Page 73 of No One Aboard

“I know, but...” Rylan set his breakfast aside. “But you never make it seem like your life is going to be normal after you leave. You’re going to be living in the woods or on the side of a road, or something.”

“I want adventures, yeah. But I’m not swearing off good food and television till the end of time.” Tia sucked her fingerand laid her bowl on the coffee table next to Rylan’s. Hers was scraped clean.

“I know, it just seems like a big divide, you know? Like there’s your life before you run, and your life after. And ne’er the twain shall meet.”

Tia wiped her hands on her shorts and gave him a quizzical look. “Why do you keep saying when I run? Like you aren’t coming with me?”

Rylan opened his mouth to respond when Francis’s voice, muffled above them, rang out. “Rylan! Come up on deck!”

Rylan grimaced.

Tia grabbed his arm. “Maybe if we stay silent he’ll think we’re still asleep.”

They waited. Francis grew louder, shouting down the companionway. “Rylan, get up here! Quick.”

The blood drained from Rylan’s face.

“Rylan!” Francis shouted again.

“It’s okay,” Tia promised now, standing and taking his hand. “I’ll go with you.”

She stayed in front of him all the way up to the deck, but when Francis ran over, he seemed to look right through her. Francis was giddy.

“We got a bite on the line,” Francis explained, herding them to the stern. “Something big.”

Not a test, then. At least, not yet.

The deep-sea fishing kit. Rylan had forgotten it was still hooked up. Nico and Alejandro were wrestling with the fishing poles. Rylan followed the fishing line with his eyes and looked down into the water.

A fish, long and powerful, fought in the waves in a desperate dance to escape the hook through its lip. It had a magnificent fin protruding from its back, blue and brilliant against the water around it, which looked gray in comparison. A blade-like billpointed out from its face, and Rylan recognized the species as a sailfish, named for its sail-like fin that fanned out enough to catch the wind. They were the fastest fish in the sea, able to swim as quickly as a car on the highway if they wanted to. And they were huge, growing up to eleven feet.

Francis joined Nico and Alejandro. “Let’s pull her up.”

“Can’t you cut the line?” Rylan asked, sick to his stomach. No one heard him.

“Rylan, help us out,” Francis ordered, but Rylan was rooted in place. Even if he could reclaim his muscles, the last thing he wanted to do was help haul the poor fish out of the water.

Nico glanced back at him and registered his expression. “Mr. Cameron? Can we catch and release? Do a few photos and throw it back?”

Warmth spread throughout Rylan’s body, and he mouthed his gratitude at Nico, who was too preoccupied with the line to see.

“Let’s just get her up first,” was Francis’s short response.

The three men struggled to drag the sailfish onto the deck. Somewhere in his peripheral vision, Rylan realized Tia had taken the wheel and Lila was beside her.

The sailfish appeared then, wriggling and wide-eyed as it was yanked onto the deck. It was huge, easily as long as any human Rylan had ever seen, and probably longer.

Francis laughed, delighted. “Can you believe it?” he asked no one in particular.

“She’s beautiful,” Nico murmured.

The sailfish continued to thrash, its scales glinting like unearthed treasure in the sunlight.

“Lila! Lila, get a photo of me, darling!” Francis crouched down over the fish, who was still moving, still frantic to breathe.

Rylan found himself lost in the sailfish’s eyes: glossy, marbly, and ever-staring. Its palpable fear became his own, and if he’d had the strength to lift a creature of that size, he would have thrown it back overboard.

Lila took out her phone and snapped a couple of photos of Francis, his arm around Alejandro and his hand pointing to the dying animal.