Wade stepped away from the transmitter to retrieve the next tank of oxygen. Ryker being Ryker meant the boat was beyond stocked. There were enough tanks to dive for an entire week. Wade grabbed a new tank and set it down next to the seat at the back of the boat near the steps where Darcy would be coming up. Hanging off the back of the boat, dangling deep in the water, was a glow stick tied to a string that led straight to the steps to make it easy for her to find.
Wade turned away from the steps and bent down to double-check the pressure in the oxygen tank when suddenly a stabbing pain shot through his calf. Wade yelled out and stumbled forward as he felt the blade of a knife being pulled out of the muscle it had just cut.
Wade had two choices—try to grab the phone and call for help or turn and fight. Knowing help was minutes away and that Darcy would surface at any moment, Wade didn’t think twice. He spun around and charged.
The man had climbed up the steps and had the knife in hand and was in the process of dropping his small oxygen tank to the ground. His face was covered with a mask, but that didn’t stop Wade from throwing a roundhouse punch that hit the guy right in the side of the head.
Pain exploded across Wade’s knuckles, but he kept going. Hook, uppercut, and a solid knee to the stomach had the man dropping the knife and doubling over. Whoever he was, he wasn’t used to fighting.
Just as Wade went to deliver a crushing uppercut, the man grabbed him by the shirt and slammed his masked head into Wade’s. The mask cracked against Wade’s nose, and he felt it break. The head butt had him seeing stars as he fell backward. He landed hard on his ass as the man shook his own head. Unfortunately, he was still standing. With his own nose bleeding, his calf bleeding, and his vision slightly blurry, Wade crab-walked backward until his back was against the steering wheel.
“Son of a bitch, that fucking hurt,” the man spat. When he bent to pick up his knife, Wade grabbed his phone.
Mayday!
The text was sent. Help would come, but it might be too late.
“Sure, call for help. Won’t do any good.”
The man yanked his mask from his face and blinked.
“Cash. I thought it was you.”
“Bullshit. You didn’t know anything.”
“I know you are a prick who would do anything for money, and there’s a ton of money out there.” Wade kept talking as he reached slowly behind him. He felt the cabinet door and he slowly moved it open. “You just weren’t smart enough to figure out how to find it. And so, what? Now you’re going to kill me?”
Wade reached behind him, his hand closing over the EPIRB, and turned on the emergency beacon. A signal would be flashing at Coast Guard headquarters and further help would arrive. It would take minutes he didn’t have, but maybe they would arrive in time to save Darcy.
“Yeah, I’m going to kill you. Duh.” Cash rolled his eyes and pointed the knife at him.
Cash charged and Wade kicked. His foot connected with Cash’s balls and Cash went down to his knees, gasping for air. Wade pushed aside the dizziness and shoved against the cabinet behind him to propel himself forward.
Wade wrapped his arms around Cash as they crashed against the deck. Wade scrambled on top of Cash as Cash tried to use both hands to shove the knife into Wade’s chest. Wade grabbed Cash’s hands as they struggled—each fighting to live.
There was no talking. There was no taunting. There was nothing but the struggle, the burning muscles, and the will to live. But one thing Wade knew without a doubt. He wouldn’t go down without a fight, and he had leverage. You couldn’t escape physics. Wade sat up tall and used his swimmer’s strength to push the blade toward Cash’s stomach. As he gained an inch, Wade maneuvered himself to squat over Cash. Using leverage and his body weight, Cash had no chance. Both their arms shook with exertion, but it was done the second Wade was able to get above Cash. With a final grit of his teeth, Wade pushed his whole body downward until Cash’s arms gave out and he felt the knife sink into Cash’s belly.
Cash moaned and cursed as Wade sat back to expose the knife sticking up from the other man’s belly. The sound of boats had Wade looking up to see Trent, Harper, and Kord bearing down on them from one side. Ridge and Edie approached from the other.
Trent was on his phone calling for emergency medical evac from the Coast Guard as Kord leaped from the boat Harper was now driving.
