only four. Scott had almost faded from her memory. Mia certainly hadn’t had enough time to shape her, to teach her, to love her.
She had to figure out a way to live. If she could make it to sunrise, maybe someone would venture out, a fishing boat or even a pleasure craft, and spot her. She thought longingly again of life jackets. Remembered the last time she had flown, the flight attendants going through their spiel about slipping the vest on over the head and blowing into the tubes on either side.
And that gave Mia an idea. Her raincoat! She shrugged out of it, her head dipping below the water each time she pulled an arm free. She knotted the two sleeves at the end, then managed, after a long period of fumbling with stiff fingers, to refasten the zipper and pull it all the way up. As if it were a life jacket, she stuck her head between the tied together sleeves, with the knot resting against the back of her neck. Then she took the bottom edge of the coat and spread it open with her hands. She lifted it high overhead, legs still kicking, and slammed it down toward the water, bagging air.
It worked! The body of the coat was swollen with air. She laughed in triumph. She had done it. She had created a makeshift life vest. Holding the bottom of the coat tightly closed, she let herself rest on top of the air trapped inside.
Only then did she realize that her toes were going numb from the cold.
Mia wasn’t going to die from drowning. She was going to die from hypothermia.