I thought Scarlett was right behind me. But when I reached the halfway point, I glanced down and realized that she’d turned around. She was descending rapidly. She kicked with fast powerful strokes, moving as swiftly as she could toward the seafloor.
I flipped my body around, my heart pounding as I wondered what she could possibly be thinking.
Then my eyes focused on a coral patch below her, and I froze when I realized what she was swimming toward. There was a man at the bottom, his upper body barely visible, struggling desperately to free himself from beneath the jutting reef.
FOUR
I streamlined my body and kicked the big freediving fins, rocketing straight down. Scarlett reached the struggling swimmer just ahead of me. She grabbed his hands and tried to jar him free, but he wouldn’t budge.
When I reached them, Scarlett snatched the Spare Air from her hip. The guy was shaking, his eyes bulging. His mask was half-filled with seawater, forcing him to blink and causing him to panic even more. His body language painted a clear picture: he was moments away from blacking out.
I stabilized myself and tried to see where his body was stuck. A cloud of blood floated up from his left leg. His calf was caught between the base of a big growth of brain coral and a sharp jutting section of limestone.
As Scarlett shoved the Spare Air toward the guy, mouthpiece first, he accidentally swatted it away with a terror-induced flailing of his arm. The tiny canister sank, then disappeared in a narrow crack in the rock.
Given the angle his leg was stuck, it wouldn’t be easy to dislodge it. And it certainly wouldn’t be quick. With the clock ticking down on his life, the young man’s only hope had just fallen out of sight.
I kicked, angled my body around, and pulled myself into the space between the limestone. It was less than a foot wide, with sharp angles and a cluster of over a dozen sea urchins nestled in the cracks. I spotted a glimmer of light reflecting beside a patch of sand just out of reach. It was the canister, and it had sunk even deeper than I’d thought.
I forced my body into an awkward position and reached as far as I could. The tip of my right index finger was a few inches above it. In order to grab the tiny tank, I’d need to come into contact with the spiky tips of the closest sea urchins. Not seeing another choice, I forced my body down as far as it could go and winced, clenching my jaw and narrowing my gaze as I sucked up the stinging pain of the needle-sharp spines puncturing my upper body.
I wrapped my hand around the canister of air and gripped it tight. The edge of my mask jammed against the rock as I grabbed it, causing the frame to fill with saltwater and burn my eyes. My vision blurred, I Pressed my free hand to the rock and forced myself out of the crevice. Blood dripped out from the patches of tiny pokes to my body as I turned around and shoved the mouthpiece between the struggling guy’s lips.
His eyes closed for a moment, then they flashed open and wide. He shook for a few seconds as he looked around. I grabbed one of his arms and motioned for him to calm down. After he’d taken a few breaths, I motioned for Scarlett to grab it. She was nearing blacking out herself. I could see her chest contracting and her eyes verging the edge of panic.
After she took two breaths, she handed it to me and I sucked in one of my own, then examined the guy’s leg. He’d lodged it good. Getting it free would require a lot of wriggling, muscle, and a lot of pain on his part. But he couldn’t stay down there forever. The small tank only offered sixty surface breaths per the label. And at the rapid rate he was inhaling, it wouldn’t last us long.
I moved in front of him and tried my best to calm him down.
This is going to hurt like hell, buddy.
Shifting along the rock and coral, I grabbed hold of his leg with both hands. Biting down hard, I dug my heels into the rock and pulled with all the strength I could muster. The guy yelled a strand of bubbles and shook savagely. It felt like an eternity of pulling and jerking back and forth, then his leg came free in a thick cloud of deep red.
Once liberated, the guy kicked like mad. Scarlett and I stayed with him, guiding him toward the surface. He broke free with a yell and a desperate struggle for air. Ange met us on the surface with a life jacket. I tucked it under his body, and we pulled him over to the stern of the Robalo.
Since he was unable to pull himself up the ladder with his damaged leg, Ange and I climbed out and pulled him up onto the deck. He groaned and winced, blood flowing out from his leg and splattering onto the white fiberglass deck.
Once he was aboard, I offered a hand to Scarlett and looked her over. If she was in any way fazed by what had happened, she didn’t show it. She threw off her fins and mask and went straight to helping the guy in any way she could.
As Ange snagged the first aid kit from a locker beside the helm and carried it over to the
