In Too Deep

Alex did so, then hefted the belt around his waist and fastened the airline-seatbelt-like closing. It slipped down a little when he stood up, so he tightened it. It slipped down again. Was it supposed to feel this loose? Probably—what the hell did he know? All he was certain of was that he was used to being in control, being the one to show others how things were done, and he was tired of looking like a rookie fool. It was this departure from his comfort zone as much as the ocean he was about to jump into that was causing his anxiety.

In any case, it was go-time. There was no backing out now. Alex got himself ready and fell backward into the open water.

The surface was crowded, as it looked like another group of divers had just dropped in at the same time. It took Alex a minute to locate his buddy, because everyone was unrecognizable to him with their masks and snorkels on. After they inserted their regulators into their mouths, his buddy counted down with his fingers. Holding their inflator controls above their heads, they slowly released air from their BCDs to start the descent to the reef. Alex felt the water close over his head, and then he saw bubbles rise in front of his mask as he exhaled.

He was doing it! He was under the surface of the ocean, and he was okay! Ridiculously, he felt an urge to let out a whoop, then quickly reminded himself of how stupid that would be.

When Alex’s feet hit the ocean floor, he spun around in a slow semicircle toward the reef. Then it was right in front of him, and all he could do was blink in amazement. The reef was so much more incredible than any photograph could capture. It was covered in every imaginable shape and color of plant and animal life—waving pink sea fans, purple and yellow tubes of coral—all forming a backdrop for the many animals that called it home. Sea stars of purple, orange and yellow shared space with spiky sea urchins on the coral. A spotted moray eel poked its head from its den, a turtle nipped at a plant, a grouper the size of a coffee table cruised by and a school of tiny blue fish flashed in synchronicity. Beyond it an underwater meadow of seagrass spread into the distance.

Alex turned to look to his left. There, much too close for Alex’s comfort, the ocean floor fell sharply away to create a cavernous, eerie-looking dark blue space: the sinkhole the reef was named after. Alex shivered, imagining himself stepping off the edge and falling down, down, gathering speed as the air in his BCD compressed, struggling to swim upward...slipping beneath the surface and sinking while his brother laughed onshore—

Stop it.

He was doing so well; the last thing he needed to do right now was send himself into a panic over something that had happened nearly two decades ago. He tore his eyes away from the sinkhole.

Alex’s group was starting to move along, so, remembering his pool dives, he put a little air into his BCD until his fins lifted from the ocean floor. Then he did his best to get himself horizontal—he could only imagine what a newbie he must look like, but at this point he was almost beyond caring—and started swimming after his buddy.

* * *

Of all the incredible things to see underwater, Nicola’s favorite was probably the very common trunkfish. With their clown-like faces, boxy spotted bodies and you-don’t-scare-me attitudes, they practically made her laugh into her regulator every time. She was pointing one out to a student when she noticed another diver swimming past her.

Many divers had trouble identifying people when they were suited up underwater, especially if they were in matching equipment, but Nicola had a knack for it. She could tell this diver wasn’t from her group, or even from her boat, and that he was very inexperienced. That was fine—everyone had to start somewhere—but what wasn’t fine was that he was on his own with no buddy or instructor in sight, and worse, headed directly for the sinkhole.

What the hell? What was he doing, and why was he on his own?

Checking quickly to make sure her students were all fine, she started going after him. This diver may not have been experienced, but he was very tall, making for a fast swimmer. When he reached the sinkhole, he didn’t slow down but cruised right over it, staring down into it as if mesmerized. Then he suddenly stopped, suspended above it.

Nicola was still about fifty feet away from him. She swam harder, not letting him out of her sight. Judging from this diver’s behavior, she had a suspicion of what was going on. It was unusual for it to happen at this depth, but certainly not unheard of: nitrogen narcosis. She’d seen it several times in her diving career—a state of euphoria and invincibility, much like that caused by narcotics, induced by breathing air at a higher pressure than the atmosphere. It was imperative that she get to him before he got any bad ideas—like letting all the air out of his BCD so he could swim to the bottom of the sinkhole, for example.

Forty feet away...thirty-five—

Nicola saw something from around the diver’s waist drop into the abyss. Her heart stopped.

