Page 23 of Theta

Killian helps me into the craft and then climbs in after me, and the three guards follow him, one after the other, weapons trained on us both at all times.

Clearly, they received a memo that we're dangerous. It feels good, honestly. Knowing these goons are scared of you makes you feel kinda badass.

Above us at the controls of the winch/crane thing is a member of the ship's crew, dressed head-to-toe in reflective bright orange foul-weather gear. Once all of us are on board, the lead goon gives a thumbs up, and the winch groans to life, lifting the craft with us in it off the deck. A nauseating lurch sends us swinging precariously out over the water; a wave rocks the ship just then, and one of the goons, not properly seated in his zeal to keep his weapon trained on us, goes tumbling toward the nose of the rubber boat. His buddy-goon lurches after him and grabs his ankle before he goes overboard.

Killian, seated on the floor with his back to the side, just laughs; it’s not a nice laugh.

Once the goon is seated—and looking pale and shaken, clutching his rifle to his chest like a teddy bear—the boat swings the rest of the way out over the water. We lurch and jounce, jolt and sway and swing at the limit of the painter—the taut rope keeping the boat in place despite the lurch of the boat and the howling crush of the wind. There's a click and grinding rattle, and then we're being lowered, inch by inch, foot by foot, down the side of the ship. With every foot we descend, the freighter seems to grow larger and larger beside us.

The descent halts, and for a second or two we just sway and swing in the gale. And then, without warning, the connection tethering us to the ship is released and we plummet abruptly, smacking violently onto the pitching, rolling surface of the sea.

Rain spatters in my eyes and I blink it away. I hear a low groan beside my left ear, blink hard, glance left—the ship is a towering wall of metal mere feet away. The railing seems a distant wisp of mist overhead, the top row of containers further yet—higher than a ten-story building.

The motor guns to life with a wet burbling snarl—the goon who rescued his friend is inside the tiny cabin at the controls, concentrating hard as he gets the rescue craft in motion, our nose slewing away from the freighter, which surges upward as a wave crests beneath it while we slide backward the opposite way. The man at the controls curses in whatever language he speaks, frantically hauling at the wheel with both hands, yanking at the throttle bar, and then hauling at the wheel again. The sudden acceleration, rather than sending us forward, only serves to keep us in place momentarily as the fifteen-foot wave rolls and rolls, seeming to keep us hovering over nothing, prow tilted skyward.

The crest smashes over our bow and white seawater froths and foams over the deck, forcing us to grab for any handhold we can find to keep from being swept overboard.

"THIS IS INSANE!" Killian shouts. "YOU'RE GONNA KILL US ALL!"

"I COULD SHOOT YOU INSTEAD?" The chief goon has his shotgun under his poncho to keep dry; the carbines will be fine, being designed to tolerate harsh conditions, but a shotgun like that is not.

"I'M GOOD!" Killian yells back. "BUT I HOPE YOU KNOW WHAT YOU'RE DOING!"

What follows are some of the most harrowing, nauseatingly terrifying minutes of my life—how long, I couldn't say. Each minute, each second seems to stretch out into infinity, but then each time I glance back the massive freighter is smaller and smaller.

Waves crash over the low-slung boat, pulling and washing and tugging as if the sea is a sentient, troublesome deity, hungering for souls to feed her restless, ravening depths. The sky cracks open with blinding flashes of coruscating light, but the roar of the waves and the banshee howl of the wind drown out the peals of thunder.

His arms spread wide to grip the handles on the sides of the boat, Killian is grinning like a madman as we buck and pitch our way over one crest and down the other side, only to scud up the next slope. In the fragmentary moments caught in the troughs between waves, the world around us is all leaden walls a dozen feet high, if not higher.

I've ridden tamer rollercoasters.

Seawater sloshes around the bottom of the rescue boat, receding for a moment before the next wave breaks over our prow; the sea snatches at us with hungry hands, dragging at us and trying to pull us overboard.

The journey is interminable, and as we crest each wave, I peer at the sullen, storm-washed horizon, looking for any sign of land, or another boat, or anything but more leaden, violent sea lit green by forked tongues of searing lightning.

The black, lightless stench of the container seems like a great place to be right now. Especially if it means I get to have Killian's hands on me again, or better yet, his kisses.

