by Jayne Rylon
She tried to respond a few times and couldn’t find the right way to say what she was thinking. “I’m not sure that you belong in my world, Miguel.”
He jerked as if she’d slapped him. “The fuck I don’t. I might not have ever made it to college, but I’ve learned all about you. Enough to know we fit together. In the morning, I’ll show you just how well. I’ll make it impossible for you to deny.”
“It’s not always about sex, Miguel.” She tried to explain what she’d truly meant. “Of course, I don’t disagree. That’s the best I’ve ever had. Ever will have, I’m sure. And while I have no doubt you could fit in where I’m from, this is where you belong. With Archer and Tosin, diving all the time.”
“I think I should get to decide that for myself,” he insisted.
“Except that I’ve already thought about this a million different ways, Miguel.” She tensed, her buzz rapidly disappearing. “I can’t be your everything. I can’t replace your beloved ocean. And when you’re unhappy, locked with me in the glaring lights of a lab instead of the warm rays of the sun, you’ll start to resent me from taking you away from your first love. I won’t do that to you, Miguel.”
“What you’re doing by leaving me behind is worse,” he snapped. Already proving her point. This wasn’t how she wanted things between them to be. It was better to remember the perfect times they’d shared already than to ruin those memories with a bitter breakup.
Sabine hung her head, defeated.
“Hey, I’m sorry.” Miguel put his hand on her shoulder and rubbed his thumb back and forth across the bare skin there. “I’m certain I don’t want to spend whatever time we have together right now arguing.”
She raised her hand across her body to her shoulder and squeezed his fingers. “Me either.”
“So come here and let me hold you. We can worry about the rest tomorrow, after we’ve slept on things and have clear heads.” He pulled her backward, so she didn’t fight, tumbling to the bed they’d shared for a while now.
It was one of the very few times they didn’t fool around before calling it a night. Cuddling with Miguel, listening to his breathing slow down and even out, relaxed her even if it filled her with profound grief. Because she could already clearly see her path, and it led far away from here, from him, and from the Divemaster.
From everything she’d come to love.
Seventeen
Sabine tossed and turned. Despite Miguel’s heat and hardness beside her, she couldn’t quiet her mind long enough to drift off. She’d even found out that he snored, if lightly. Every other night she’d spent by his side she’d been well and truly unconscious—exhausted from the physical demands of diving and the mental burden of stress. Plus she’d been under the influence of a solid afterglow, which made a phenomenal biochemical sleep aid.
After what felt like an hour or two of torturing herself—the thing she wanted most within arm’s reach and still totally unattainable—she swung her legs over the side of the mattress and sighed.
For a while longer, she watched Miguel sleep. Even unconscious he was one hell of a man—built, handsome, and surprisingly trusting given his upbringing. She thought of all the times he’d called her beautiful and figured he had that one wrong. He was the gorgeous one—inside and out—though he probably wouldn’t appreciate her assessment if she shared it with him.
She kissed her fingers then pressed them lightly to his lips before rising.
His discarded Got Air? T-shirt draped over the desk chair. She lifted it to her nose and breathed in his scent, maybe crossing the line into creepy stalker territory, but she didn’t give a shit. She might not have the chance to do weird stuff like that soon.
Sabine tugged his shirt on. It came nearly to her knees despite her being taller than average. She hugged herself, then slipped from the room with one final glance over her shoulder.
She murmured, “I love you, too, Miguel.”
Then shut the door as quietly as possible.
Wandering along the hallway while most everyone else dreamed, Sabine trailed her fingertips over the shiny exotic woods and took time to really observe each of the art pieces in the crannies she’d strode past daily. Suddenly she had the desire to slow down and soak it all in.
Say goodbye.
Eventually, Sabine found herself reclining on one of the dive bay benches. She could see hints of Miguel everywhere. The neatly wrapped hoses he coiled just so. His wetsuit hanging up to dry outside his locker. The heart Tosin had drawn around her and Miguel’s names on the whiteboard they used to record their dive plans for the day.
Would she be erased from the Divemaster as easily as her name could be wiped from that surface? Would Miguel start fresh with some new guest as soon as she had moved on?
Sabine slapped her hand on her thigh then continued her slow-motion tour, stepping into her laboratory. She flicked on the lights and came face to face with a man dressed entirely in black.
“Holy shit!” She recoiled, grasping her chest. By the time her synapses began firing enough to scream for her to make a run for it, it was too late.
The intruder wrapped one arm around her upper chest and put his hand over her mouth. “I thought you would never get up. Saved me a trip inside, though—thanks.”
Sabine didn’t have any formal training in self-defense. She had never been in the military like Waverly. But she had learned to fend for herself at an early age. More importantly, she had already been in the kind of mood that made her appreciate someone to punish.
Raw anger seeped from her every pore. She snarled and gnashed her teeth, biting the bastard’s hand, hard. At the same time, she thrashed. Flailing elbows and knees and heels might not have been artfully aimed. They were, however, fueled by some of the most brutal emotions she’d ever experienced.
One of her wild stabs connected with something soft and hopefully really sensitive. Her attacker doubled over, letting her go. Sabine dashed through the door.