The diver’s weight belt had slipped off, she realized, and now one of two things could happen. Either he would rocket straight for the surface and get a life-threatening case of the bends, or he could panic and very likely spit out his regulator. She hoped upon hope it would be option number two, because then at least she’d have a chance to get her spare air supply into his mouth before he drowned. Muscles burning and heart galloping, she put on a burst of speed, knowing that she still had to keep her breathing under control. If she sucked in too much air, she wouldn’t have enough left in her tank to get both of them safely to the surface.

Twenty feet—

Nicola watched the diver’s body language as he registered surprise, confusion—he was starting to rise upward—but then the best thing possible happened. She saw his arm shoot out to grab his inflator control, which meant he was doing what he was supposed to—removing the air from his BCD to keep himself from rocketing up to the surface.

Ten feet—

But oh, God, no—he’d hit the wrong button. This, too, was something she’d seen happen before—the buttons were different shapes but close together, so sometimes in a panic a diver would hit the fill button instead of the expel button.

Fifteen feet now as he floated up and away from her—

Adrenaline kicked in, but Nicola’s muscles still screamed. Her breath tore out of her lungs—not much chance of giving him air now, but she had to do something—and finally she was close enough to take a lunge at him. Reaching her hands up, she used her fins to propel herself upward and managed to close one hand around the tip of his fin. Her other hand closed around the edge of his second fin, then she clawed her way up until she could grab his ankles. She had a hold of him now, but it could still mean both of their deaths if she didn’t get to his inflator control to let his air out. She used the same arm she had locked around his legs to let the air out of her own vest by its built-in button, then used her other hand to take a slow-motion whack at the diver’s forearm. He dropped the inflator control and it floated slowly down toward her. Nicola snatched it up and pressed the expel button, doing a strong reverse frog kick with her legs to try to pull them downward.

And then she prayed.

* * *

Long, slow, deep breaths to conserve what little air she had left. Pretty much impossible at this point, but Nicola focused on it all the same to try to quell the adrenaline pumping through her veins. She still had her arm wrapped around the man’s waist with her head near his hip. She reached for her dive computer to read her oxygen level, though she already knew from her increasingly labored breaths that it was dangerously low. The number flashed at her in urgent red digits—80 PSI. Just enough to get her to the surface if she started her ascent in about one minute, but that didn’t help him any. At least they weren’t rising anymore—they seemed to have leveled out at around forty feet. Nicola employed a few more reverse frog kicks to pull them down a little farther, calculating that they’d now have to stay at this depth for about three more minutes to compensate for their initial rapid ascent. Going up any sooner put them both at serious risk for decompression sickness, a potentially lethal condition where gaseous bubbles formed in the bloodstream.

Sliding her hand up the diver’s chest, Nicola reached behind his left shoulder and pulled her arm forward to catch the tube attached to his dive computer. She caught the device in her hand and looked down at his oxygen: 50 PSI.

It was decision time—release him to his possible death but save herself, take both of them up now come what may, or try to share what little oxygen she had left with him.

There was no question. She swept her arm backward to catch her spare air supply, then pulled his regulator out of his mouth, replaced it with hers and hit the purge button.

CHAPTER THREE (#u32ac1597-a771-53f2-bc31-906ea9b61c0f)

WHEN ALEX’S HEAD broke the surface of the water, cold fear was still pumping through his veins. Just moments ago he had been quite certain he was about to draw his last breath. Ripping his mask off with shaking hands, the only thought in his mind was: he’d been a fucking fool to ever think he could do this. Quick on its heels, fueled by his extremely damaged ego, was the thought that he never wanted to face the person who’d been stuck with saving him. Given the choice between terror and humiliation, he chose a third option—outrage.

“What the hell happened down there?” he sputtered to Rusty after he’d yanked his regulator from his mouth. No, not his regulator, not even his rescuer’s—the device he’d just pulled from his mouth was the spare air supply that his own instructor had had to save him with. After Rusty finally got the memo that things had gone south with one of his students, he’d taken over the job and relieved Alex’s real rescuer so he or she could surface and save their own life. “You let me lose the group on my first dive? My fucking belt falls off?”