I grip the sides of the boat for dear life, close my eyes against the dizzying, stomach-churning ride and pretend I'm back there, in his arms, with his hard hot body against mine and his soft lips wet on mine.

I've known Killian Harris nearly my whole life. I met Anselm, whom I now call Dad, when I was seven; those events have been recorded elsewhere, but in the process, I met the rest of the Alpha One Security family: Duke Silver, Thresh—whose last name, if it exists, I've never heard—Puck Lawson, Lear Winter, and, of course, Nicholas Harris. I met their significant others: Temple, Lola, Colbie, Cuddy, and Layla, respectively. In time, I met their kids. I began spending summers, spring breaks, and long weekends down in the A1S compound in the Caribbean. When I met him, Killian was a little tyke with a floppy mop of black curls and big green eyes. He was a curiously chill child, as I recall, although I was only eight at the time myself. Back then, the age gap seemed like a lifetime. But the years passed, and Killian grew and grew, and the age gap began to seem less and less significant.

And then I went off to med school and getting away for the summer was impossible for a few years, and when I finally managed to score a few weeks off and made it down to the compound, I discovered that the gangly, awkward, shy teenaged Killian had matured into a gorgeous, confident but still quiet and reserved young man with a piercing green gaze and a wickedly enticing body sculpted by a life of swimming, surfing, weight lifting, running, kiteboarding, mountain climbing, and, obviously, all the operator-adjacent training our paranoid parents put us through.

And suddenly, his eighteen to my twenty-three didn’t seem like such a big deal anymore. I'm not related to him, nor was I raised with him as a quasi-sibling like he was with Corinna Roth or Bryn Harris or Cal Roth.

That summer was when the hooks were set. Every year after that, I loathed and craved the summers in equal proportion. As I've said, Killian is generally quiet, reserved in his expressions, and hard to read, emotionally. When it's just the five of us, he's looser, louder, and a bit wilder. Especially if Cal's on a tear, which he usually is. Cal is a wild child like no one else I've ever known, and Killian tends to follow his lead. Which is understandable—just about everyone finds themselves following Cal's lead. He’s just got that magnetic, natural-leader personality, and enough charisma to fill a stadium or two. Somehow, Killy managed to never seem, to me at least, like he was hidden by the shadow cast by his best friend/brother/cousin. He was always his own person, and often would butt heads with Cal and could hold his own in the argument. But he also tended to let Cal win the arguments, if only to keep the peace. If Cal had an idea for some kind of hijinks, Killy was down to go along with it, although he also tended to be the voice of reason, at least insofar as keeping them out of jail and/or the hospital.

I've watched Killian become a man, and one I can't seem to keep out of my mind. Or my heart. Or my dreams.

The first few days down there with the whole gang are always an adjustment. As Killy pointed out earlier, we tend to live in bathing suits the whole time, only covering up for formal meals at restaurants or when we're going to a bar. Otherwise, it's board shorts and bikinis for two months—although I rarely get that much time off. Point being, it's weeks of Killian half-naked, usually wet, and often sweaty and panting. With that shredded six-pack, firm pecs, and broad shoulders, it's fucking torture.

He’s never given me so much as a hint that he had a crush on me—and I was looking. If anything, I often felt like he didn't like me. He’d never sit too close to me if he could help it, opting to stay near one of the others. If we ended up beside each other on a boat or at a restaurant, he would keep a few inches between us as much as possible, acting like he didn’t want to make contact with me if we so much as brushed elbows.

But then, we'd end up talking for hours around the fire—never anything deeply personal, just…endless, easy conversation about anything and everything. Or we'd end up in the kitchen together at three in the morning looking for a snack, and suddenly it'd be six, and the adults—the old adults, I mean, since we weren’t really kids anymore at that point—would be getting up, and we'd still be talking.

It was confusing, to say the least. I'm closer to him than Cal by a long shot—Cal is kind of reckless and impulsive, and that worries me, being a healthcare professional. I love the girls to bits—Rin and Bryn and I are a hazard when we're together, especially sans boys. Yet, I always gravitate to Killy. I'd seek him out first as my boat approached the island's shore. My eyes look for him in every crowd. When our elbows brush, I tingle all over. I listen when he speaks.

But I never got anywhere. I never saw even a hint of interest or attraction—he gave every indication that I was just another girl, slotted in with his sister and Rin.