Page 21 of All The Way Under

“Listen, fuckers. She’s our only hope of getting off this island, so yeah, it does make me nervous,” I say, trying to spin another story.

Admitting my feelings for her isn’t something I can comfortably do.

The thought of having a conversation about my feelings with her makes my stomach tilt and flinch.

“Who is she?” Collin asks.

“She’s rich. Richer than both of you can imagine.

Her family is why we’ll get out of here.

If you both don’t fuck it up before then.

It will be on you if you keep blabbing,” I add the warning because they’ve pissed me off.

“If you want me to get you off this island when we leave, keep your mouth shut.” I swallow hard.

“About me and my past and everything you think you know.”

They nod. I grab my tray and try to be casual as I walk up to a guard.

“Where is asset twelve?” Too casual? Who knows, but the terror I feel is building its way from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. The need to see her and be close to her is the only thing that matters right now.

“Ravelo had business with her,” Nery says.

Tapping my fingers against my jeans, I try to rein it in. The emotions are wild, licking up my spine, twirling from my heart and mind like a dance. A dance with the fucking devil. One in which I’m damned to an eternity of this absolute mire love has caused.

Love. I admitted it to myself.

Not only is this a chink in my armor, but it could also mean my death. Because doesn’t it always for me?

Right now, I want to pummel his face until he tells me where she is, and that would cause chaos. I’d be tased and tranquilized immediately.

“Oh, business in the garden? Is she showing him the improvement to the irrigation line?” I say it in his native tongue because if I said it in English, it would sound like a threat. There’s no keeping my cool.

He shakes his head. “You’re going back to your cell for the night. Asset twelve has business in the main office. Raza is going to take you back now.”

He looks over to Turner and Collin, narrowing his eyes in suspicion.

“Did they tell you anything of significance?”

This is where I need to lie to keep him on my good side.

“Only that they don’t have anyone to pay their ransom,” I reply, and then, because I need some predictability, I say, “They mentioned trying to make a run for it tomorrow morning. They know Saturday mornings are when the fishing boat docks at the west dock to deliver the resupply to the base.”

That’s extremely specific information. For them to know that would imply the brothers are at risk of fleeing. It’s my information, though, and there’s a lot more where that came from.

“I’m not going to allow them out anymore,” he replies.

Exactly as I knew he would.

“Thank you.” Nery nods, and Raza appears, leading me to the exit.

I don’t try to make conversation with him as we head back. I keep my eyes peeled, desperate to make sure she’s not at the garden or the junk pit where the bikes are being fixed.

The sun hasn’t set yet, but with each passing second that I can’t see Saylor, the rare feeling of vulnerability rears like an ugly monster I have no chance of defeating. Raza unlocks the rusted padlock and opens the door. I’m slow to go in, and he notices my hesitation.

“Asset twelve will be staying in another holding cell for the remainder of her time here. You have this one to yourself.”

The next question comes without my permission.

“Why?”

Even I hear the panic, so when he raises one brow before he responds, I’m not surprised.

“She requested it. You’ll have more space. She’s a wild animal. Ravelo was doing you a favor by getting rid of her.”

I don’t like the implication of his last sentence. In fact, it makes me want to kill him and find her immediately, but I must stay cool, calm, and collected.

Do I know how to do that?

Walking forward, I allow myself to be caged. The lock makes a clanging sound against the bars.

“You will still have to work with her during the day,” Raza admits, eyes downcast. He thinks I don’t want to be around her. I guess I should mark that as a win.

“I’ll do whatever I have to do,” I reply. “Any word on my ransom?”

Keep him talking. That’s all I can think will help me figure out where she is. There aren’t any other holding cell cages on this base save for this one and the one the brothers share. They must have her in the main building structure, which all the guards have access to.

“There will be soon,” Raza replies. “You keep your ears open like you always do, and I’ll be here for you early tomorrow.”

I rub the chip under my skin, eager to press my finger down, eager to end this in all ways, because I can’t think straight.

Why wouldn’t she want to be in here with me? After the magical afternoon, I can’t see a couple of sentences from strangers about my past throwing her this far off course.

I replay the conversation at least a hundred times in my head before I finally allow my eyes to close.

Sleep won’t come, though. No, not after the trajectory of the day unfolded in such a haphazard way.

Maybe it’s good she’s not next to me for a night.

I’ll be able to think clearly about the next steps I need to take.

Her body. Her lips. The way her laugh catches on a low note before it cascades into a melody that calms me.

Saylor has thawed my cold, dead heart. I feel the change, and it hurts as much as it injects me with excitement because these circumstances aren’t valid.

This isn’t real. Our time together won’t transcend.

This cage and this tropical swampland paradise will be a mere memory tainted by suffering and plagued by the unknowns.

She realized it. That’s why she wants distance.

I lost Jocelyn in a horrific way, and somehow, I understand losing Saylor like this will be worse than death. I’ll know she’s out in the world being loved by someone else who doesn’t deserve her. It’s an agonizing thought.

Think of the plan . It’s almost time, McBrode, I chide.

My brother comes to mind, and I let myself be sad and wistful while I go through the sand table plan that lives solely in my brain.

I miss Nolan. He’ll be there for me when I get home, I remind myself.

If I live through what needs to be done.

This isn’t a situation of only the good die young.

This is uncharted territory in a mission that has too many variables to predict what will transpire when I say go.

When sleep eludes me, I shuffle over to the wall adjacent to the toilet. I move a few rocks out of the way that I’ve carefully chipped away and pull out the gun I stole from the old parts-and-pieces junk pile.

