Page 26 of Lawless (Dauntless Island #2)

It was late afternoon by the time I was back at the station—the sunlight was golden and the shadows were long.

A few thin, wispy clouds close to the horizon were tinged orange and pink, the prelude to what was sure to be a breathtaking sunset.

I put the bike in the rickety shed and let the cat in the back door.

I made myself a sandwich, and gave the cat some food, and then went out the front and crossed the road to the harbour wall.

I sat astride it, and ate my sandwich, and watched the water.

This I could get used to. Well, maybe not the seagulls who saw my sandwich as easy pickings and came to hassle me, but the view of the village, of the ocean, of the sky, and the taste of salt on my lips.

I could see two fishing boats heading back in, drawing slowly closer as the end of the workday approached, but they were too far out for an outsider like me to identify.

The crunch of footsteps on the road alerted me to someone approaching a moment before Eddie shoved a mug of tea towards me. Baby Joe, strapped to his chest, burbled happily and kicked.

“Thanks.” I took the mug.

Eddie sat down on the wall beside me, his back to the harbour. “You look like you’ve had a rough day.”

“Eh.” I took a sip of tea. “You know, I thought the worst culture shock when I moved here would be no DoorDash, but it turns out that it’s that everyone literally hates me.”

Baby Joe babbled excitedly and reached for me. I smiled and set my mug down on the wall so I could tickle his toes. At least he liked me.

“I wonder what DoorDash would look like on Dauntless,” Eddie mused.

“A bucket of mud crabs tied around a goat’s neck, probably.”

Eddie laughed. “You could be onto something there. I don’t know if goats would make trustworthy delivery guys though.”

“Well, you’d have to change the name,” I said. “DoorSmash.”

Eddie laughed.

A flash of movement on the jetty caught my attention.

Susan Harper was as beautiful as her son; willowy, golden-haired and breath-takingly perfect.

Natty’s beauty came with either a smile or a glower, depending on his mood, and it grounded him.

Made him real. If you’d told me Susan had slipped into our world from some strange fairy realm, I might have believed it.

Her beauty seemed untouchable, which was just another word for unreachable.

She seemed to glide along the jetty rather than walk, her long skirt rippling like waves around her legs. The wind tugged her golden hair out behind her, like the fiery tail of a comet, and then whipped it around her face like a maelstrom. She didn’t even break her stride.

“Would the goats have a special uniform or?—”

I didn’t hear the rest of Eddie’s question. I was already moving, my cup of tea and sandwich forgotten, my boots crunching on the road as I followed the curve of the harbour wall towards the jetty.

Susan was almost at the end of the jetty when I hit the first of the massive boards.

“Susan!” The wind carried my voice away, and I doubted she would have heard me anyway. Wherever Susan Harper was, it wasn’t in the here and now. It didn’t stop me from trying again. “ Susan !”

And then she was gone. She didn’t dive off the end of the jetty, like someone going for a swim.

She just stepped off, not even pausing, as though she hadn’t even noticed the jetty coming to an end.

I heard shouting behind me—either I wasn’t the only one who’d noticed Susan, or my shouting had alerted others—but I didn’t turn around.

I unbuckled my utility vest as I ran, dumping it as I finally reached the end of the jetty.

My lungs were already aching, and I stopped long enough to see if I could see where Susan had gone into the water—I couldn’t, and I couldn’t see any sign of her—and then I jumped.

The water was colder than I expected, and I had to fight not to suck in a shocked breath—and a lungful of the ocean—when it closed over my head.

Salt stung my eyes, and for a moment I couldn’t see anything except a thick curtain of bubbles.

The water was deep and murky, but I saw a flash of movement from nearby—pale, like Susan’s skirt.

I pulled my way through the water towards it and collided with her.

My hands caught the fabric of her shirt, and her hair brushed against my face like seaweed.

I hooked an arm around her, and she twisted away.

A rush of panic hit me as my brain caught up to the situation I was in—if Susan fought me and I lost her, how would I find her again?

The push and pull of the waves above us felt like a washing machine.

Were there rips here? Probably something I should have wondered about before now. And also, I needed some fucking air .

I wrapped an arm around Susan’s waist, and she responded by elbowing me in the diaphragm. The last of my air exploded in bubbles in front of my face.

Fuck .

I used my free hand to try to pull us upwards, towards the sunlight.

My waterlogged uniform and boots were heavy as shit, and fighting to hold onto Susan was rapidly sapping my strength.

I was in good shape, and it was a shock to find myself struggling this much.

Susan was thrashing hard against me, and even managed to kick me in the balls.