Beside him, Rusty yanked his mask down around his neck. “The important thing is that you’re all right,” he said soothingly, waving to his driver to pick them up. “Let’s get on the boat and I will explain.” The driver spun the boat in a semicircle and then backed up toward them, expertly placing the ladder within Alex’s reach. He grabbed on to it and heaved himself out of the ocean, feeling water gush down his legs as his wet suit drained. Four pairs of eyes—those of his fellow divers, comfortably seated on the benches—turned to look at him as he stumbled on deck. Great. Now he had an audience, as if he didn’t feel stupid enough. And he knew very well how he’d just sounded—like one of those pompous assholes that Alex himself hated, the ones who tried to blame everyone else for their failings. Still breathing heavily with exertion and adrenaline, Alex sat down on the bench and leaned his head forward with his elbows on his knees, trying to get himself together.

Rusty dropped down beside him. “Another diver got caught in fishing line, so I had to stop and cut him out. It happens sometimes.” When Alex didn’t respond, Rusty calmly went on. “You swam away from your buddy. Your belt slipping off was a piece of bad luck. I came for you as soon as I realized you were missing, but thankfully someone else got to you first.”

Alex shook his head with his eyes focused between his feet. He still didn’t understand what the hell he’d been thinking. He remembered gazing out at the sinkhole from the reef, and then an overwhelmingly optimistic feeling bubbling up in his chest. He would do more than get over his fear, he remembered thinking—he’d fucking obliterate it. And then he’d started swimming toward the sinkhole like he was under some goddamn spell or something. To say he was furious with himself was an understatement. He’d thought he could handle this, could conquer his lifelong fear, and instead he’d only succeeded in making it worse than ever.

“Nitrogen narcosis,” called out a female voice from behind him. “At least I’m pretty sure that’s what it was. Did you feel giddy and invincible?”

That voice—it was vaguely familiar. Alex lifted his head and slowly turned it to see a woman standing on the other dive boat, bobbing up and down with the waves in an opposing motion to his craft.

No.

It was her. Looking completely different from this morning—wet hair askance, a red rim around her eyes where her mask had imprinted on her now-pale skin, but those aqua irises—he could see them all the way from where he sat. There was no mistaking it: the goddess he had encountered on the road this morning, the hottest woman he’d laid eyes on since forever, was his rescuer.

Alex’s pulse kicked into high gear, making his ears ring. Now he truly wanted to die of humiliation. Everyone on both boats was staring at him now, including another large, protective-looking instructor at the woman’s side. As Alex looked at them, his memory of the recent events fell away, leaving only an intense visceral feeling in his body that was all too familiar. He felt the warm gush of water rushing out of his mouth, saw the crowd of kids staring at him, and his father’s furious face as he strode toward him. And then later—the sharp sting of his father’s slap across his five-year-old cheek. His father, the person who was supposed to care about him, had only enforced to Alex how badly he’d messed up.

Alex’s hands curled into fists on his thighs. He’d learned about nitrogen narcosis in his scuba lessons, but his understanding was that it only happened at depths below a hundred feet. Was she trying to help him save face? Or making fun of him? He knew he owed her his thanks for saving his life, but with his emotions running riot, he feared doing so might reduce him to tears. So instead, he jumped up and strode to the end of his boat, getting as far away from his rescuer as possible.

* * *

“Whoa,” Kiki said to Nicola as she watched her friend down her second tequila shot in five minutes. “That bad, huh?”

“That bad,” Nicola confirmed, sliding her glass across the bar for a refill.

“Care to talk about it?”

Nicola shrugged. “What can I say? I saved some Z-list celebrity today—risking my own life while I was at it, I might add—and he doesn’t even have the decency to thank me. I mean, sure, it’s part of my job description, but really? The way he was looking at me, it was like the whole thing was all my fault or something.”

Hands on her hips, Kiki shook her head in disbelief. It was one of the many things Nicola loved about her roommate—that she could always count on Kiki for a big validating reaction to her stories. “Jesus. Where does someone even get off?”

“I know, right?” Nicola said, lifting her third shot to her lips. “Maybe it’s a Moretta thing.” She threw the tequila back with a quick toss of her head, and then clunked her glass down on the counter. “Like as in, maybe I’m just not cut out for this place.”

“Oh, no, you don’t,” Kiki said, slinging her dish towel over her shoulder and leaning her elbows onto the bar to get in her friend’s face. Her pretty green eyes narrowed at Nicola. “You’ve only been here for four months. It’s been good for you. You are not bailing on this like...” She stopped.