Page 101 of Pallas & Kawehi

He could push her under, and she'd be done.

If he used the gun, she'd fall back into the water anyway.

For the first time in a long, long time, she wished that she'd learned how to swim. Or at least do more than doggy paddle. "Nick. I'll sign. I won't complain or say anything to anyone, even my family."

He scoffed at the idea as he stepped up to the water's edge, his gun pointed down at her, square at the center of her chest. "Your cousin would badger it out of you." He laughed, bringing the back of his free hand to his mouth to stifle the sound. "That bitch can talk you into anything. I know she could."

Kawehi felt tears fill her eyes.

God... what would Maile think when they found her body in the bay?

"I wouldn't tell her, Nick. I promise. Please."

"Hurry up, Kawehi. I just need you to get a little deeper into the water so I can get out of here. The last thing I need is for someone to see me here at the base."

She looked up at him, ready to say no just so she could have a chance of surviving this.

But he must have read her intent.

She heard the distinctive sound of the hammer clicking back on his pistol.

Kawehi might not know how to use a gun, but she knew the sound of it.

She knew what came after that noise.

All it would take was him pulling the trigger and she'd be shot and bleeding in the water.

"Move." He took a step into the water and looked down his arm and the barrel of the weapon. "Do it, Kawehi. It'll be better this way than bleeding out. Remember why you never learned how to swim?"

He said the words to put fear into her.

Oh, she was already afraid and shaking, but she'd confessed her childhood fear to him one night when he insisted on watching JAWS while she was trying to get to sleep one night.

She'd told him about her one and only camping experience with the Girl Scouts as a Brownie. Their volunteer swim teacher had drilled into the girls the importance of not being in the water when they were bleeding.

"At least if you're swimming you have a chance, Kawehi. If I shoot you, think of the sharks. Think of how far away they can be and smell it in the water. It's one thing to drown. It's another to be torn to shreds and-"

Kawehi was suddenly underwater.

She opened her mouth to scream for help and her mouth filled with water.

PALLAS

As soon as Kawehi's head disappeared beneath the surface of the water, he slammed into Nick's back and took him down to the ground. They both ended up half in and half out of the water.

Nick was sputtering and fighting underneath him, but Pallas got the better of him quickly, reaching around the other man to get control of the weapon.

"Let it go, Carter. Let. It-"

A dull report sounded and Pallas waited for a sting of pain or something else, but it didn't come.

Nick sagged beneath him, groaning and trying to push himself onto his side.

"Fuck you, man."

Pallas let him move, but he took control of the gun as soon as he saw it emerge from under the other man's body.

"Here. Give it here."

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