E L A R A

The tide snarls below us, sucking at the rocks like it wants us back. Spray hits my face, cold and metallic, and my fingers ache from gripping the ledge. Adrian’s arm is still around my harness, the strap tight across my ribs. His breath grazes the shell of my ear, hot, rough, alive.

“Easy,” he mutters. His mouth is close enough that I can feel the word rather than hear it.
“I’m fine.” The lie tastes like salt.
He doesn’t release me. His palm stays spread between my shoulder blades, steadying us both while the next swell hammers the cliff. The light from my flashlight lies in the water below, broken into shards that flare with every wave.

“Your pulse is racing.” His thumb finds the rapid beat at my throat.
“So is yours.”
That earns a short laugh, half-disbelieving, half-relieved. It vibrates against my back, and the sound threads through me until I forget the cold for a second.

When the wave withdraws, he angles his head so our helmets nearly touch. “You always run toward the danger.”
“Occupational hazard.”
“Suicidal habit.”
“Then stop following me,” I whisper.
He breathes out, low, humorless. “Can’t.”

The word lodges between us like a secret neither of us has time to name. He shifts, positioning me against the rock so he can clip our lines higher. His body brushes mine in quick, efficient motions, except every contact sparks heat through my soaked gear. When he leans to anchor the rope, his shoulder presses my chest, and the warmth of him cuts through the wind. I shouldn’t notice. I do.

“Test it,” he says.
I tug the line; it holds. “Secure.”
He gives me a look I can feel through the darkness. “Try not to fall again.”
“Try to give clearer orders.”
He almost smile. Then he’s moving, wading forward into a knee-deep surge toward the body slumped ahead. The current claws at our legs; the smell of iron thickens.

I follow, my med kit banging against my thigh, fingers already cataloguing supplies, tourniquet, gauze, saline, flashlight backup. The beam from Adrian’s light slices through the dark water and lands on the man’s torso. A gash runs from his ribs to his hip, torn open by jagged rock or propeller; the life vest keeps him half-afloat, half-pinned.

Adrian crouches beside him. “Pulse?”
I kneel opposite, bracing on a slippery stone. My gloves meet skin, cold, slick, faintly pulsing. “Weak. He’s still with us.”

Adrian’s light steadies on the wound while I rip open the kit. “Pressure bandage,” I say. He already has gauze unrolled, hands moving like he’s done this before. His composure shouldn’t surprise me anymore, but it does. Salt water runs down his forearm, veins standing out like ropes.

“Hold here.” I press his hand over the gash and lean my weight on top of it. Blood wells dark between our fingers. He doesn’t flinch.
“Strap?” he asks.
I find a tie, loop it tight around the pad. “That’s all we can do until we reach higher ground.”

The injured man stirs, a broken sound escaping his throat. I lower closer, voice firm but gentle. “Stay with me, okay? What’s your name?”
“Luis,” he gasps. “Skiff… rolled.”
“You’re safe now, Luis. We’ve got you.”

Adrian meets my eyes over the man’s body. “We have to move before the tide traps us.”
I glance at the rising water licking our knees. “We move together. You lead; I’ll stabilize.”
He nods once. “On three.”

The deckhand moans as we lift him. My harness strains; Adrian’s arm comes around my waist again, steadying both me and our patient. The three of us sway with the surge, one tangled line of breath and grit. The contact steals mine for a second, his chest at my shoulder, his voice in my ear counting, “One..two..three.”

The next wave crashes, soaking us to the waist. Luis cries out; my grip slips, and Adrian tightens his hold until I feel his heart pounding against my spine. For a dizzy instant, the storm fades, the world narrows to heat through wet fabric, his breath, my name on it.

Then another groan from the hull shatters the moment.
Focus, Quinn.

“Keep pressure,” I command, forcing steadiness. “If he loses consciousness, we climb.”
Adrian nods, jaw set. The flashlight beam trembles in his hand, catching the red swirl in the water.

“Bleeding’s heavier,” he says.
“I know.” I press harder, blood seeping through gauze onto my gloves. “He’s going into shock.”

Wind howls through the tunnel mouth behind us, and I can feel the tide rising against my thighs. We don’t have minutes anymore.

Adrian leans close, his voice rough with salt and urgency. “We move deeper. There’s a pocket ahead, higher ground.”
“Then go,” I say, already bracing the patient’s weight.

He doesn’t argue this time. He just reaches for me again, guiding me forward by the harness, keeping us tethered by more than rope.

The cave narrows to a throat of black stone. Water surges waist-high, forcing us to half-carry, half-drag Luis toward the faint rise ahead. Every time the tide pulls back it feels like the sea trying to steal him from us.

“Keep his head above,” Adrian orders. His breath brushes my temple.
“I’ve got him.” My arms burn. “How much farther?”
“Ten meters. Maybe less.”

Lightning forks somewhere outside, its flash bleeding pale through the tunnel mouth. For an instant the walls glitter with salt crystals, wet quartz, veins of gold. Then darkness slams back, thicker than before.

Luis groans. The sound is small, fading. I tighten my grip around his shoulders. “Stay with me, Luis. Look at me.”
His eyelids flutter. “Cold…”
“I know. Just breathe. In for two, out for four.”

Adrian shifts behind me, his hand sliding along my waist to guide me past a jut of stone. It’s purely practical, except my body doesn’t know that. Heat streaks under my ribs where his palm steadies me.

“You’re shaking,” he murmurs.
“Adrenaline.”
“Fear,” he corrects.
“Fine, both.”

The tunnel dips again. We duck under a hanging slab, shoulders scraping rock. Adrian braces his body over mine, shielding me from falling grit. His chest presses to my back, heartbeat hammering through the layers of soaked fabric. For one breath I lean into it, just to feel something human in all this cold.

Then Luis jerks in our grip. “Pressure.. slipping,” Adrian says.
“I’ve got it.” I wedge my elbow under the bandage, pressing hard until the bleeding slows. “We’re losing ground. We need elevation now.”

He swings his light upward; the beam catches a ledge a few feet ahead. “There.”

Together we haul Luis onto it, inch by inch. My muscles scream. Adrian boosts me from below, palms flat against my hips, lifting me high enough to pull the deckhand up. The contact sends a shock through me, not lust exactly, but something rawer, elemental. Survival stripped down to skin and breath.

When all three of us collapse onto the rock shelf, I’m gasping. Adrian’s face glistens with salt and sweat; his eyes cut through the dark, wild and focused. “Talk to me,” he says.
“Bandage soaked. We need new compression.”
He tears a strip from his undershirt without hesitation and hands it over. “Use this.”

The gesture steals my words for a heartbeat. I press the cloth into the wound, feel the warmth of his fingers overlapping mine. Our gloves are gone, our hands slick with blood and seawater, but we work as one rhythm, press, release, check pulse.

Nothing.

I adjust, press again. “Come on,” I whisper. “Don’t you dare.”

Luis exhales a thin, rattling breath. The pulse at his neck flutters, then stalls.

My stomach drops. “Adrian..”

“What?”

“I can’t..” I press harder, harder. “His pulse. I can’t find it.”

For a second the cave goes silent except for the crash of surf outside and our ragged breathing. Adrian’s light trembles, throwing wild shadows over the stone.

“Elara?” His voice is low, stripped bare.

“Grab the bag,” I say, already reaching for the airway kit. My hands won’t stop shaking. “We’re not losing him here.”

Another wave hits, spraying the ledge, soaking everything red again. The light flickers, then dies.

Darkness swallows us whole.