For the first time in hours, negative thoughts crept into her brain. No one was going to find her out here. She was literally a needle in a haystack. Even if Scott figured out what happened and came to look for her, Kai had headed off their planned route to deeper waters.
She didn’t like the ocean, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t a good swimmer. It was what had kept her alive all day. She swam toward shore when she could, but mostly she conserved her energy and floated on her back. She was hungry, exhausted, and terrified, but she refused to give up.
Elodie had never been as thirsty as she was right this moment. She’d thrown up a bit from swallowing the salty seawater, but now there was nothing left in her belly to come up. The salt was sucking the life from her body as fast as the sun had. She knew better than to drink the water all around her, but with each passing minute, she was afraid she’d give in to the temptation.
Earlier, she’d could’ve sworn she saw a boat in the distance, and she had raised her arm, waving it around hysterically while screaming for help, only to realize she was hallucinating. There was no boat. No one was there to rescue her.
At this point, if Steven returned, she’d gladly get back on the boat. Even when she knew he’d shoot her the second she climbed onboard. Anything would be better than dying out here in the middle of the ocean.
She felt something brush against her leg—and screamed in terror, lurching backward as best she could. Heart beating frantically, Elodie tried to see under the water, to get a glimpse at what was about to eat her.
When she saw a fin break the surface five meters from where she was treading, she whimpered.
Then another fin appeared. And another.
She was surrounded and was about to be shark food. Scott wouldn’t ever know what had happened to her. There would be nothing left for him to find.
Suddenly, she heard a weird sound. A high-pitched whining, almost, and she whipped her head around.
A dolphin was staring at her from less than ten feet away.
As if it saw her gaping at it, the mammal bobbed its head up and down, then dove beneath the surface.
Elodie licked her dry and cracked lips uneasily. Another dolphin lifted its head from the water and made some clicking noises before disappearing. The dolphins began to play all around her, gliding through the water with ease, coming close but never touching her.
As scary as this situation was, and as terrified as she was that she was going to die, Elodie couldn’t help but be awed by the somewhat magical display going on all around her. She had no idea why the dolphins were there or what they were doing, but somehow, she suddenly didn’t feel so alone.
Until she saw it.
A bigger fin about fifty yards away.
She blinked, and for a moment wasn’t sure if she was hallucinating again. But then it resurfaced—and she knew without a doubt that it wasn’t a dolphin. She panicked again, and began to swim as fast as she could in the other direction. The dolphins kept pace with her, swimming next to and around her as she flailed and tried to get away from the shark.
It was ridiculous, that shark could reach her in seconds. She was no match for it. She was in its world now. She was the prey and it was definitely the predator. In her head, she imagined it wanting revenge for all the fish the Fish Tales had stolen from the ocean. It was ridiculous, but she wasn’t exactly thinking straight.
Eventually, she got so tired she had to stop and rest. Her head was on a swivel, trying to find where the shark went, but she couldn’t see any sign of it. It had either gone below her, ready to swallow her up from underneath, or had deemed her not worthy of a proper meal.
But all through her panicked retreat from the shark, the dolphins had stayed nearby. When she finally got her bearings and realized she’d been swimming in the wrong direction, away from Oahu instead of toward it, she wanted to cry once more.
With the waning light and approaching storm, it was getting harder and harder to see Diamond Head. In the dark, she’d have no idea which way to go, she’d be completely lost. Not only that, but she’d begun to shiver. The water off the coast of Hawaii was warm, but it was far below her normal body temperature. Swimming had helped keep her warm, but the chill was seeping into her bones more and more.
One of the dolphins swam close enough that Elodie could reach out and barely touch its rubbery-smooth skin. Her earlier thought that maybe a dolphin would let her latch onto it and take her into shore sprang to mind once more. She envisioned herself making friends with the things, like the boy in the movie Free Willy did with the killer whale.
“Find Scott,” she found herself telling the mammal. “Go tell him where I am. But you’re gonna have to be fast. I’m not sure how much longer I can hold out. I’m trying, but I hate the ocean. No offense.”
The dolphin didn’t reply, but it did nudge her hand before sinking below the surface once more.
Elodie turned over onto her back and stared up at the sky. She couldn’t see any stars, partly because it wasn’t quite dark enough yet but also because clouds were quickly moving in.
Closing her eyes, Elodie bobbed up and down in the waves and let her mind wander. She tried to remember every moment she’d spent with Scott. The good times and the bad. If she was going to die, she was going to do it with the man she loved on her mind.
Chapter Twenty-One
Mustang stood at the bow of the boat and strained his eyes to see something. Anything. It had taken way too long to not only get the information they needed to get a starting point for their search, but also to get Aleck’s friend’s boat.
The Coast Guard had been called, and they had boats out looking, but so far hadn’t had luck in finding Elodie. Mustang knew, after hearing Kai’s story about being shot and how the man after her was firing at Elodie from the boat, that the Coasties thought there wasn’t much chance of finding her. But he’d never give up. She was out there, counting on him to find her.
The police had immediately tried to check the GPS system on the Fish Tales, but had found it shot all to hell. Whoever had shot Kai and been sent to kill Elodie wasn’t as dumb as Mustang had hoped.
But Perry had quickly come to their rescue when they’d called to give him the news. He’d retrieved the day’s data from his computer and passed the information to the SEALs…but when Mustang had seen where the Fish Tales had been that morning, he realized the search for Elodie wasn’t going to be quick and easy. There was a lot of ground to cover, too much. Knowing she was out there somewhere, and needed his help, was almost too much for Mustang to take.
It was Slate who had calmed him down, which was ironic, considering the man was the most impatient out of everyone on the team.
“We’re gonna find her,” Slate had said.
Desperate for reassurance, Mustang had asked, “Do you really think she’s alive?”
“Yes,” Slate had said without hesitation. “Because I’ve never seen anyone have such an instant connection like the two of you. At first I was skeptical, but now I understand it’s because you two were meant to be together. There’s no fucking way you found something so special, so rare, only to lose her now.”
His words had comforted Mustang then, but now he was completely and wholly focused on the ocean in front of him. The Coast Guard had recommended they not go out because of the approaching storm, but his team had ignored the warnings. They were fucking Navy SEALs, there was no way they were scared of the ocean. Besides, if Elodie was out there, and had been all day, they all knew it was unlikely she’d last through the night.