Chapter 20

It's pitch black. I've lost all sense of time and direction without my sight. The wind and waves batter us. The pitch of the boat is at the mercy of the sea.

We use our bodies to create tension against the side of the hull, keeping hold of each other, an unspoken agreement to not lose each other in the dark. For hours that feel never ending, we withstand the storm.

Every so often, the ocean bottoms out underneath us, and my stomach roils in protest. Water jumps over the side of the boat in one dip only to funnel back out the next. All we can do is hold on so it doesn't take us with it.

The temperature has dropped. Each intake of water in the boat feels like fresh ice against our trembling skin. If the amount of water collecting inside the hull doesn't sink us, the lack of heat will be what does us in.

Over and over, wave after wave comes. We don't speak. Words aren't going to save us.

Then…the roaring starts.

A low, thunderous vibration permeates the air, drowning out the sound of water and breaths and even the heartbeat inside my chest. I don't need to feel or hear it to know my heart has stopped beating altogether, because I know what's coming.

I've only experienced the middle of a swirling sea storm once before, but it's a memory I can't forget. The way the air became violent, rattling my eardrums and the trees and the entire grove, only for the piercing silence to follow when the water rose and swallowed half of Alaha. Many lost their homes that day, some their lives.

I reach for Acker. He doesn't hesitate to wrap his arms around me.

Placing his lips directly against the shell of my ear, he yells so I can hear him. "Don't let go! No matter what. Don't let go."

He brings me in tight against his body, tucking my head under his chin, using his legs and the arm not holding me to bracket us inside the boat.

Rain no longer falls but whips through the air like tiny needles. The hum of the roaring grows with the force of the wind. Lightning, the first we've seen in hours, spears from the sky. A sharp clack of thunder splits the sound of roaring like a whip. Acker tightens his arm around me. It's a painful embrace but one I'm grateful for as I clench his soaked shirt in my fingers.

Then, like blowing out a candle, the wind and rain stop. Acker's and my sharp breaths fill the stillness. The stern of the boat dips forward. Acker reinforces the tension in his arm and legs to stop us from falling forward with the tilt. The bow nosedives headfirst on the downside of a wave, and we're in freefall.

I squeeze my eyes shut and wait for the inevitable crash of wood slamming into the water below when our boat will splinter apart and we'll meet our end.

But it never comes.

"My gods." Acker's voice is barely a whisper, but it resonates in my ear nonetheless.

I open my eyes and lose all my breath. Flashes of lighting come from every direction, like arms reaching across the sky and into the sea and everywhere in between. It provides light to see the churning water and the wall of clouds and rain we just passed through as waves the size of what I assume mountains to be roil in the heart of the storm.

A bolt of lightning hits one of the waves, illuminating the water underneath the surface in bright blue before it's black once more. The air is electrified, and despite being soaked to the bone, all the hair on my body stands on end.

A jagged line of electricity comes down from overhead as it seeks the path of least resistance before striking the water not far from our boat, illuminating the water around us.

I gasp.

Acker curses.

Long, dark tentacles surround our boat, winding around us in the churning water. The bottom of the wave I'm expecting to be our final blow seems to never come as we begin our ascent up the next swell, almost like we're floating above the water's surface.

Almost like we're being carried.

Acker doesn't let go of me. Not in the center of the storm and not when we breach the veil of the storm's eye. Not when the boat feels like it's going to be ripped apart at any moment and we're going to go overboard. He never lessens his hold, not even when his arms shake.

He never lets go.