Riptide

by R. T. Martin

  The storm clouds were still covering the horizon, but the darkest of them were still a long way off. The girls would have plenty of time to ride waves before it started raining or the waves became too unpredictable.

  Maya eyed the waves, trying to decide the safest way for them to surf the cove. “Here’s what I’m thinking: we paddle out a little farther than we usually do, and then once we’re surfing, we’ll bail out before the water’s shallow enough for us to hit the bottom.”

  “How do we know where that is?”

  “We’ll do a few spot checks on our way out.”

  Paige tilted her head. “It actually doesn’t look so bad. Yeah. You’re right. I think we’ll be fine.” She smiled at Maya. “Let’s make the most of summer. All in favor say ‘aye.’”

  “Aye,” Maya said, smiling from ear to ear.

  They both took off their shoes and pulled their towels out of their bags before dropping their backpacks next to their shoes. They each put their towel next to the backpacks and set out toward the water.

  Maya was extra careful walking barefoot to the water’s edge. The last thing she wanted to do was cut open her foot before getting into the water. Slowly, she and Paige made their way down the beach to where the waves washed up on the shore.

  With the water splashing over their feet, they attached their ankle leashes, four-foot bungee cords that made sure they would always be attached to their boards. Maya undid and reattached her ankle strap three times, making sure it would stay strong when she bailed out early on the waves.

  They got in the water and started paddling out.

  “Check it out,” Paige shouted to Maya over the crashing waves. She nodded to something off to Maya’s left, a sand bar pretty far out from the beach itself, a narrow little strip of dry land that pointed out to sea like an arrow. “If something goes wrong and we can’t make it to shore, let’s head there.”

  “Good plan,” Maya shouted back.

  They headed out about as far as they would normally go before Maya did the first spot check to see how shallow the water was. She dove under and felt around gently with her hands. It was about seven, maybe eight feet down before she hit the rocks. “We’ve got to head farther out,” she said when she came back up. “Too shallow here.”

  Paige nodded, and they continued paddling into deeper water, diving under the waves as they rolled in.

  Maya did three more spot checks. On the third, the water seemed to be nearly fifteen feet deep. It was perfect. If they bailed here, there was virtually no chance they’d risk hitting the rocky bottom.

  “This is it,” she said when she popped out from the water and back onto her board. “We should be safe if we bail here.”

  They continued paddling out to sea. The waves were getting bigger the farther they got from shore. Their size only excited Maya. The bigger the wave, the faster the ride, she thought.

  Eventually, when she thought they could have a nice ride before bailing at the safe spot, Maya turned her board back toward the shore. She hopped on the next wave that came rolling by.

  This was what she loved. Riding a board along a wave, she felt almost weightless but in perfect control. She could go faster than she ever could on foot, and it was impossible for her to have any care in the world. The dread of the new school year, Kai’s obnoxious behavior, it all faded out of her mind. All she cared about was the wave and her board. And the rocks, Maya reminder herself. She had to care about them. She kept a close eye on the spot where she knew it was safest to bail off the board.

  When she reached the spot, she kicked the board out from under her, flicking it forward while she herself jumped backward over the crest of the wave. She hit the water and felt the ankle leash go taut for a second. Then it loosened as the bungee cord snapped it back toward her body. Maya resurfaced. She hadn’t hit a rock. She hadn’t hit anything. This was actually turning out to be safer than she’d expected. She made her way to her board, which was floating just a few feet away.

  Maya wrapped an arm over her board, swooped a leg across it and swiftly pulled herself back on top of it. Paige was still waiting, obviously making sure Maya was okay before she took a ride herself. Maya gave her a big thumbs-up, and Paige grinned back. Maya watched as Paige waited for a wave and hopped onto her board.

  Paige jumped off further out than Maya had. She’s probably still a little nervous, Maya thought as she waited for her friend to resurface. When Paige did pop up from the water, she had a big smile on her face.

