Page 80 of Swept Away

We kiss again, a drugged, consuming kiss, and that’s it: the sun is down, the horizon line melting into pure heat and darkness. I throw my head back, lost already, and it’s like that first night, but it’s different, too. I’m different. When I meet his gaze, rocking, gasping, I feel all the depth of what we’ve been through between us. It makes every moment fiercer and brighter. By the time he moves inside me, I’m the same as everything else out here: a little wild.

Dayeleven

Zeke

We sleep inthe bed that’s become ours now, her head on my chest, her leg over mine. I’m happy. Happier than should be possible when you’re in this much danger.

I never realized sex could feel the way it felt last night. It was as if I could finally express that huge emotion in my chest, the expansive one I don’t have words for. I’ve always felt a connection through sex, but I’ve never felt closeness like that, never felt like I was…making love, I guess. The first time was hot and fast, forehead to forehead, so intense I thought I might cry, and the best part was that it wouldn’t have mattered even if I had—Lexi knows me so well, I didn’t have to hold a single part of myself back.

I slip out first thing to go and check on the boat while she gets some more sleep. It’s raining today, and it’s breezier, too. I bite my lip the minute I open the door from the houseboat’s deck. That water patch on the kitchen floor is back, about the same size as when I last looked, maybe bigger. And when I check the bathroom, the shower drain cover’s floated off, too—the sea must’ve got rougher last night. I fix it all back, cold dread in my stomach as I wipe up the water in the kitchen and check again and again for where itcould be coming from. There’s just…nowhere. Maybe the hole’s so small I can’t see it?

When I get back to the dorm room, Lexi’s sitting up in bed, round-eyed, duvet drawn close to her chest. I sit down beside her.

“You OK?” I say, frowning.

She leans into me, closing her eyes.

“I woke up and you were gone,” she says.

“Shit, sorry—I should’ve left a note. I just went to check on the boat, I didn’t want to wake you.” I reach for her hand.

“It’s fine, I just…need you, I think,” she whispers. “Probably more than I should.”

I kiss the top of her head. “I need you, too, you know.” My voice is husky. “And I’m not going anywhere.”

A loudbangcuts across the end of my sentence. Lexi freezes. Her hands gripping my jumper. Abang. Anotherbang. Both of us turn to the window.

“What do you…”

“Come on.” She’s already flying out of the door, grabbing her leather jacket as she runs into the corridor.

There’ve been a hell of a lot of surreal moments in the last ten days. The word’s almost lost meaning. But I don’t know what else to call it as I step out and see a walkway crumpling into the sea as if it’s a model built of paper.

The sound’s so enormous it makes me think of a dinosaur’s roar. Metal buckles as though it’s melting, and Lexi swears, grabbing for me, stumbling back toward the shelter of the emergency exit door. The noise is deafening. A bone-shaking crack, the scream of steel on steel. Chunks of metal slide and topple, then the bulk of the tumbling walkway must hit the sea, because there’s a deep crash, and then, a few seconds later, a slow-motion wall of water reaching up into the sky.

It’s white-gray and deadly. Lexi and I realize the danger at thesame moment, fumbling at the door handle, throwing ourselves inside and slamming the door behind us as the wave comes looming across the concrete, slapping down so hard it shakes the windows in their frames. Lexi is saying something, clinging to me, and it takes me too long to process it, so she says it again, louder, eyes even wider.

“Zeke. Zeke. Wehaveto get off this rig.”

The last few bits and pieces tumble—broken pipes, chunks of grating, a cord of cable spiraling down into the water. We watch it all through the window by the door, holding each other tightly. Lexi’s shaking in my arms.

“It’s settling. It was just that one part of the rig,” I say.

“Look at the damage it’s done to the platforms below. Who knows what it’ll have done to the rest of the rig. And thehouseboat. Oh my God. Zeke…What if the houseboat is damaged?”

I close my eyes, but the rig seems to lurch beneath me, so I open them again, grabbing at the windowsill. Lexi looks at me weirdly—maybe that lurch never happened. I’m shaking, too, I think. Am I? I’m so used to this kind of fear that I guess I’ve switched into survival mode again without noticing.

“I didn’t tell you because I didn’t think you needed to know,” I begin, and Lexi is already saying, “What? Zeke, what?”

“There’s a leak on the boat.”

“No, no, no,” she says, burying her face in my chest.

“And it’s getting harder to block the drain. The rougher the sea is, the more seems to come up.”

Lexi makes a moaning sound in the back of her throat. Outside, the seagulls have come to inspect the broken corner of the rig, hopping casually between severed pillars. It’s the platform we crossed to go from one ladder to the next when we were climbing the tower.Lexi stood on that platform two days ago. The thought makes me want to throw up.

“If the boat’s not safe, we can stay here,” I say. “Someone will come.”

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