Page 9 of Sink or Swim

“Oh. Oh…” he mutters, then rubs the back of his neck like he’s embarrassed. He shouldn’t be. It was a normal response. I’d probably do a lot worse in his position.

“Come,” I say to him, and hold up the spear I use for fishing. “We’re going fishing. Gotta catch more since you ate all of mine.”

He pushes himself to stand and follows behind obediently. Maybe today I’ll see about teaching him what I know so he can at least find his own food. I’m not sure how things work in his society, but judging from his small stature, I’m going to guess he doesn’t get enough protein. He downed all my fish jerky like he was starving, so finding bigger, meatier prey is going to the top of the to-do list.

I carry Nick down the rope and lead him along the path I made long ago, when I first settled here. We head down to the lagoon’s muddy waters, and for once, he doesn’t say anything or complain as he trudges through the grassy reeds like I expect him to.

“Good boy,” I say, grinning as we make our way out into deeper water. But when I wade up to my chest in the water, he stops several feet behind. I turn around and sigh again. “Come on. I won’t let you drown.”

He shakes his head in response. He doesn’t want to get into the lagoon with me, and I guess I can’t blame him. A week ago, he almost died. That would probably leave a mark on someone. But he needs to learn how to take care of himself or he’s never going to make it out here in the wild, and I can’t keep a constant eye on him.

“Nick, come on,” I say a little more firmly. “I won’t let anything happen to you, I promise.”

And it’s a promise I know I can keep. Yes, there are gators. But I know to expect them, and I know how to spot them before they become a problem. Usually.

Reluctantly, he wades out into the water to my side. His throat bobs up and down, and I smile down at him before patting him on the head. Then I hand him the spear. He looks up at me, his face screwed up like he’s trying to figure out a puzzle, and I take him by his other hand to lead him out further into the water. I tap him on the shoulder, inhale sharply, and hold my breath, trying to demonstrate what I’d like for him to do. To my surprise, he actually mimics me and slips underneath the water, still clutching the spear in his trembling fingers.

I glide through the water with graceful movements, letting my tail act as a rudder. When I spot a large, juicy fish at the bottom, I point at it and make a stabbing motion. Nick, who is much slower than I am in the water on account of him being a mammal and not having a tail, juts the spear out in front of him. The fish escapes, easily, in a flurry of bubbles.

Okay, I’m not sure what I was expecting, here. Perhaps he can’t see in the water like I can, but I’ve never had to teach anyone how to spear fish before, and no one ever taught me how to do it, either. It’s something I figured out all on my own. Nick beats his arms and legs in the water like a drowning rabbit and eventually crests the surface to draw in another deep gulp of air. I pop up next to him and blow water out of my nostrils.

“It’s okay. This is new for me too,” I say. But with his laborious, slow movements, I’m not sure if this is the best way for him to hunt. Maybe there’s something else we need to try.

I jerk my head back toward land and beckon for him to follow me. We’re going to go after bigger game.

NICK

Oona thinks I’m stupid. She must, because for the past hour and a half since we left the fishing lagoon, she’s done nothing but cluck her tongue at me like my mother used to do when I was a child. I’d come home with bad grades? She’d put her hands on her hips and cluck her tongue. Come home with a black eye because I got into another fight? Tongue clucking.

I don’t love thinking about my mother, of all people, when I’m with Oona. I already feel like I’m entirely dependent on my new friend, if I can even call her that, and I want to be able to show her that I’m not completely helpless.

But when she put that spear in my hands, I froze and had no idea what to do. Now, with my shirt unbuttoned and hanging off me in shreds from getting tangled up in a bunch of vines, she’s clucking her tongue at me again. Then she peers at the angry red scratch marks on my abdomen.

My tattoos are also visible, and I noticed she hasn’t stopped staring at them since she saw the enormous eagle inked on my upper chest. I look down at my stomach and frown. I’m not much of a gym kind of guy anymore, but even when I was, it was hard to pack on the muscle. I’ve always been lean. A swimmer’s body with none of the swimmer’s skills, you could say. But the way she stares at my abdomen with a mixture of disdain and curiosity has me tilting my head at her.

“What?” I ask, running my hand over the scratches. “Barely even broke the skin,” I mutter. “I’m fine. It’s just that we’re out here in the middle of nowhere, walking through bushes that happen to have thorns on them.”

My pants are soaked, of course, so I roll the cuffs up to my knees for makeshift shorts. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

As we continue to stalk through the water and tall grass, I glance down and notice something small and dark clinging to my foot. When I lift one of my legs up out of the water, I scream. Oona whirls around, ready to fight whatever it is that’s attacking me. But when she sees the tar black, wriggling leeches on my calves, she lets out a deep snarl and scoops me into her arms to bridal carry me to the other side of the water.

When she sets me down in the grass, she wastes no time in prying the leeches off one by one carefully. She’s done this before, no doubt, though she doesn’t have any of the little bloodsucking bastards on her body as far as I can tell. She hisses as each little sucker is popped off. It hurts. A lot, in fact, but I grit my teeth and bear the pain as she works. I don’t want her to think I’m weak even though I’m sweating through my shirt and feel like I’m about to pass out.

“I guess I’m not exactly dressed for the environment, huh?” I say in a teasing voice, and when her dark eyes meet mine, they narrow. She’s not in the mood for joking, I guess. After Oona extracts the sixteenth leech from my calf and tosses it unceremoniously behind us, she sits down next to me and lets out a deep, resigned sigh.

“Sorry. I’m that disappointing, huh? Yeah, I know. Humans aren’t exactly made for the wilderness. That’s why we live in giant buildings made out of concrete,” I say.

I pat her on the arm, and she looks down at me with one brow raised. The sun overhead is at its apex, and the sweat sliding down my forehead, neck, and back is starting to itch. What I wouldn’t give to take a dip in a lake that isn’t infested with leeches, piranhas, and gators right about now.

As though sensing my thoughts—or maybe she just sees all the sweat coming off of my body in thick rivulets—she grabs my hand and pulls me up to my feet. Then she squeezes my hand gently and leads me through another thicket of bushes. At first, I worry that we’re going to end up right back in the lagoon again for another disastrous hunting lesson, but when we reach the other side of the trees five minutes later, there’s a glistening pool of glassy water waiting for us.

The water is so clear I can see the pebbles resting on the bottom and the teeny tiny fish that dart around the raised tree roots. On the surface of the water sit several enormous lily pads, all sporting gorgeous flowers of pink and white petals in full bloom, soaking up as much of the sun’s rays as they can. I can’t believe something this beautiful exists out here, especially not after my encounters with all the horrors nature has to offer.

Oona kneels down in the cool, crisp water and splashes some of it on her face, then looks over at me expectantly. I splash the water on my face, too, then bring it to my lips to drink. She nods, encouraging me.

“Wish you’d brought me here earlier, but better late than never, I guess,” I say, then take another drink before stripping my shirt off and setting it along one of the upraised tree roots. She watches, her eyes turning to slits as I unbutton my pants, set them aside, and wade into the water up to the edges of my boxer briefs. I’m not sure how she feels about nudity, but seeing as how she hasn’t worn a stitch of clothing since I’ve met her, I doubt she cares all that much—so I take those off, too, and toss them on top of my pants.

Her eyes immediately rove up and down my body. Not hungrily, like some women have done in the past. I’m thin, but I’m in good shape. Not bulky like some of the other guys I worked with in the organization, that’s for sure, but no matter how much I lifted or how often, I could never pack on the muscles like they could.

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