  “Let’s rip this cove up!” she shouted.

  Maya just laughed and started paddling out again.

  They each caught another wave. Then another. Maya was a little surprised at how easy surfing this area really was. The people who got injured must have been really careless, Maya thought. As long as they bailed out before the wave got too close to the shore, there was virtually no danger that they’d get hurt.

  Each time Maya jumped off her board and popped her head above water, she was reminded of the storm. They sky was getting darker and grayer with each passing moment. Not only that, but the waves were also growing less manageable, and the wind was starting to pick up.

  After Paige caught a particularly big wave, she resurfaced and called out to Maya. “Maybe we should think about heading back.”

  Maya looked at the sky. “We came all the way out here. We should make the most of it!” She had to shout the last bit so that Paige would hear her over the waves crashing nearby.

  Paige seemed a little hesitant about continuing but shrugged and started paddling back out.

  They surfed for another half hour. Maya had just started riding a massive wave when it swelled, becoming much larger than she anticipated. The wind whipped into a frenzy, and she nearly lost her balance as she rode toward shore. She corrected her footing, and then leaned into the wind and angled the board a little bit, steadying herself. This wave was moving faster than the previous ones. It only took about half the usual time for her to reach the point where it was still safe to jump off, and she nearly missed it, getting too close to the dangerous rocks beneath. When she came back to the surface, she looked for Paige. It was definitely time to head back to shore. The conditions were becoming treacherous.

  Paige was out where they were catching the waves, just about to ride an approaching swell. Perfect, Maya thought. After this one, we should both head in. The storm was picking up in a hurry, and by the time Maya made it back to where they were catching the waves, the water would be too choppy to ride anyway.

  Paige jumped up on her board, riding the surf in. She wasn’t far from Maya when the wave swelled and crashed in on itself without warning. Just before Maya pushed her board down to swim under the wave she saw Paige disappear into the crashing water. When she popped her head out of the water, Paige was nowhere to be seen. Maya couldn’t even spot Paige’s board. It was as if she’d vanished into the ocean.

  Much farther out from shore than she expected, there was a splash, and she heard Paige’s voice call, “He—” It cut off. “Help!”

  Maya paddled toward Paige, ducking under the waves as she went and fighting the water pushing against her. The storm was coming into full effect now. Not only were there waves washing in toward the shore, but the wind was whipping water down the coast. Maya was getting splashed from the side as she made her way to Paige.

  Paige would appear for a moment, only to disappear behind a swell. Maya knew she was moving in generally the right direction, but she kept losing sight of her friend.

  We stayed too long, she thought. They’d missed their window to make it back to shore by mere minutes, and now Paige needed help. Maya tried to reassure herself that her friend was probably fine—fighting a pulled muscle or dealing with a cracked board.

  But then Maya heard something that cut through the noise of the waves. Paige was crying.

  Chapter 4

  “My left leg!” Paige shouted when Maya eventually swam up to her. Paige was bobbing up and down in the waves, c
linging to the side of her board. “I think it’s broken!” The sound of crashing waves nearly drowned her out voice entirely.

  “Can you make it to shore?” Maya asked, steadying Paige’s board, afraid it might tip over, dumping her friend into to ocean.

  Paige glanced toward the shore, winced in pain, and shook her head. “Sandbar!” she shouted.

  Maya looked around for the sandbar. The storm was making the water so chaotic that it was hard to see anything, much less the narrow sandbar they’d agreed to meet at if they couldn’t make it to shore.

  “That way!” Paige shouted, seeing that Maya couldn’t tell where it was.

  “You need to get on your board!” Maya yelled. “Once you’re on, grab my hand, and I’ll paddle and pull you.”

  Paige winced in pain again. She took a deep breath and hoisted herself onto the board. She swung her right leg out of the water, screaming as she did so. Then she shook her head. “I can’t get the other one up. It’s definitely broken.”