“What happened?” Kord asked as he secured Cash’s hands in cuffs and started first aid.
“He swam in with scuba gear. I’m guessing from the party boat. When I wasn’t looking, he stabbed me in the leg. There was a fight and he lost,” Wade said, wiping the blood from his face.
“Dammit, Wade, you’re hurt. Where’s Darcy?” Harper asked as she secured her boat to his.
“She’s searching the last grid before coming up. She should be up any minute,” Wade told her as Harper squatted down in front of him.
“Now, I’m not gonna lie. This is going to hurt.” Harper cupped his face as she examined his nose.
“Not as bad as the head butt.” Wade tried to laugh, but his nose hurt badly. “Leave it. The EMTs will . . . Ouch!”
Harper leaned back and rolled her eyes. “Stop being a baby. It wasn’t that bad, and I bet it feels a lot better already.”
It did. But it also hurt like crazy when she put his nose back into place. She reached into the first aid kit Kord and Trent were using to try to stabilize Cash the best they could. Belly wounds were tricky. He should feel remorseful and maybe he would when it was all over, but right now he was only thinking about protecting Darcy.
Wade hissed again as Harper cleaned the wound on his calf and pulled it together with butterfly stitches before slapping a waterproof bandage on it. “Hold still,” she ordered as she packed his nose and taped it on the outside to help stabilize it.
“You’re good at this,” Wade said, his voice sounding funny with his nose packed.
“You have no idea how many broken noses I have fixed over my lifetime as a bartender. When did you say Darcy was coming up?”
“Any minute,” Wade said reaching up for the transmitter. “Hey, Darcy. We’ve had some action up here.”
31
Okay, so she’d told Wade she’d be up after searching the last square, but it was kind of addicting. Darcy looked at her pressure gauge . . . one more. Besides, he hadn’t called her to remind her to come up so maybe she was clearing each grid faster than she thought. Darcy looked over at the row of flags. She was almost to the middle of the third row. With each square searched, she felt both closer to the sunken pirate ship and farther away. It was a mix of one step closer, one step back.
Darcy chose to be optimistic so she was thinking it was one step closer. With her metal detector in hand, she started scanning the next grid. Clear. Crap. No, she was going to be positive. Maybe the next one was going to be the one.
“Hey, Darcy.” Wade’s voice crackled over the transmitter, but it was cutting in and out and mostly she heard just part of her name. Double crap. The rest came out as static as she looked at her pressure gauge. It was time to come up. She was almost out.
Darcy turned and jerked. There was a person swimming right toward her. Since Wade had just talked to her, she knew it wasn’t him. Whoever it was, he was swimming full speed and Darcy was at a full stop. She kicked as hard as she could to evade him. It felt like she was slowly pushing through the water to dodge whoever was coming after her and knew chances of escape were little. If she could make it to the surface, she could scream. Instead of continuing to swim away from her pursuer, Darcy tried to swim for the surface.
It wasn’t any use, though. The person rammed into her as Darcy was flung back in the water so hard the metal detector slipped from her hand and arm. Sand kicked up as their fins fought against the water and tangled against each other as they fought. Up this close, she could tell her assailant was a man, and he was fighting to hold her near as she fought to get away.
Darcy reached for her knife on her th
igh, but it wasn’t there. It was in the other person’s hands as suddenly her respirator tubing was cut. She was out of time and out of air.
* * *
“Where is she?” Wade demanded as if his friends and family would know. He stood looking out the back of the boat as he scanned the water. Something wasn’t right.
He turned to ask Cash, but the man was unconscious.
“I’m going in.”
“Help!”
Darcy’s voice crackled over the transmitter, and it was enough to send Wade into action. “Get me a knife!” he yelled to whoever would do it as he pulled fins onto his feet, snapped a weighted belt on, and yanked the gauze from his nose before putting on a mask.
“Here,” Harper said, handing him the knife. “I’ll get the tanks ready.”
“No time.” Wade took a deep breath, then exhaled fully before breathing in as deeply as he could manage. He was diving into the water before Harper could even pick up the first tank.