I pulled against the water, my muscles straining and my lungs burning, and, just when I was sure I wouldn’t be able to make the surface and I’d have to let Susan go, she suddenly stopped fighting.

I broke through the surface of the water, sucking in a deep breath that hurt , and then arching back so that I was half-floating, Susan on top of me, and both of our faces were out of the water.

I couldn’t tell if she was breathing or not.

I couldn’t risk letting her go to readjust our position.

Above the sound of my heartbeat booming in my skull and the water in my ears, I thought I could hear distant shouting and a droning sound.

I twisted my neck to try to see where the jetty was.

We were at least a hundred metres away and drifting further westward by the minute.

Jesus. The current’s strong here.

I uselessly tried to blink seawater out of my eyes as the droning sound grew louder.

“Copper!” a women called. “Hey, copper!”

The little tinnie puttering towards us was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen, even if its skipper, Mavis Coldwell, wasn’t. Actually, fuck that. Mavis Coldwell, in her puffy vest and her gum boots and a face that could curdle her precious, exclusive milk, looked like a bloody angel right now.

“There you are, Susan,” Mavis said as she drew closer, her sour expression softening. She cut the tinnie’s motor. “Come on, love.”

The tinnie leaned alarmingly as Mavis hauled Susan in. Susan sat on the seat, soaked to the skin and staring at nothing. I held onto the edge of the tinnie, my arms starting to shake from the strain, and caught my breath.

“Come on then,” Mavis said, and held a hand out to me.

I caught her gaze, and I’m pretty sure we both wondered what would happen if she just left me here to drown.

But luckily Mavis decided not to choose violence today, and instead hauled me into the tinnie, where I landed like a flopping fish at Susan’s feet.

We were halfway back to shore by the time I got myself sitting upright.

Mavis didn’t take us to the jetty. Instead, we headed for the harbour wall, where a knot of people waited for us.

Eddie was there with Baby Joe strapped to his chest. So was a woman I thought was called Verity—a bunch of them were called Verity, so I was probably right—and an old man so frail with age that he looked like a stiff breeze would knock him into the harbour.

I hoped it wouldn’t—I was all rescued out already.

“What were you doing, Susan?” Mavis asked, the normal harsh edges of her voice filed down into something that almost sounded like sympathy.

Susan smiled faintly, and murmured something I didn’t catch because my ears were full of seawater.

“No, love,” Mavis said. “Will’s not coming home.” Her eyes narrowed as she caught my gaze, like she thought I was going to do something stupid like open my mouth and ask.

I wasn’t the idiot I thought she was. I could put two and two together.

I thought of Amy Nesmith, and the way her gaze had turned distant when she’d talked about how dangerous fishing was.

It was obvious Dauntless was no stranger to tragedy, and that Susan’s Will—not her son, but the husband she’d named that son after—had been lost in one.

Mavis brought the tinnie alongside one of the sets of concrete steps that led down from a gap in the harbour wall. Verity and the old man came down the steps to collect Susan, and I climbed out behind them.

“Thanks,” I said to Mavis, and she grunted in return.

At least she wasn’t rude enough to say she hadn’t done it for me, but I could see her struggling with the temptation.

I squelched up the steps, my heavy lungs still aching.

“Holy shit!” Eddie exclaimed when I reached the top of the steps. “Dominic! Are you okay?”

Was I? I couldn’t tell. I was very, very wet, and very, very exhausted, and that was all I could focus on right now. That, and the fact I had a very long trek all the way back to the end of the jetty to collect my utility vest.

“I’m good.” I looked to check if someone was taking Susan safely towards home. She was walking between Verity and the old man. “Someone needs to?—”

To keep an eye on her to make sure she was okay.

Except I started coughing, and couldn’t stop.

“Shit,” Eddie said. “Let’s get you home, Dominic.”

“I have to—” I coughed again, and pointed at the jetty. “My vest.”

I would be in so much shit if I lost my vest and everything attached to it—my radio and cuffs and phone. At least my firearm and Taser were in the safe at the station, but my bosses wouldn’t be happy if I lost the rest of my stuff either.

“I’ll get it,” Eddie said. “Dominic—Jesus, get inside and get in a warm shower! Do you have soup? I’ll bring you soup!”

I couldn’t stop the stupid grin spreading over my face, even though I felt like total shit.

“What?” Eddie asked. “Oh, God. You are literally dripping . Go! Get inside!”

“Okay,” I said, like an idiot. “Thanks, Eddie.”

Not for the vest, and not even for the soup. But because he was probably my only real friend on Dauntless Island.

He returned my smile, and didn’t say anything. He didn’t have to. I could tell he got it.

I squelched not-quite-miserably towards home.