  Maya gripped Paige’s hand tightly as Paige used her other one to grip her own board. Using her free hand, Maya started paddling in the direction Paige had pointed. She still couldn’t see exactly where they were going, so she just had to trust her friend.

  Maya considered just heading toward shore but thought better of it. Yes, their phones were there, and she could call someone for help, but she didn’t think they could make it past the rocks. It would be hard enough getting herself on shore, and Maya knew that she would have the advantage of being able to walk onto the beach from the shallow water. Paige wasn’t so lucky. And with the waves coming in faster and stronger with the storm, the likelihood of getting knocked off their boards and hitting the rocks in the shallow water was even higher. The sandbar was definitely a better and safer option. If only Maya could find it.

  Between the waves and the unpredictable current of the storm, Maya couldn’t be sure how far they’d gone or if they were even headed in the right direction. She just kept paddling the way Paige had pointed and hoped they would hit the sandbar soon . . . although she had no idea what they’d do once they were there.

  The storm was getting worse by the second. Swells of waves continued washing up over the edge of Maya’s board into her face. Every few strokes, she was splashed with salty sea water. She spit the water out just to get splashed again, but she wouldn’t stop. Paige needed her to keep going.

  For nearly ten minutes, Maya paddled while pulling Paige along with her. Every second, she felt more and more hopeless. Even though she couldn’t see it, she also couldn’t help thinking the strip of dry land was getting farther and farther away.

  Just when Maya had the desperate thought that they weren’t going to make it, the sandbar came into view. They were close—a lot closer than Maya thought they’d be.

  “I can see it!” she shouted to Paige over the thrashing ocean.

  Paige didn’t respond, and for a second, Maya thought she might have passed out, but then her friend squeezed her hand a little tighter. Maya let out a sigh of relief and continued paddling.

  Land. Although the sandbar was narrow, Maya felt her foot graze the ocean floor about ten feet out from it. For the first time ever, Maya was relieved to be able to get out of the water. She jumped off her board, and the water only reached about halfway up her shin. Maya gripped the front of Paige’s board and started pulling it toward safety. She dragged it, with Paige aboard, out of the water and onto the sand.

  Sometime during the paddling, Paige had managed to get her broken leg onto the board. And it was definitely broken. Halfway down the shin, it was bent at a strange and extremely unnatural angle. She also had a large gash up most of her leg. It wasn’t bleeding much, but it looked deep . . . and painful.

  Looking at Paige’s bent leg, Maya had to resist the urge to throw up. But she pushed the feeling aside. Paige needed her.

  Paige was grimacing in pain on the sand. Maya saw she’d bitten her lip hard enough for it to bleed. Maya pulled Paige and her board up the sandbar, farther from the waves lapping up around them.

  “Is it bad?” Paige struggled to sit up and look at her leg. The pain was too much, and she laid back down with a groan.

  Maya was about to say No, not at all, but she knew Paige wouldn’t believe it. “It’s not good,” she said instead.

  “Is it broken?”

  “Yeah.” Maya was panicking but desperately trying not to show it. She’d never seen someone’s leg bent like this. It was like something out of a horror movie. She had no idea how to reset a broken leg. She desperately wanted to help, but Paige’s injuries were much more severe than anything Maya could fix. The best thing she could do was keep her friend as warm and dry as possible.

  “What happened?” Maya asked.

  “The current,” Paige replied through a wince. “It pushed me down. I tried to turn in the water, but my leg hit a rock hard.”

  She leaned up on her board and looked at her own leg. “I need to go to the hospital!” she shouted over the crashing waves.

  Maya snapped out of her daze of confusion and panic. She looked toward shore.

  There were a hundred, maybe a hundred and fifty yards of angry ocean between her and the rocky beach where their phones were. The sand bar was protected, and the water around it relatively calm, but that calm only spread about ten yards beyond the bar itself. She wouldn’t be able to make it very far out before it would be rough going.

  “I’m going to go for it!” Maya yelled to Paige.

  “Are you insane?”