* * *
Darcy could feel her lungs begin to burn. She could hold her breath for four minutes, but she hadn’t gotten to prepare as she would for a free drive. She had two minutes tops. The man drove her downward. She fought. She tried to reach his mask, she tried to pull his oxygen, but he was pushing her down from behind and had her right arm pinned behind her.
Darcy couldn’t get to the knife hidden up the sleeve of her wetsuit on her left arm. She couldn’t beat him physically, but she had one more trick up her sleeve. Darcy closed her eyes and went limp. She pretended to attempt to struggle, but weakly, and after ten seconds, she went deathly still.
He shoved her to the bottom and pushed her face into the sand. Darcy didn’t move. She didn’t react. And then he did what she’d prayed he’d do. He let go of her arm to hold her head buried in the hard sand and use his other hand to check for a pulse.
Darcy didn’t wait. She reached for her knife and pulled it out before he yanked her head back and slammed it into the ground. He didn’t let go of her arm as she had hoped. Instead, she felt the knife he’d been holding slice into the back of her upper shoulder.
* * *
Wade kicked hard as he shot through the water like a bullet. He had his arms pinned to his sides with his knife in hand as he dove toward the brightly colored flags. As he drew closer, he watched in horror as he saw the back of a diver drive a knife into Darcy’s back.
Bright red blood emanated from her shoulder as it dispersed among the water. While shark attacks weren’t the norm in South Carolina, this was a different scenario. They were in open waters with an open wound sending blood all around them. Hammerheads, tiger sharks, and bull sharks were known to be in the area as they dropped off their babies in the safe sounds of the coastal shore.
The diver pulled the knife out and was in the act of swinging again when Wade tightened his grip on the knife and stabbed him in the side. Wade tried to pull the knife out, but the man turned to fight. Wade had to drop his hold on his own weapon and move out of the way of the arcing knife.
* * *
Darcy saw the man swing toward Wade. The knife he’d taken arced through the water as Wade backpedaled. With her vision turning black along the edges, Darcy dug her feet into the sand to help give her something to kick off from. Her foot squished through the sand and hit something hard.
Darcy’s eyes shot to the ground. Eighth row, fourth square in. She unclipped her weights and her tank a second before she reached out for the man. The man lunged toward Wade and Darcy sliced his oxygen. She’d wanted to stab him in his neck, but she plunged the knife as hard as she could into his retreating leg as he swam toward Wade.
The man swung toward her, but Darcy used all her force to push off the ocean floor. When she shot up, the weights and tank fell from her body. She clawed at the water as she battled through the water for the surface. She saw the light. She was closing in on it as the darkness took over. Her sight was reduced to tunnel vision, but she kept her mouth shut. She knew better than to open it until she was fully out of the water. Too many people drowned because they opened their mouths to gasp for air just below the surface.
Her hands broke the surface first and then her nose. Finally, her mouth was free from the water and she dragged in a breath of air. She screamed as she exhaled. She heard shouts and then she heard water splash.
She opened her eyes as she tried to focus. Ridge was by her side. “Help him,” she ordered as she dragged in breath after breath. As Harper and Edie leaped into the water to help her, the sound of a helicopter cut through the air. Thankfully, Ridge didn’t wait. He took a deep breath and dove.
* * *
Wade was running out of time. It had been at least two minutes since he dove down. That was two more minutes of oxygen the attacker had than Wade had. Wade was trained and could hold his breath for a long time, but that was at the bottom of a pool, but not during a physical battle where his body used oxygen at an accelerated pace.
Wade blocked a hit and suddenly the man pulled his arm to his chest and pulled away from Wade. Wade swung toward Darcy but saw her kicking madly toward the surface. It was then he saw she had no oxygen tank. It was also when he saw the knife she’d stuck into the attacker’s leg.
The man tried to lunge again, but he was running out of strength. Suddenly behind the man came a diver—a diver in a white shirt that read BACHELOR on it. Wade darted past the attacker and straight for Ridge. Ridge held out the handle of the knife and shot back up to the surface. Ridge could scuba dive, but he wasn’t a trained diver and because of that, he wouldn’t be able to hold his breath very long.