They haul in new things every Saturday on the fishing boat, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I found the loaded gun and random bullets inside what looked to be a dismantled glove box. It probably came off one of the boats they stole, and no one opened it up to see the contents.

I hold it in my palm, feeling comforted by the familiar weight and shape.

Eight bullets. If the gun doesn’t misfire, I have eight lives to take if need be.

I didn’t anticipate having this luck, but now that I have no idea where Saylor is, I don’t feel as fortunate.

I want to use it now to get what I want.

I tuck the weapon back behind the rocks, adjusting them so that, to the naked eye, nothing is amiss. Saylor knows I have the gun, but has no clue I know how to use it well.

Lying back down with my hands behind my head, I try to drift again, but this time I’m haunted by the car accident.

Jocelyn was in the passenger seat of my dark green 4Runner.

She was wearing a bright red dress because we were heading back to college after dinner out to celebrate our first anniversary.

It was a big deal. I bought her a necklace with a diamond inside of a water drop to represent the fact that we met at a naval college.

It took me a month to pick it out—I agonized over what would be a perfect gift.

Too much and I’d scare her away, but too little and she might not know how much she meant to me.

I was a careful driver, always following the rules, never taking chances, especially with her in the car.

Jocelyn was telling me how she picked out the wallet she got me, a wallet I still use to this day.

She said the man at the leather store told her his whole life story and his divorce drama as he was engraving the brown leather with my initials.

She debated putting her initials and mine, so I’d always remember this was an anniversary present, but decided on just mine in case life had other ideas . She still wanted me to use it.

I looked over at her, my eyes directly on hers, and replied, “Life only has the ideas I give it, Joci. And any life I live will have you in it. I promise.”

She smiled, lips glossed, and a megawatt smile shining. That’s when the headlights transformed the side of her face.

Her green eyes turned to the windshield at the same time mine did. A large delivery truck swerved into our lane, and I decided right then I’d carry this regret for the rest of my life.

I jerked the wheel right to try to avoid a head-on collision, and the passenger side of the car slammed into a large oak tree. The mail truck hit the tail of the left side of my SUV, ripping the 4Runner in half.

I don’t remember anything after the collision until I woke up in a hospital, Nolan leaning over me with worried eyes. My parents were there too. Jocelyn wasn’t.

Nolan knew what it would do to me. I think that’s why he wasn’t the one who told me Jocelyn was dead. It was my dad who said it very bluntly because that’s the only way to deliver news that doesn’t seem real. You have to say it outright in as few words as possible.

“She died on impact. The delivery driver had a blood alcohol level six times the legal limit. He lived…barely. You escaped with some scrapes and bruises. A concussion too. The delivery driver shouldn’t be alive for how much alcohol he had in his system.”

“It’s my fault,” I whispered.

Dad shook his head. “It was the delivery driver’s fault, and he’s going to pay for deciding to drink and drive for the rest of his life.”

He didn’t pay. He killed himself in prison after his trial. That’s why it made broad headlines.

“The tree. I should have pulled left.”

It was all so crystallized in my mind and still is.

I could have saved us both if I had jerked the wheel the opposite way.

I visited the site of the accident dozens of times over the years, thinking about how things could be different if I’d saved her and made a different decision that night.

Maybe if I wasn’t so fucking in love with her, I would have kept my eyes on the road.

Maybe I could have thought more clearly.

It was an open casket service, and she didn’t look anything like my Jocelyn.

The makeup was too heavy, and they had to do some weird patch jobs on her face because of the damage from the crash.

Her parents buried Jocelyn wearing the water drop necklace.

I saw it in a new light as I stared into my first love’s coffin.

It was indeed a fucking teardrop, not water.

Fuck the diamond. Fuck everything that meant anything.

When I said goodbye to her that day, I said goodbye to the last remaining good part of myself.

Sure, I was surly and dark as a child, but losing Jocelyn solidified my nature in a way that twisted into disdainful in a cruel way.

There wasn’t anything I could do to fix it except become a SEAL and save people.

As many as I could. It will never be enough to make up for that night, but for every life saved, I keep her in my life. Like I promised Jocelyn.

If I lose Saylor—if I can’t get her out of here alive—I don’t know how I’ll recover, if I’ll ever recover.

One thing is for certain now. I want her in a way I’ve never wanted anyone before. What I feel for her is real and deep, and even if I get her out of here alive, I’ll lose what’s left of my heart.

I’m still awake when the sun rises, and I have to blink rapidly several times when I see Saylor on the other side of my cage.

She’s alone. Her clothing isn’t her clothing.

She’s in men’s clothing, and she has a new bruise riding high on her cheekbone.

Saylor looks left and right before inserting the key in the door, setting me free.

I scramble to my feet, nearly tripping from the shock of seeing her.

“Grab the gun,” she whispers. The sunlight glistens off her blue eyes and her smile. “We’re getting out of this zoo.”

This woman has me fumbling on the ground as I reach for the gun.

“What the hell are you doing, Saylor?”

When I’m standing in front of her, the cage door wide open, she grabs the center of my shirt. Pulling me toward her and down, she presses her mouth against mine. The sensation makes me feel like I’m fucking floating. I hate that I love it. Hate that I don’t want it to stop.

Her lips move against my mouth, lingering. “I’m getting us out of here.”

She tucks her hair under an old Yankees ball cap she found somewhere in a junk pile, I’m sure. I tuck the gun under my waistband and readjust my fucking hard-on.

“Unless you have a better idea? The fishing boat leaves in thirty minutes, and we have to go get Collin and Turner.”

Unless I have a better idea.

Is she kidding?

Fuck.

Here we go.