Page 70 of Visions of You

I formed two okay signals with my thumbs and forefingers, and Ted slowed further, placing a hand against the metal wall to stop himself.

I breathed a long sigh, deeply relieved he was calming down and not spiraling into panic. I took hold of his hand to provide contact and gave him an okay sign again. This time he nodded back.

Letting go, I tapped my palm with two fingers of my other hand, the signal for an air check.

He fumbled with his computer, and his throat worked in a swallow when he read the result. He raised his eyes to me and held up the five fingers of his right hand.

Shit! Five hundred psi?

But I schooled my face, giving nothing away, and nodded gently, beckoning him to come with me. The submerged hall was wide enough for us to swim side by side. I kept a reassuring grip on his hand the whole way and easily remembered my route. As soon as we emerged from the large cut in the side of the ship into open ocean, I unclipped my slate.

You’re doing just fine, okay? But I’m going to share my air with you on the way up. Just to be safe.

Ted jerked a shaky nod, his brown hair floating in the water around his head. I removed my octopus backup regulator from my side and held the bright yellow mouthpiece out to him. Replacing a regulator underwater was a basic open-water skill, but I still crossed my fingers as Ted transitioned from his regulator to myspare.

Practicing the skill in a pool was one thing. Doing it for real at one hundred feet after becoming lost inside a shipwreck was something else altogether.

But Ted made the transfer flawlessly, remembering to purge the water out of the mouthpiece before inhaling.

I looped my arm around his and gave him a thumbs-up, followed by another slow, easy signal. We weren’t in an emergency here, and I didn’t want him to get any more nervous. As both a professional diver and a woman with smaller lungs, I had great air consumption. So I had plenty of air for both of us.

Unless we needed to stop on the way up.

My stomach clenched as I surreptitiously glanced at my dive computer. The flashing display confirmed what I had already suspected.

I was in deco.

Frequent diving causes nitrogen to accumulate in the body. And few people dove more often than divemasters. If I didn’t follow my computer’s instructions and stop for several minutes on the way up to exhale the excess nitrogen, I was in serious danger of developing decompression sickness—the bends.

Since Ted had been on many deep dives over the past few days, he was at risk too. I studied my computer, discovering I needed to make a three-minute stop at eighty feet.

I pulled out my slate and wrote. There was no way I could communicate this via hand signals. When I explained the situation, Ted’s eyes got huge again. He whipped his computer up and examined it.

His breathing increased, bubbles flying out.

Dammit, Ted! Calm down, or you’ll run us both out of air.

I gently but firmly grasped his shoulder, providing a comforting touch to ground him. But he hardly noticed as he turned the computer around to show me the display.

He was in deco too.

Chapter Twenty-Five

Gabe

I satin the padded chair behind the console, alone on the boat asShark Baitgently bobbed in the waves. I crossed my arms, still pissed off I was here. As much as I loved being out on the water—not to mention my reintroduction to diving—I did not want to be anywhere near this goddamn wreck.

Too many bad memories.

I carefully arranged my schedule with Miguel, so he always captained onBensonday. Until he called me this morning at 6:00 a.m., saying he was puking nonstop.

I glared at the placid ocean surface. “It’s just a dive site, like any other. April and Wyatt are both pros. Nothing will go wrong.”

For the umpteenth time since the divers descended, I got up and moved to the side of the boat, shading my eyes with my hand. A few minutes ago, two distinct groups of bubbles had been visible.

Now only one group was.

I rolled my head around on my neck, reminding myself that this was expected. Wyatt had the less experienced group who werestaying outside the wreck. Of course April’s group’s bubbles would disappear as they entered the ship.

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