Wade turned and saw the man was swimming away from him as he angled for the surface. Wade made a quick calculation and swam for the surface at a sharper angle. He broke free of the water, blinked long enough to see that Darcy was being pulled aboard and that his Coast Guard brothers were arriving. He signaled the helicopter that he was in danger and motioned to where the other diver would be surfacing. The helicopter took off for the location as the rescue swimmer on duty, Aaron, got ready to jump. While he was a couple of years younger than Wade, there was no one better to be in the water than Aaron, especially in a combat situation. Aaron was a fighter.
Wade swam as hard as he could to get to the man. His lungs burned, but he knew he was getting oxygen so he didn’t slow. Up ahead he heard Aaron shout. “Float on your back with your arms out.”
The attacker had surfaced.
“Drop the knife!” Aaron yelled. “Faulkner, he went under!”
Wade took a deep breath and dove under. The waves from the helicopter blades disappeared as he saw the man swimming just under the surface. There was a splash next to Wade, and he saw Aaron begin to match him stroke for stroke.
* * *
“Get out of the way,” Darcy yelled as she pushed Trent aside and pulled Ridge out of the water. She didn’t care if Cash lived or died at this point. She was surprised to see him on the boat when she had thought he was underwater attacking her. What she needed now was to get to Wade.
The boat was getting crowded. As Ridge crawled up the rest of the stairs onto the deck, Darcy moved around an unconscious Cash and her fearless rescuers. She’d hugged them all, especially Harper and Edie, as they helped swim her back to the boat. But she had recovered a bit, and she was pissed off. “Ryker!” she screamed as he came into view on his borrowed boat.
“That man better not be dead!”
“Don’t you have a gun on here?”
“Don’t you dare kill him on my boat. I will not have death cooties on my boat.”
Ugh! Darcy grabbed the emergency box and pulled out the flare gun and flares. “Gun?”
“I don’t have one on the boat.”
“What do you need a gun for?” Kord asked from where he and Trent were trading turns on trying to slow the bleeding.
“To kill the bastard that stabbed me.”
“How are you going to get to him?” Harper asked.
Darcy looked around. This
boat was too busy.
“Come on!” she yelled as she grabbed Kord and shoved him toward the boat Ridge had used.
They jumped on it and untied it. Darcy didn’t bother gradually easing into her speed. Edie and Harper helped push them off and Darcy went full throttle. Kord had to hold on for dear life as she shot the boat forward.
“What’s the plan?” Kord had to scream over the engine and wind.
“I told you. Shoot him.”
Darcy went wide around Wade and the other rescue swimmer and pulled an arching circle until she was ahead of her attacker and cut the engine.
“Cash is almost dead and you will be dead if you don’t stop right now!” Darcy yelled. The attacker looked up and then looked behind him to where Wade and the rescue swimmer were gaining ground. “Shoot him.”
“As much as I’d like to, I can’t shoot him,” Kord said to her before turning to the attacker. “Sheriff’s deputy. You’re under arrest. Surrender now.”
“He’s going under,” Darcy said as soon as she saw him take a deep breath. She didn’t wait for Kord. She aimed the flare gun and fired.
* * *
Wade reared back when he saw the sparks from a flare gun and then heard the screams.
“I think that woman just shot our suspect with a flare gun,” Aaron said after spitting out his snorkel. “Damn, she’s hot.”
“That’s my girlfriend, Assron.” Wade used Aaron’s nickname before picking up his strokes again. He heard Aaron chuckle, and then he was next to him again.
As they grew closer, he heard Aaron call out for high-low. The man was cursing and trying to swim away as Darcy was reloading and Kord was threatening to let her shoot again.
Aaron tapped Wade’s shoulder, and Wade took a breath and dove down deep. He maneuvered until he was behind and under the attacker. Wade made his move when he saw Aaron go vertical in the water five feet in front of the attacker.
Sunken Shadows Page 21