A D R I A N

The torch sputters low, its light struggling against the damp. Shadows crawl jagged across the ceiling, rippling with every drip from the stone. The air tastes of rust and salt, thick enough to choke. I feel the weight of the cave pressing in on all sides, the tide lurking in the dark, waiting for its moment to rise.

Every muscle in my body wants to take control. To seize the reins, issue orders, dictate what comes next. That’s how I’ve kept my family afloat, how I’ve held command on decks where a single mistake could drown us all. If I can bark an order, I can bend chaos into order.

But she isn’t in my crew. She isn’t one of the nameless advisors I can cow into silence with a glare. She’s Elara Quinn. A woman who stares down death with steady hands and refuses to bow when I push. A woman who looks at me like she sees through every polished mask, down to the raw nerve I try to bury.

The words of command rise anyway, bitter on my tongue. Check his airway. Tighten the sling. Stay awake. I nearly let them fly, a bark of instinct. But at the last moment I swallow them back, jaw aching from the effort.

For once, I force myself to do the opposite. To unclench. To ask.

“What do you need from me?” The words scrape raw, unfamiliar in my throat.

Her head jerks, surprise flickering in the low glow. I half-expect her to cut me down, to call out the catch in my tone. But she studies me, really studies me, and when she finds no hidden edge, the tight line of her shoulders eases.

“Count his breaths,” she says, already tugging at the knot of my shirt across the deckhand’s chest. “Every thirty seconds. Tell me if they slip.”

Simple. Direct. No argument.

I nod once, keeping my mouth shut. For the first time tonight, I’m not leading. I’m following.

I press my fingers against the deckhand’s throat, feel the weak flutter of his pulse. My eyes fix on the shallow rise of his chest, the faint hitch of each breath.

One… two… three… steady enough for now.

Beside me, Elara is all focus. She adjusts the airway tube, tightens the soaked fabric around his ribs, smooths a trembling hand across his sternum. Her hands are sure, practiced—but the tremor in them betrays how much the cold is stealing from her.

She fumbles a strip of gauze, curses under her breath. The sound jolts through me like lightning.

Before I can think better of it, I catch her wrist. Her skin is ice.

“You’ll lose your fingers,” I mutter.

“I don’t have the luxury,” she snaps, but the bite doesn’t reach her eyes. She’s too tired. Too cold.

I don’t let go. Instead, I pull her hands between mine, enclosing them completely, rubbing warmth into her stiff fingers. I lower my head, breathing heat across her knuckles, trying to chase the chill from her bones.

She stiffens at first, instinct fighting instinct. Then, slowly, her shoulders loosen. She lets me keep going.

The cave falls silent except for the lap of water against stone. I keep my thumbs circling her palms, pressing life back into skin that feels breakable in a way nothing about her ever has.

“Thirty,” I murmur, when the next breath cycle passes.

Her gaze flicks up to me through the shadows. She doesn’t speak, but her fingers flex once in mine before she pulls away, steady again.

“Keep going,” she says softly.

So I do. I count. I watch. I obey. And somehow, it feels like relief instead of weakness.

The minutes blur. Thirty seconds at a time, measured by the rise and fall of a stranger’s chest. The scrape of my knees against rock when I shift. The ache in my shoulders from holding still.

And in the silence between counts, memory claws back to me, unwanted.

Hours ago, before the storm swelled, I tried to smother this gnawing inside me the way I always do. With a body I didn’t care about, and a face I never planned to remember.

Faceless woman number four.

I can’t recall her name. Didn’t ask. I didn’t want to. She smelled of perfume painted over loneliness, and I let her press against me in the dark, let her lips trace my jaw, her nails drag shallow lines across my chest.

I closed my eyes, tried to let her drown the noise in my head. But it didn’t work. My body stayed unresponsive, mind spiraling back to what I knew was coming, the storm, the rescue, the inevitability of loss.

She whispered something I didn’t hear, touched me harder, desperate for my attention. I pulled away, disgusted. Her face looks hurt, confused, burned into me for half a second before I buried it under every other faceless memory.

