K A I 

Salt stings my eyes as I slam through the command room doors, bare feet smacking wet against polished tile. The air tastes like copper and panic—radar screens glowing sickly green, radios coughing static, staff frozen like they’re waiting for permission to breathe.

“Where the hell is he?” My voice rips across the room, sharp enough to make a junior tech flinch. Spray still drips from my hair, my chest heaving from the sprint up the dock. “Where’s Adrian?”

Ethan swivels from the console, calm as ever, headset slung low on his neck. “Inside the southern cavern. Radio link is patchy, but—”

“You took a doctor into a blowhole?!” The shout bursts from my chest like a wave breaking against rock, ricocheting off glass and steel. Salt slicks my shoulders, muscles still burning from the dive, and I can’t shake the image of that cave swallowing water whole.

Someone—her—trapped in there with him.

I shove past a tech, jabbing at the sonar sweep. “That tunnel floods in under two minutes when the tide spikes. Who authorized this?”

Ethan doesn’t flinch, which only twists my fury tighter. “He did.”

Of course he did. Adrian Valcrosse, golden heir, storm-proof bastard. Always thinking he can bend nature with his jawline and arrogance.

My pulse hammers in my temples, fury tangled with a fear I’ll never admit aloud. I slam my palm on the table, spray spattering the screens. “If he gets her killed—”

The radio crackles, Adrian’s voice cutting through the static.

“Command, status.”

A D R I A N

His voice is thunder before the storm even clears. “You took a doctor into a blowhole?!”

Static scratches my ear, but the tone is clear enough. Kai. My brother, furious as ever.

I don’t bother glancing at the radio crew—half of them are pretending not to listen, the other half look like they’re watching a cockfight. I lean closer to the mic, jaw tight. “We didn’t have a choice.”

Onshore, Kai spits back so fast I can almost see the veins in his neck. “There’s always a choice. You dragged her into this like she’s part of your goddamn proof-of-worth crusade—”

“This isn’t about me.” My voice slices clean, sharper than I intend. “We had a man bleeding out. I wasn’t about to wait for your permission.”

“Permission?” Kai’s laugh is raw, bitter. “You think this is about authority? You gamble lives so you can be the hero on the headline.”

The words land harder than I want them to. Not because they’re true—because they’re not. But coming from him, they sting like salt in an old wound.

Ethan’s voice cuts in, low, even, that stone weight that always finds the floor. “Enough.” He doesn’t raise his tone, but somehow it carries sharper than our shouts. “We don’t have the luxury to bicker. One wrong call and all three of them drown.”

For a breath, the room stills. Only the hiss of static, only the muffled drip of water from the cave ceiling.

The line doesn’t cut out. I hear Kai pacing, the slap of his bare feet, the low growl he makes when he’s calculating swells in his head. Reckless in every arena but the sea.

“You think you can muscle through everything,” he says suddenly, voice sharp, too close to the mic. “That you’re the only one who can hold the tide back.”

My jaw tightens. My shoulders burn from the deckhand’s weight, but he still manages to cut deeper than any wave. “And you think running solves anything? You dive, you vanish, you come back only when it’s on your terms.”

“Better that than dragging civilians into your crusades,” he fires back. “She’s a doctor, Adrian. Not a soldier. Not one of your pawns.”

Elara doesn’t look up from her patient. Her hands move with a surgeon’s steadiness as she tightens a bandage, then checks the airway. The faint glow of her lamp etches determination into her face. She doesn’t flinch, not even when Kai’s accusations fill the cave like thunder.

“She came because she refuses to let people die,” I say, softer than I mean to. “Don’t insult that.”

The silence that follows is jagged, fragile. Then Kai exhales, grudging. “Goddamn it. You always were too stubborn to say thank you.”

“I don’t thank you for doing your job,” I shoot back, but the edge has dulled. He knows it. I trust him, more than I’ll ever admit.

Ethan steadies the channel. “Two minutes.”

Elara glances at me then, sweat and salt streaking her face, eyes cutting straight through me. “He’ll make the call,” she says simply. No hesitation. No doubt. She trusts him too—and maybe, somehow, she trusts me.

Then Kai pivots. His voice shifts from fury to precision, all sharp edges hammered into steel.

“Radar shows a lull hitting in under six minutes,” he says. “Surge pattern will flatten for about ninety seconds before the next set slams.”

I glance at the cave’s dripping ceiling. Ninety seconds. That’s all.

“Window’s narrow,” Ethan mutters behind him, translating the math like I don’t already know I’ll take Kai’s word over anyone’s.

Kai’s tone hardens. “You’ll have one chance to move the deckhand deeper, into the air pocket chamber. If you hesitate, you’ll drown in the choke point.”

Elara’s lamp throws her profile in sharp relief. Kneeling over the deckhand, she nods once, brisk. “I can do it.” Not to me, not to Kai, but to the air itself. A vow.

“Copy,” I answer.

Kai doesn’t let it go easy. “Adrian.”

“What.”

“Don’t screw this up. She’s not one of your boardroom pawns. She’s not built for you to—”

“I heard you the first time.” My tone is sharp, but inside, I know he’s right. She’s not built for me to gamble.

“Three minutes,” Ethan calls.

Kai exhales, rough but steady. “You move when I say move. No earlier. No later.”

Here it is—the line we always circle back to. My brother and I could snarl ourselves hoarse, but when it comes to the sea, I’d stake my life on his word.

“Copy,” I say again, quieter.

Elara’s eyes flick to mine. Gray-green, unflinching. No fear—only demand.

For the first time all night, my chest eases.

“Thirty seconds,” Ethan counts, calm as if we aren’t about to gamble with drowning.

Kai’s voice follows, sharp, commanding. “Stand by. Surge flattening… wait… wait…”

The tunnel shudders as the tide sucks back, pressure easing for a breath.

“Now,” Kai orders.

Elara and I lunge, the deckhand slung between us, his weight deadened by blood loss. My knees skid on slick stone, water spraying cold against my chest as we drag forward into the choke point. Every muscle in my arms screams, but I don’t let go.

“Keep low!” Kai barks through the radio.

The chamber narrows, ceiling scraping so close I bow my head, shoulders burning from the squeeze. Elara hunches, pressing the airway tube against her chest, shielding him with her own body.

We clear the pinch just as the next roar rises.

“Hold!” Kai shouts.

I slam my back against the rock, bracing the patient between us, as a wall of water thunders past, ripping at our legs. Spray blinds me, deafening in the confined space. Elara’s hand finds my forearm, clutching hard, grounding me until the surge drains away.

Her grip loosens, but she doesn’t let go.

“Window’s closing,” Kai growls. “Move again—deeper this time.”

We stagger forward, dragging the deckhand, lungs on fire. A faint shimmer glows ahead—phosphorescence licking the edges of stone. The inner chamber. Safety, for now. Relief flares sharp in my chest.

Then the mountain answers back.

A crack like bone splitting echoes overhead. Pebbles rain down. The ground shudders, and before I can shout, the tunnel behind us collapses in a roar of rock and foam. A slab seals the choke point, the spray turning red with crushed coral.

Elara gasps, twisting to look. The way we came is gone. Buried.

I press the radio close, breath ragged. “We’re through the choke,” I report. My voice is steady, but my chest tightens as I stare into the black water ahead. “But the exit collapsed. No way back.”

For a beat, silence. Then Kai’s voice, hard, unknowing: “Adrian?”

My eyes lock with Elara’s. Wet hair plastered to her face, eyes blazing even through exhaustion. She doesn’t need to speak.

Kai saved us from drowning—but now the only path is forward.

Forward—or nothing.