And was met with three more guys as sinister looking as the first.
Fuck.
She drew in a huge breath, ready to scream at the top of her lungs for help when one of the intruders stepped forward and jabbed a needle in her neck, directly into some major blood vessel. It was hard to say which because the world grew wobbly and unfocused almost immediately.
Sounds distorted, and she dropped to the deck boards.
The men were professional enough to get right to business, ignoring her for the most part. They began to trash the laboratory as she tried to orient herself and crawl to stop them from causing any irreparable damage to her equipment or her test result cultures.
Sabine wished she could do anything to delay them. From her spot on the ground she could see the security cameras Banks had installed overhead after they’d returned from their date day on Maui. Who was watching? Would someone be coming to save her even if it was too late for her samples?
She tried again to shout. Or stand. Or…do anything but slump uselessly on the floor.
It was pointless. Her arms and legs weren’t cooperating with her brain’s scrambled directives. And her disorientation only worsened by the second.
Glass shattered, computers were smashed, and when they’d done their worst, they lit the entire thing on fire. The initial whoosh of the flames singed her brows, filling her nose with the acrid smell of burning hair.
“Time to go,” one of the men said as he hauled her up by her hair.
“What the fuck is going on here?” a familiar voice roared a moment before Tosin charged into view.
No! Sabine screamed, though only in her mind. Her mouth had stopped working.
Though he was a total badass, he couldn’t possibly fend off the men now crawling over the dive bay like a pile of bristleworms. When he realized how serious these guys were, and that some shouting and bright lights weren’t about to chase them off, he swung around to a supply cabinet. When he withdrew his hands he held an air horn in one and a multi-shot flare gun in the other.
He’d done a hell of a lot better than her in the thinking on his feet department.
Her vision blurred further. Still, she managed to get the gist of his attack when the air horn rent the night. Hopefully it would also draw more help. When the disposable can was empty, he threw it at one of the guys he was fighting off. The attacker stumbled, but kept coming.
Next, Tosin leveled the signal gun at one of the men charging him and fired. BANG! BANGBANG!
That took care of a few guys. More took their places.
Right about then the fire alarms began to wail. The suppression system that kicked in wouldn’t do her laboratory any good. Everything was already ruined.
But things only got worse when Miguel charged into the fray.
If Tosin had thought on his feet, using the tools around him, Miguel operated on pure testosterone and fury. He pummeled his opponents with his fists in a sequence of altercations that had her head spinning even more.
Sabine got as far as her knees, trying to reach him, when someone kicked her in the ribs, putting her down and out once more. He got right in her face and screamed, “Tell us where the stuff is! We’ve looked all over this damn place for months. Where the fuck is it?”
She couldn’t have answered if she wanted to. Her tongue was a brick in her mouth.
“I think you gave her too much of that shit,” the man snarled, then picked her up. “We’ll have to take her with us if we want answers.”
Oh fuck no.
Blackness encroached on Sabine’s vision. She fought, but nothing happened. Except that they toted her to the dive platform and tossed her onto a waiting speedboat below.
From her new position she couldn’t see Miguel. She sure as shit heard him, though, as he fought his way to her. With one last effort, she managed to groan and lurch toward him.
“Knock his ass out and take him too,” someone said. “That’s her boyfriend. He’ll be useful for making her talk.”
It didn’t take long before Miguel had been overpowered, completely outnumbered.
When he hit the bottom of the boat beside her, blood trickling down his face, his eyes open, she freaked the fuck out. Was he dead? Had they killed him because of her?
She could never forgive herself for that.
Sabine slumped slightly in his direction, ecstatic that her jarring motion roused him if only enough for him to groan and prove that he was alive.
Men leapt onto the boat, surrounding them.
From the Divemaster, Sabine thought she heard Captain Alex shouting orders. Soon it was impossible to tell over the noise the engine made when the bad guys opened up the throttle and drove them through the night to some unknown hellhole.
Eighteen
Miguel paced the brig of whatever pirate ship he’d been stashed on. He only got in a couple steps before he had to turn around, but sitting there doing nothing had been driving him insane. Especially when he could see Sabine, crumpled on the floor of the cell across the hall, but couldn’t reach her. She hadn’t responded to any of his shouts either.
Please, let her be alive.
From the time he burst into the dive bay and was greeted by flames, things had been kind of a blur, but he thought he’d seen her watching him as he took out as many of the intruders on the Divemaster as he could. Unfortunately it hadn’t been enough, and by the time he came to, in this damn prison cell, he had no idea what had happened past then, or what those bastards had done to Sabine.
The only thing giving him hope at the moment was that she was far more valuable alive, given her knowledge of Heinrich’s operations and the methodology he used for his experiments. Then again…why had they burned her lab?
He didn’t have to wait long to find out.
Some surprisingly normal-looking dude in a crisp shirt and well-tailored slacks approached their cells. He smiled at Miguel then barked orders to two of the hired muscles that followed a few steps behind. “Wake her up. We don’t have much time. Those bastards on the megayacht are going to have the authorities here soon. It has to be done before they arrive.”
