I tried to fight the cloying heaviness.
I did my best to open my eyes and see who spoke so kindly.
I wanted to thank her.
To touch her.
But pain pushed me deep—
Chapter Two
*
Aslan
*
(Moon in Turkish: Ay)
THIRST.
Out of all the things that hurt, that hurt the most.
It scratched along my thoughts and clawed through my dreams, layering nightmares with desperation for water and drinking and overflowing cups full of sweet tea that my mother so adored.
Gasping, I slammed awake.
And just like that, my thirst was no longer the worst thing I endured.
A groan tore through my lips, involuntary and guttural as I tried to move.
Flashbacks of heavy rain, blinding lightning, and ear-bleeding thunder shot through me with panic.
Melike! Afet!
I shot upright, the world swimming, my eyes hazy, and my head stuffed full of salt-drenched clouds.
My pain was nothing this time.
They were still out there.
Drowning.
“Mel! Where are you!? I—”
“Hey, it’s okay. Don’t move. Dad told me you’re not allowed to move.” Something slight and surprisingly strong landed beside me, hands pressing against my bare chest, pushing me backward.
“No.” I fought. “Wait, I need—”
“You’re safe but you’re broken in places and shouldn’t move.” The hands pressed firmer. “Do you understand me? Stop fighting. You’ll only break yourself more.” A firm shove sent me reeling.
My head crunched against something soft.
My body bounced against comfort instead of splinter-splicing wood.
I blinked and did my best to focus.
A girl appeared in my brine-scratched stare.
A girl with sun-streaked dark-brown hair, wild and thick, tanned button nose, and the brightest, bluest eyes I’d ever seen. They were so pale and clear, they reminded me of moonlight on crystal water.
I licked my dry, storm-cracked lips.
My thirst came back with a vengeance. My throat was agonisingly raw. “Who...who are you?” I asked in my mother tongue.
She sat back and narrowed her bright, bright stare but she didn’t take her tiny hand off my chest. She kept it splayed and planted, daring me to try to fight again.
“I can’t speak your language.” She tilted her head, sending a tumble of sea-wavy hair over her bare shoulder. My gaze slid over her, confusion wrapping tightly around my jumbled thoughts.
Just a child.
She was younger than I first thought.
Her willowy body was hidden beneath a turquoise one-piece bathing costume with dolphins frolicking on the chest. Her arms and legs were long and spoke of grace and strength that she’d eventually grow into, but for now, she was as fragile and opinionated as my little sister.
Melike.
Where are you?
My heart spasmed; grief became the worst pain of all.
With a grunt, I grabbed the girl’s wrist, shoved her off me, and sat upright.
The room tipped upside down.
Sourness splashed on my tongue as I swung my legs over the edge of whatever I lay on.
I went to stand.
I have to find them—
I stood.
My left leg buckled beneath me, sending me plummeting to the floor.
I blacked out for a second, blinking back spots as the girl dropped to her knees beside me and wrapped a slight arm around my quaking shoulders. “I told you, you’re broken. Dad reckons your ankle is fractured. And your right wrist is almost certainly too. And there’s a gash on your forehead that probably needs stitches, and I don’t know about you, but no one should be as black and blue with bruises as you are, so they need tending to as well.”
I fought the urge to throw up as wave after wave of debilitating pain crashed through me. Heavy and relentless, just like the waves from the storm.
Horror clutched at my throat. “Please...take me to them. You have to take me to them.” I shook my head and clutched blindly at her hands, losing myself in a whirlpool of despair. “I’ll do whatever you ask. Just please. Please, let me see my family.”
Her fingers clutched hard around mine, her eyes sad even as she smiled and refused to answer me. “I knew it.” Her closeness interrupted my spiralling sorrow. “I knew you spoke English. Mum wasn’t sure, but I knew you screamed the word shark when I touched you.”
She leaned closer, her body heat sinking into me. “Do you remember me telling you it wasn’t a shark? It was Sapphire. She’s the leader of the pod of bottlenose dolphins that led us to find you.”
I struggled to care about anything that wasn’t my family.
I’d done this.
I was the reason we were fugitives—
Swaying away from her, I cursed the rock and roll of my head. Sitting on the floor, I felt a different rock and roll beneath me, blending with my sickness. The steady slap-slap of water, the constant drum of sea rushing past a hull.
A hull that didn’t groan as if it were butchered or break apart into pieces.
A boat.
I’m on another boat.
I glanced upward, flinching at the white ceiling, sun-beaming window, kitchenette, and table full of paperwork, mugs, and plates.
This wasn’t just a boat.
It was a floating kingdom.
If my father had commissioned a vessel like this to carry us, he might still be alive.
This ship wouldn’t have capsized. This boat would’ve protected us.
A tearing kind of anguish ripped through my chest.
An awful keening knowledge that I might have survived but everyone else—
A sob caught in my throat.
The guilt—
I tried to scramble away from the girl but I had no strength. I only had horror as I dropped my stare and froze.
My t-shirt was gone.
My shoes were missing.
The hand-woven friendship bracelet Mel had given me had torn off my wrist and most likely rotted at the bottom of the sea. Every inch of my skin was mottled and discoloured as if the very sky had taken offense to us trying to escape and done its best to scar me.
My bags were gone.
Every worldly possession we’d carefully packed and stowed was missing.
The only thing I had left was my torn and crinkly-dried grey shorts that my father had bought for my sixteenth birthday.
Stinging tears shot to my eyes.
Eleven months since our lives were normal. Eleven months of hiding, fearing, running...
Swallowing hard, choking on fear, I caught the clear-bright stare of the girl who sat far, far too close. “Please...” My accented voice sounded so different to her sunny, effortless rhythm. “Did you...did you find anyone else?”
The girl’s pretty face froze as her eyes turned even sadder. She bit her bottom lip and her gaze flickered as if to leave mine, but with a fierce inhale, she held my stare and slowly shook her head. “You were the only one.”
My chin tipped down.
My nape tingled with despair.
And I couldn’t help it.
I’d drunk enough seawater to last a lifetime and now it poured hotly out of my eyes.
My ankle bellowed as I drew my legs up to my chin.
My wrist screeched as I wrapped my arms around them.
And my heart shattered as the girl who’d saved my life scooted closer and wrapped her slender embrace around me.