Page 111 of No One Aboard
Someone was in the water.
“Tia?” Rylan leaned over the side to get a better look.
But it was his father’s face, beaded with water and fear, that looked back at him.
“Rylan!” Francis paddled through the water viciously, but his efforts did no good. The storm held a strength that Francis could only begin to imagine. “Rylan!” he called again, hand waving over his head.
Francis strained toward them. He was in arm’s reach. “Help me,” Francis cried. An order.
Rylan’s breath stuttered. Time tripped and limped.
Congrats, son. Nemo’s dead.
Come on, Rylan. People could be dying.
The tests reanimated themselves around him. The tests that Francis had started giving Rylan when Tia was no longer there to protect him.
Francis had refused to bring Tia home when Rylan found out he was salutatorian because that was second place. That wasn’t good enough.
Once, Francis had towed him to the bathroom on a lazy day after school, flooded and plugged the sink, then pushed his son’s head underwater to see if Rylan could conquer his panic attacks. He shut the door so Lila didn’t hear as she practiced her lines downstairs.
The next month, Francis made Rylan run to school as he drove his Rolls Royce to supervise behind him.
He locked rooms and left hairpins on the floor or emptied the fridge in an attempt to get Rylan to eat the leather from his shoes.Tests, Francis called them. Tests that would end when he passed.
But he never passed.
In the corner of the life raft, Lila didn’t budge from her seat. Her ashen eyes slid over her husband as if he were another figment of the water. An appendage, already belonging to the sea. Francis didn’t turn to her or reach for her. Did he guess she wouldn’t save him even if he did?
No, this was Rylan’s moment. A test he could finally pass.
Rylan’s hand wavered as he held it out. The raft dipped and swayed, keeping the father and son inches out of reach.
Francis howled in frustration. Wind sunk its teeth into the sound, tearing and distorting it.
Francis was laughing as Tia sent Nico over the side of the ship.
He was yelling as his palm connected with Tia’s cheek.
Snapping at Rylan every time he failed.
“Power and potential,” Francis Cameron had told his son. “That’s what I see when I look at the ocean, and it’s what I see when I look at you.”
Rylan’s vision smeared into something grotesque and fragmented—pieces of porcelain, pale purple tentacles, a boy falling overboard in a storm. He’d been trained for this, hadn’t he? He’d been trained by Francis to save anyone if he had to. Now was the time to prove himself, right? He counted to ten.
One, two, three, four...
“Rylan!” Francis bellowed his name and shook his hand in the air as if Rylan had forgotten about what he must do.
Five, six, seven, eight...
“Help me!” Francis commanded in a voice that paled in comparison to the bulleting rain.
Nine...
Rylan brought his hand back to the safety of his chest. A calm bubbled up inside him—Rylan’s own eye in the storm.
Ten.