Miguel could only imagine that their lives were about to go from bad to worse, but he still thanked every power in the universe that Sabine was still alive.
One of the goons opened her cell then reached inside. He kicked her.
Miguel roared and slammed his shoulder into the barred door of his cage. He knew it wouldn’t do any good, but he couldn’t overrule the primal part of his brain from insisting that he act on her behalf. They would pay for that.
When Sabine grunted and tried to fight back, though sleepily, a flare of pride rose in Miguel. Even under the influence of potent drugs, she was a fighter. They might still have a chance at escaping if they kept calm. A slim chance…
“This one could be some fun. Can we have her when you’re done with her?” the guard taunted, staring at Miguel as he asked the boss.
“I may keep her for myself,” he answered, also trying to read Miguel’s expression.
He made it simple for them by flashing his middle fingers.
If they gave him a chance, he’d do a lot more than that.
Before things could deteriorate even further, Sabine came alert enough to cry out for him. “Miguel!”
“I’m here, lindeza. Stay calm.”
She whipped her head toward him then groaned, clutching her skull between her hands. Even with her eyes scrunched closed in pain, she thought of him first. “Are you okay, Miguel?”
“I am now that you’re awake,” he tried to take his own advice and stay calm for her.
“How sweet.” The man in charge gave a fake awww. Then he commanded his goon, “Get her up.”
The guy grabbed for Sabine, latching on to her necklace. He snatched it in his meaty fist then yanked, choking her until the strands snapped.
“No!” Sabine fought like the wildcat she was then, landing a bunch of slaps and scratches before the guard subdued her, flinging her to the floor with a sickening thud.
“That’s enough!” the well-dressed man shouted.
“Who are you? Why are you doing this?” Sabine asked as she got to her feet.
“Don’t worry about that.” He smiled. “Just worry about making your life something other than a living hell. You can do that by telling me where exactly you found the blue algae.”
“Fuck you.” Sabine spit at him.
Miguel winced even before the guard now inside her cell backhanded her. He rattled his cage door, bruising his fists as he pounded on the steel.
“Let’s try this another way.” The man jerked his chin toward Miguel and the second brute unlocked his door. Though he tried to rush the man, it didn’t matter. There was nowhere for him to go and the guy was prepared. Soon they were both inside.
Miguel lunged at him. Still sluggish from whatever had given him the giant knot on the back of his head, he couldn’t grab the guy before he landed a few solid punches that might have permanently changed the shape of Miguel’s jaw.
Worse, the dude shook his fist then shoved it beneath his jacket and drew a gun. He pointed the thing straight between Miguel’s eyes. Livid or not, he wasn’t stupid. He stopped fighting and raised his hands, palms facing out in the universal sign for surrender.
“Would you like to reconsider your answer?” the slick guy asked Sabine.
“What are you going to do if I tell you?” she asked. “Steal it?”
“I guess you could say that.” He didn’t really answer her.
Miguel narrowed his eyes. What was this guy’s angle?
“Don’t tell them where it is, Sabine.” He crossed his arms. “One life isn’t worth it. Not mine.”
The lackey in her cage pulled a matching gun to the one held by the guy in his cell and then they were equally threatened.
“Yours might not be.” The guy in charge smirked. “But how about hers then?”
“Sabine, no!” Miguel didn’t give a fuck about his own personal safety. If he witnessed her death, they mi
ght as well shoot him, too.
“Tell me where to find it,” the man swiveled toward Sabine and repeated himself. “I have your laptop and your notes from the lab. I’m sure I can find the answer eventually. Help me get there faster, and I’ll let your boyfriend go.”
“Don’t believe him!” Miguel knew how that would end.
The guy aiming his gun between Miguel’s eyes didn’t take kindly to that. He whacked Miguel in the temple with his gun, making him see stars again as his brain rattled around in his already bruised head.
“I can’t watch you die over this, Miguel. Not you, too.” Sabine fisted her hands. “He’s got everything already. I don’t care about glory. Let him publish my work and patent a cancer-fighting drug then sell it for premium prices only the ultra-elite can afford.”
She winced at her own worst-case scenario before continuing, “Patents only last so long. It’ll be available to the masses within a decade. And you’ll be alive to see it.”
“Don’t,” he warned her, until the man in her cage took a step closer and put the barrel of his gun directly against Sabine’s head.
“That’s really how you want today to end? With her impressive brains splattered across the wall?” the slick man asked. “That can be arranged. But it isn’t necessary.”
Miguel withered. Despite his instincts, he couldn’t take the chance. “Forgive me, Sabine.”
She stared, frozen, when he said, “The algae is at the base of Edge of the World. Seven-hundred and twenty-four feet underwater.” Then he rattled off the coordinates he knew he’d never forget.
“We’re in range still,” the goon announced.
“Fire the missiles. Bombard the entire area. Then send the unmanned sub to confirm with photos. I want every last trace of it destroyed,” the boss snarled. “If we fuck up this time, it’ll be us that ends up swimming with the fishes.”
“What?” Sabine looked back and forth between them as if trying to decide if this was some cosmic joke. “You’re going to do what?”