Hours of searching. Hours of waiting. My hope to find Samantha treading water with all her strength changed to a hope we’d at least find her body. She’d had so much blood on her though. Walter wouldn’t let us get in the water because of sharks. The only thing that kept me from leaping into the ocean to do a search of my own was the sight of the dark dorsal fins.
I couldn’t take it anymore. I lay curled on a bench in the galley. My world was cold and numb. I couldn’t stop shaking. My stomach squirmed with nausea despite having already emptied anything left in it. I squeezed my eyes shut. Tears dripped down the side of my face. I didn’t want to open my eyes.
“We found Linnaeus’s body in the water,” I heard Walter say to Eamon. I bit my lip to hold back a cry of misery. Finding that evil man’s remains instead of Samantha gave me a fresh stab of grief.
“We can’t be implicated. We’ll have to trust one of the merpeople to deal with the body.”
I rolled over, my wet hair smelling like fish and salt and death. Someone came and sat on the bench. I didn’t care who it was. I wanted to be left alone and not have to move ever again.
“Is Natasha okay?” Calder asked one of them. It was he who had sat beside me, but I refused to feel comforted.
“I think so, for now,” Eamon answered. “I got the bullet out, but she lost a lot of blood. We might have to get her to a hospital if she doesn’t start improving.”
“How could she have led them to us?”
“She didn’t mean to. She tried to hire a boat, but one of Linnaeus’s men tricked her into thinking he was the guy she’d hired. She didn’t realize the truth until it was too late.”
Someone moved around the galley. I heard the footsteps, a hollow sound on the floor of the boat.
“Olivia?” Calder said. He put his hand on my shoulder. I didn’t want to talk.
“Leave her be for a moment,” said Eamon. “Let her rest.”
Calder walked away. I shivered again.
Sometime later, I fell asleep, though I couldn’t remember when. The brightness of daylight coming in through the portholes awakened me. I opened my eyes, feeling stiff and wanting a shower. My mouth tasted like something had died inside me. As I sat up, looked around the galley, and saw where Samantha’s bed had been put away, I realized something had died inside me. My best friend, the one steady thing in my life, was gone.
I rubbed my forehead and sighed as fresh tears spilled over.
I heard Eamon’s voice on the deck. For a fleeting moment, a surge of harsh resentment shot through me. Because of these people, Samantha was dead. They brought this on us and then couldn’t save her. I hiccupped and sobbed harder.
No, it wasn’t their fault. They did everything in their power to protect us. Samantha wouldn’t have wanted me to become angry. She would have wanted me to be happy, to laugh. I smiled a little to myself at the thought of what she might say to me right now…
“I don’t want you to cry, Liv. I want you to go have fun, be awesome, go be a marine biologist and marry a Scottish Hottie and have pretty babies and name one of them Sam.”
I shook my head. The hurt in my chest was still there, the loneliness unwavering, but I dried my eyes and got out of bed.
I wasn’t ready to face the others, so I went into the bathroom, gave myself a sponge bath, and washed my hair. I looked in the mirror. A bruise marked my forehead where I’d hit my head. The rest of me looked gaunt and gray.
When I finished washing the salty grime off my body, I changed into a swimsuit, shorts, and a tee shirt just in case we were forced to get wet again, then came out to the main deck.
Eamon, Uther, and Calder sat together. Uther’s head bowed, Eamon’s face lined with worry, and Calder frowning in sympathy. I sighed and looked away, instead gazing at the thin line of gray-green land in the eastern distance.
“Are you hungry?” Eamon asked. “I’ve got some sandwiches in the ice box.”
I nodded to be polite and found a place to sit in one of the chairs. I wasn’t really hungry, but I needed something to do with my hands. Eamon rose and disappeared into the cabin. I could hear the squawk of seagulls and the lap of the waves against the boat.
“What time is it?” I asked, my voice rough and tired.
“Just after noon,” said Calder. “We’re going to head back to land tomorrow.”
“Here you go, lass,” said Eamon, handing me a plate with a sandwich and a bag of potato chips. I opened the bag and picked at the chips. Eamon sat down across from me. “Olivia.” He hesitated. “You don’t have to do it right now, but…we’re going to need you to call Samantha’s family.”
My hands shook. I tried not to cry, but I was losing the battle.
“I can’t.”
“I’m sorry. But they need to know.”
I dropped the chips and hid my face, wishing Calder and Uther would quit staring at me. The wind caught the bag of chips and flung it overboard, but I didn’t care.
“Please don’t make me do it.”
“The longer you wait, the harder it’s going to be.” I heard the compassion in his voice, but I felt none of it. I wanted to yell, to thrash, to choke, to cry, to refuse to do what I knew I had to.
“Eamon, give her some time,” said Calder.
“Too many questions will be asked. The sooner we inform her family of what has happened, the better. You can say you were sailing with some friends and there was an accident.”
I continued to sob, shook my