  “I have to! You said it yourself, you need a doctor!”

  “You’ll get ripped apart on the rocks!” Paige shouted. That was exactly what Maya had been afraid of. Paddling to the shore from this distance during a storm could be dangerous on a regular beach. At Ripper’s Cove, it was practically a death wish. “We should wait it—”

  Suddenly, big heavy raindrops started falling. They grew thicker and heavier in a matter of seconds, like someone had flipped a switch. Maya saw Paige fight back a scream. The hard rain must have felt like hammers hitting her broken leg.

  She didn’t have a choice. Without waiting for Paige to continue whatever she had been saying, Maya grabbed her board and dove into the raging ocean.

  Chapter 5

  Maya could hear Paige calling to her from the sandbar, but her voice was drowned out by the crashing of waves and the sound of rain. Maya kept paddling. If she could just make it to shore, she could grab her phone and call 911.

  The rain pounding down was cold, and Maya wished she’d worn her wetsuit. It would have provided at least a little insulation. Her thin summer swimsuit wasn’t meant for this kind of weather. She shivered even as she worked hard to move herself toward the beach. Maya knew that in conditions like this, hypothermia was a real possibility.

  And the trip wasn’t easy. Making it from where Paige broke her leg to the sandbar had been difficult, but trying to navigate the raging waters during the storm was close to impossible. Unlike the predictable waves of the afternoon, the storm was pushing water in all different directions. Larger waves were coming from behind her, but smaller ones were pushing her to either side or splashing up over the front of her board. She was constantly choking on water that flew into her mouth and trying to correct the angle of her board so that she was headed toward shore and not down the coast.

  After nearly ten minutes of fighting the waves, she looked back to see how far she’d gotten. Paige had somehow slipped off her board and was now hiding under it, protecting herself from the rain. Maya could see her clearly, and the shore didn’t seem to be any closer than when she’d started. She’d only made it maybe twenty or thirty yards at the most.

  Maya had the horrible thought that no matter how hard she fought the waves and the rain, there might be no possible way for her to make it to the shore.

  And then a bright flash of lightning lit up the sky, followed by rolling thunder that sounded like it started far away but grew to the level of an
explosion. Literally everyone knew to stay out of the water whenever there was lightning. A nearby bolt could shock Maya, knocking her out, and then she’d drown.

  Maya pushed even harder to make it to shore. But the longer she did, the less likely it seemed that she’d actually make it. All the odds were stacked against her. The waves, the lightning . . . even the rain had become so heavy the shore looked hazy, and it was possible that she would lose sight of it, not to mention the sandbar.

  That’s when it happened. A wave slammed into her side, flipping her off her board. As soon as she entered the water, Maya felt the current pull her down.

  Within seconds, she lost her bearings—unable to figure out which way was up in the surging water.

  Wham. Maya’s head slammed against a rock on the ocean floor. Her vision flashed and her ears started ringing. The pain made her gasp, and water filled her lungs. She was drowning. Her mind screamed at her, Get to the surface!

  She pivoted in the water and pushed off the same rock she’d hit her head on, but the current shoved her sideways, and she lost her bearings again. Her body wanted to choke, spit up the water she inhaled and take a breath, but she fought the impulse. If she choked now, she’d just swallow more water.

  Just when there seemed like no way out, a thought flashed across Maya’s waterlogged mind. My board. It would float to the surface. She grabbed hold of her ankle leash and followed it. It had to be the way up.

  She made her way through the dark water with the leash as her guide and came up directly under her board. As soon as she made it to the surface, Maya heaved up the water she’d breathed in. Just as she did, a wave rolled over her head, filling her mouth and lungs with more water.

  She grabbed the edge of her board and climbed on top of it, choking again and desperately gasping for air. Her head was throbbing, radiating pain from the place it had made contact with the rocks. She gently put a hand to it. There didn’t seem to be a cut, but if there was, it was so small she couldn’t feel it.