The Sea Caves

The entrance to the north point caves was a jagged maw in the cliff face, currently being battered by six-foot swells.

Declan stood in the boathouse, zipping up the dry suit Thorne’s men had provided. It was a good suit—expensive. The tanks were full. The regulator was high-end. It felt strange to be gearing up again. His hands shook, the tremors of withdrawal mixing with the cold.

"Two hours until high tide," the driver—Thorne’s head of security, a man named Kael—said. He stood by the door, arms crossed. "Don't come back without the drive."

"And the girl?"

"Her too."

Declan spit into his mask, rubbed it, and pulled it on. He grabbed the heavy dive light and stepped off the dock into the freezing water.

The shock was immediate. It clamped around his chest, squeezing the air out of him. He forced himself to breathe. *In. Out. You know this. The water is the only place you make sense.*

He submerged.

The visibility was near zero. The silt churned up by the storm turned the water into a chaotic, gray soup. Declan navigated by touch, feeling the barnacle-encrusted rock wall. He found the entrance to the sump—a submerged tunnel that led up into the air pocket of the main cavern.

He kicked hard, his fins driving him through the narrow passage. The current fought him, trying to smash him against the rocks. He pushed through, the panic of the enclosed space nipping at his heels.

He broke the surface inside the cave.

It was a cathedral of wet stone. The sound was deafening—the booming echo of the waves crashing outside.

"Ivy!" he shouted, spitting out his regulator.

He pulled himself onto a ledge of slippery shale. The beam of his light cut through the mist.

"Ivy!"

"Help!" A voice, small and terrified, echoed from the back of the chamber.

Declan scrambled over the rocks. In the deepest recess of the cave, chained to an old rusted iron pipe, was a girl. She looked about twenty, with dark hair plastered to her skull and a white dress that was soaked and ruined.

She wasn't holding a hard drive. She was holding her own wrists, pulling against the handcuffs.

"He left me," she sobbed. "He left me here."