Chapter 1
The wind cut flat across the deck and I couldn't get air right. My mouth was open before I realized it, my eyes fixed on the space beyond the rail where the gray dropped straight into the ocean. The sky pressed low and colorless over the ship, and the steel under my boots vibrated with the engines. I wore my dark navy uniform, collar up, the white insignia cold against my throat and the chest pin catching what little light there was. My hair was pulled back hard and the wind still found the loose strands.
That's what didn't make sense. I was on watch, on that open deck beside the dome and the pipes and the rail, at the exact moment I was supposed to be invisible. And the figure above me on the superstructure was at his peak at the exact same second — upright at the upper railing, looking down, hands on the rail, framed against the overcast sky while I stared up with my mouth open in alarm. He had height and steel and rank. I had the deck and a bad angle and no cover.
My name is Anna Reyes and that morning I was assigned to the forward watch on the port side.
It was just after 0800 and the ship was underway, steady swells running under the hull, the deck damp and smelling like paint and diesel and salt. I had been near the starboard dome checking the lashing on a locker when I heard the shift in footsteps overhead — not the normal pass-by, but a stop. I looked up. The man at the rail wasn't moving like someone on routine. He was leaning, staring at something going down the side of the hull. I followed his line of sight to the thick twisted rope hanging vertical in the water, coarse and dark, already swinging slightly against the gray steel. My stomach dropped before my mind caught up, and I stepped closer to the rail before I thought about what it would look like.
The water hit me cold and wrong. One second my hands were on the rail, the next my boots slipped on the wet plate and the weight of my uniform pulled me over and down. I didn't fall clean. I caught the rope on the way down and it burned straight through my palm even through the cold. Underwater the world went dark blue and muffled, the hull huge and close beside me, bubbles rushing past my ears. I kept my grip on that rope because if I let go the ship would keep moving. My uniform clung heavy around me, same navy, same insignia, same pin now dull under water. I held my breath and looked up. Far above, through the wavering surface, I could see the hazy silhouette at the rail behind the horizontal cables, foggy and overexposed, still watching.
I heard the shout before I saw the boots running.
"Hey, hey, stop! Stop! What's going on here? She was trying to escape."
The voice came from the deck, sharp and loud, not mine. I wanted to answer but my mouth was full of water and my hand was locked around the rope and I couldn't speak without drowning. The words landed wrong. Escape. I hadn't been trying to escape anything. I'd been trying to see what the rope was doing there at all and then I was in the water trying not to get dragged under the hull. My eyes burned. I tried to pull myself up an inch but the current tugged at my legs and the rope creaked.
Another voice, lower, answered from higher up. "She slipped."
That was the evasion. One short sentence and it was already a story.
I forced my head just enough to break the surface and gasp. "I didn't—"
Water cut me off. I choked and gripped harder, eyes watering, staring up at that silhouette. I could hear more footsteps now, more than one, moving fast toward the rail above me. A hand appeared over the edge, not reaching for me, just gripping the rail.
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"Help me," I said, and it came out smaller than I meant.
No one moved to pull. The figure at the rail stayed exactly where he was, looking down at me holding that rope in the dark blue water, and the surface light rippled across his shape while the boots on deck stopped right over my head.
