Page 25 of The Hundred Loves of Juliet
The only thing I deserve to keep from Pearl Harbor is another somber reminder of my failures: the melted tag with her name.
SEBASTIEN
Shouts startle me awake inthe middle of the night. Exhaustion must’ve caught up with me. I’d fallen asleep at the wheel, and that never happens.
Fists pound at my door. “Man overboard! Man overboard!”
My heart leaps from my chest. I race out into the storm, slipping on the wet deck. Squalls with sleet batter theAlacrity,and fifty-foot waves slam into our hull. The crew already has the night lights blazing. I run over as fast as I can to Piñeros, who’s at the railing.
“Who?” I shout over the storm.
“Merculief! Crab trap got loose, swung and hit him in the head.”
For a nightmarish moment, I remember the accident that took out Adam’s leg. The traps weigh eight hundred pounds each. And now a trap might be the reason another Merculief retires from the sea.
Shit. If Colin was hit in the head, he’s likely unconscious in the raging ocean. This is much, much worse than Adam’s leg.
“Where?” I yell.
Piñeros points some distance into the water. It’s black with night and frothing like a rabid sea creature. Colin is nowhere in sight.
I strip off my jacket.
Piñeros’s eyes bug in alarm. “What’re you doing, Captain?”
“Going after Colin.”
“You can’t, sir! You’ll drown.”
“Hell if I’m leaving a man behind,” I shout as sleet pummels my face. The memory of Pearl Harbor is still raw on my mind, and the thought of losing another crew member to the sea hollows me out inside. The only cure is action. I yank off my boots and survey the dark violence of the ocean. “Give me as much light as possible.”
Piñeros hesitates for a second.
“Go!” I yell. I might be crazy, but my crew follows orders. Piñeros takes off to direct the night lights.
I dive over the railing.
Visibility is almost nil. The ocean churns, water like ice. I’m not invincible, but I know that if I pass out from the subzero temperatures tonight, my body will still somehow float up to theAlacrityso the crew can fish me out. The curse always finds a way to intervene, even when I try to die. That is usually a burden, but tonight, I am grateful for it.
Colin, however, will only survive a few minutes in conditions like this, and that’s if he hasn’t already been sucked under.
I would do anything for my men, but especially Colin. He’s just a kid. And I promised Adam I’d keep his nephew safe.
Jones, another of the crew, shouts something through the bullhorn, but I can’t understand him through the storm. Piñeros directs the spotlight, though.
There!I see Colin fifty yards away, his body a rag doll, the sea like a kraken tossing its prey back and forth on the savage waves.
I swim as hard as I can. The maw of the ocean attempts to swallow me whole, and I choke on the frigid saltwater that surges into my mouth and up my nose.
But I keep swimming.
The raging sea tries to prevent me from taking away its prize, pounding me again and again with everything it has. Icy water. Colossal waves. Sleet and wind and darkness, despite theAlacrity’s lights.
I grit my teeth.You can’t have him!my mind yells at the ocean. I’m only a few yards away from Colin now.
The sea lashes at me, hurling needles of saltwater into my face. My eyes sting, I can’t see. And for a few seconds, I lose my place, forget myself. I am back at Pearl Harbor, flailing, desperately trying to save sailors. Sirens shriek, and the air is thick with smoke. I swim and I swim, yet I am aware that my efforts are futile, that the men will drown, that I can’t shield them from the greedy grip of death.
The ocean wallops me across my face, but ironically, it is this watery uppercut that wrests me from my past, back into the present. Perhaps I couldn’t save everyone at Pearl Harbor, but today is not that day.