I thought if I touched enough strangers, maybe the fear would be dull. Maybe I’d forget how powerless I really am.

But here, in this cave, there’s no numbness. No blur.

Only Elara, steady as stone at my side, her hands trembling but sure, her eyes burning even through exhaustion. She doesn’t let me hide. She doesn’t let me lie.

And for the first time, I realize the truth. I never wanted numbness. I never wanted faceless bodies.

I wanted this.

A reason to feel.

The deckhand wheezes another shallow breath. I count it out, whispering the number under my breath. Elara echoes me softly, our voices overlapping in the dim. For a strange moment, it feels like we’re in rhythm, not just with the patient, but with each other.

I should stay focused, and keep my mind on the count. But exhaustion makes cracks in the armor I’ve held too tight for too long, and words slip out before I can leash them.

“It’s always too late,” I mutter, voice rough, almost lost under the drip of the cave.

Elara glances up, eyes narrowing like she’s not sure she heard me right.

I stare at the deckhand, unable to meet her gaze. “No matter how fast I move. No matter how hard I fight. By the time I get there, someone’s already gone.” My throat locks around the truth. “And it never leaves. Their faces. Their voices. I can’t..”

The words break, raw and unfinished. My jaw tightens hard enough to ache. I don’t let people hear me like this. Not my crew. Not my family. Not anyone.

For a heartbeat, silence presses heavier than the stone above us. I brace for judgment, for pity, for the sharp edge of truth thrown back at me.

But Elara doesn’t say anything.

Instead, her hand slips over mine where it rests on the rock. Light, steady. Not gripping, not binding, just there. The warmth of her skin bleeds through the chill, grounding me in a way no command, no faceless body, ever has.

I finally lift my eyes. She isn’t looking at me with pity. She isn’t looking at me with blame. Just that quiet, unshakable steadiness, as if she’s telling me without words: you’re here now. You’re not too late this time.

The knot in my chest doesn’t loosen, not fully. But for the first time, I believe maybe I can breathe through it.

The torch hisses, sputtering low. I press my palm tighter over the flame’s base, willing it to last a little longer. The darkness beyond it feels alive, ready to swallow us whole.

Then the cave shifts. A subtle dip, a hiss as the water pulls back from the stone. The tide is lowering.

“Elara,” I whisper, eyes flicking up to her.

She’s already looking at me, the same thought mirrored in her face. If we’re going to move, it has to be now.

The deckhand moans faintly, chest hitching. Elara steadies him with one hand and nods. “We carry him deeper. The air pocket’s not big enough—we need higher ground.”

My instinct is to argue, to warn her how narrow that passage looked before. But there’s no time. And this time, I don’t command. I just nod.

We brace the patient between us again. My arm hooks under his shoulders, hers around his ribs. The water bites immediately, black and cold, wrapping up our legs as we wade forward.

“Step when I step,” I murmur.

She doesn’t answer, but her grip on the deckhand tightens, her pace matching mine stride for stride. The cave echoes with the sound of our labored breaths, the slap of water against rock.

The phosphorescence glows faintly ahead, marking the path deeper. I keep my eyes fixed on it, every muscle in my body burning with the effort of moving us forward. The water climbs higher, stealing heat from every inch of exposed skin.

“Elara,” I say again, more warning this time.

“I’ve got him,” she pants. Her jaw is tight, eyes fierce in the dim light.

We round a jagged turn, the chamber narrowing to a choke point. My shoulders scrape, pain sparking, but we force the deckhand through, dragging him into the widening space beyond. Relief flashes sharp, until I hear it.

Her gasp.

I twist, just in time to see her footing slip on the slick stone. For one suspended heartbeat, she’s there, lamp beam flashing, hair plastered to her face, eyes wide. Then the water surges, a cold fist around her waist, yanking her under.

“Elara!” My voice shatters against the rock.

I lunge, one hand still locked on the deckhand, the other reaching for her. My fingers skim water, empty.

The current swallows her into the dark.