Daughter of Deep Silence Read Free

forgotten by the pool that afternoon. There was a terrible storm and we were just about to give up and go inside.” He pauses, shakes his head. “The wave came out of nowhere. I’ve never seen anything like it. It just . . . took the whole ship out.”
    Wave?
I find that I can’t breathe, his words grinding my thoughts to a halt.
That’s not what happened. There was no wave.
    Senator Wells steps aside, leaving his son facing the microphone. Every heartbeat echoes through my water-slogged veins, causing my entire body to throb and rock as I wait to hear what he has to say. Grey blanches, but doesn’t retreat. The familiarity of his gestures is jarring. The way he holds himself with his weight slightly on his right leg, the furrow between his eyebrows as he sorts through his thoughts before speaking.
    The way he unconsciously rubs his skull, just behind his ear, whenever he’s about to lie.
    It’s amazing the little things you can pick up about someone in such a short amount of time when you’re falling in love. Every nuance, every sound and movement a code to understanding them.
    “Like Dad said, it happened fast,” he starts, and then he clears his throat, choked up. In my head I see it all. I
hear
it all and taste it all. Again.
    Grey pulls me against him and threads a strand of hair behind my ear. When he brings his mouth closer, I stop caring about the rain. All I care about is devouring this moment as though to imprint it into my memory forever.
    Rivulets of water wash down his face, dripping from his chin and coursing along his neck. The way his shirt plasters to his chest allows me to see the outline of every muscle. I press my fingers against them, tracing the edges.
    I laugh, a bubble of euphoria too large to keep contained. He kisses me right then, like he could take my laughter into himself and make it a part of him. And still, all around us the rain crashes but we don’t care.

    The reporters huddling around Grey barely breathe as they wait for him to continue. “The rain was awful, and as Dad mentioned, we were . . . uh . . . out on deck by the pool.” He glances toward his father before continuing. “It was unlike . . . anything. It came out of nowhere—this massive wave. And it just was there—a wall of water. It rose higher than even the top of the ship—much higher.” He pauses as if reliving the moment, eyes haunted.
    I’m trembling now. I don’t understand. Why isn’t he talking about the attack? Why isn’t he mentioning the guns?
    Grey inhales slowly, his shirt lifting just enough to lay bare the strip of pale skin along the edge of his shorts. He begins to rub that spot behind his ear again. “And then . . .” His voice breaks.
    And then the guns. Men slamming through the corridors, cutting off the emergency exits, and locking the ship down. Panicked passengers in robes and nightgowns run, screaming. Making it no more than a few steps before bullets tear them apart.
    Water drips down my back, my hair still wet from kissing Grey in the rain. I press myself against the cold metal wall of the dumbwaiter, watching through the mirrored window as a tall, narrow man makes his way efficiently down the hallway. He kicks a broken body aside. Forces his way into a room. It takes seconds—a loud spattering of gunfire—and then he’s in the hallway again, moving on to the next.
    Moving on to my family’s room directly across from where I’m hiding.
    A high-pitched whine climbs its way up the back of my throat, coated in acid. I clamp my hands over my mouth, knowing without question that if they hear me, I am dead.
    I’m dead either way.
    As Grey speaks, the reporters hang on his every nuance and gesture. They’re enraptured by him. I wait for him to mention the armed men. The gunshots. The murder.
    But he never does. “It’s like what Dad said. The wave just swallowed her whole. Like a toy in a tub. And then . . . the
Persephone
was gone.” He shakes his head, as