Anchor

Chapter 11

Gabriel

Everything is muffled and I'm so cold, it's almost hot, like when I played in snow for the first time as a kid and forgot to wear gloves. I know I need to get up, but I'm so tired, I sink back into darkness. I hear someone calling for me, but I can't summon the energy to figure out who it is and why.

"Gabe!" They call again.

Then hands are on me, turning me over and I realize I can't breathe. Coughing overcomes me, my body trying to purge my lungs of its contents.

"Gabe, oh my God," a woman says.

I blink, trying to pull her face into focus, but it takes so much energy I give up and pull a picture of her to the forefront of my memory. Chloe. Tyler always says if he's going to die, he'd rather do it staring at a beautiful woman. I'll have to remember to tell him he's right. After a few seconds of furious hacking and blinking, my lungs clear and my vision refocuses.

"You're okay," Chloe says. "We're okay."

"S'goin' on?" I slur.

"It's okay. We're safe. The boat—" But an explosion cuts off her words. Waves of heat pass over us and debris rains down around us.

She loses her grip on me and the water swallows me, despite my life jacket. At least this time I manage to hold my breath until she finds me and drags me back to the surface. We break through the top and float there for a second watching the decimated wreckage of the ferry be consumed by tongues of flames.

When we can tear our eyes away, Chloe turns to me and says, "Are you okay? They should be here soon."

It takes me a couple tries with my teeth chattering from the cold, but I spit out, "F-fine. I'm fine."

"You don't look fine," she says.

A bead of water drips down her face, and I wish I had the energy to trace its path with my fingers.

I shake my head to clear it. "I'll be okay."

A feeling I don't quite recognize is filling my chest, making it tight and hard to breathe. For a second, I wonder if Jones had gotten off another shot that we missed. My face grows hot and my throat scratchy. I keep trying to cough to clear it out, but it comes back.

"Just hold on," Chloe is saying, her face illuminated by the distant fire. "I can hear them. They're getting closer."

I have to focus intently on the sound of the water and my own racing heart, but I do catch the faintest sound of an engine roaring and it does sound close. Relief steals over me.

"They're almost here," Chloe says.

I try to find them in the darkness, but my vision is failing. Maybe Jones did get another shot off. Or maybe my bandages came off and I'm bleeding out.

"Stay with me," is the last thing I hear Chloe say before I pass out.

* * *

"You're damn lucky," Tyler says.

I glance around the hospital room, at the wires and tubes connecting me to a half-dozen machines and then back at him. "Lucky?" I say.

"Coulda been worse," he says.

Leaning into the soft, but thin, pillows, I grunt. "Yeah, it could have. Almost was."

A knock comes at the door and a cheerful-looking nurse peers around the edge with Tyler's wife following close behind holding two cups of coffee. "Mr. Rossi, just need to come check you over."