Seventeen-year-old Taylor Vernon, a varsity swimmer with Olympic ambitions, knows the rhythm of life by the sound of water - the splash of her dive, the cheers of the crowd, the laughter of her teammates echoing through the Woodward High natatorium. When the Death Angels arrive on June 18th, 2020, during their summer break trip to Los Angeles, Taylor and her friends must transform from competitive swimmers into silent survivors. Their mission: reach LAX International Airport and secure passage to the still-safe Australia, one of the last places on Earth where waves and voices are still allowed to be loud.

Santa Monica, 1983. After three days of El Niño storms, the pier is in pieces-and the ocean gives Tyler Thornton something back. Marcus washes up in a tuxedo. Dry. With blue light pulsing behind his eyes and veins that glow under the skin. The authorities will call it what the storm makes easy: drowning. Accident. Case closed. But the footage says otherwise. And whoever shows up on the beach with radios and flashlights moves like they already know what they're looking for. Tyler takes the only thing Marcus left behind: a keycard. He pulls in James Harlow-a scholarship kid with a camera and a talent for seeing what other people miss. James has been sketching Tyler for months: his hands, his shoulders, the way he moves through school like he's drowning in open air. Now James is developing a still frame of a dead body with glowing veins-and the pattern in the light looks designed. If Tyler reports this, the story disappears into the storm and the corporation behind the research stays untouchable. If he doesn't, he'll have to get close enough to the truth that it can change him. Some things weren't meant to breathe underwater. And some grief doesn't let you come up for air.