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pointed at the air gauge.
We don’t have enough.
    He made little patting motions in the water.
So we’ll have to slow our breathing down.
    Her face twisted toward the surface, and he knew just what she was thinking. On a normal dive, either of them could ascend that little bit without any trouble. But they were coming from deep, deep down, and the tiny bubbles in their blood needed a chance to dissipate. Otherwise—
    There was no otherwise. There was only death.
    He cupped her cheek and brought her eyes back to his. Couldn’t help stroking a thumb across her cheek.
    Not there. Look here. Look at me.
    If she looked at the surface, she might bolt for it, and he couldn’t let that happen. They had to take this one step at a time.
    Her chest rose, then fell, and she closed her eyes. Took a smaller puff of air this time and handed the regulator back.
    He nodded. Small, controlled breaths. If anyone could do it, it was Mia. He pictured her swimming laps in the pool where they’d met. Mia with her perfect breath control and perfect strokes. Perfect everything, like the way she’d carve a flip turn then whiz past him like he was a rookie and not the best swimmer in his squad.
    She had a perfect smile, too, and it always felt like she had a deluxe version of it just for him.
    At least, that’s the way it used to be.
    A whole school of barracuda flitted past, all silvery scales and pointed teeth. There’d been a rainbow of fish around the wreck, too, and you’d think that after two years of diving in New York Harbor, he’d have been entranced. Diving in New York was like submerging yourself in pea soup that had gone sour; here, it was like looking out from a mountaintop on a very clear day. But all he’d had eyes for was Mia. With her hair floating around her head, she looked like a mermaid, and the wavering beams of light cutting through the water all seemed to focus on her. Mia with her determined eyes and taut arms and silky touch. God, she was something.
    Focus, damn it!
    He glanced at his watch. Three minutes forty seconds down. Three minutes fifty seconds. Three minutes fifty-five. He nodded, and she nodded back. Time to continue the ascent. Slowly, carefully. Or as slowly and carefully as the ticking clock allowed.
    Ten feet. Baby depth, really, but not today. His dive computer blinked, signaling a six-minute stop.
    Six minutes. An eternity. Especially with the air gauge dipping closer and closer to empty.
    Mia had her hands clamped around his vest now, too, and they waited out another interminable stop as close as a couple of intertwined eels. The front of her vest bumped his, and some base part of his mind wished for the alternative: skin to skin, like all the times they’d lain clasped tight in her bed, coming down from another high. Which was probably an inappropriate image, but if he did die, he’d go thinking thoughts like that, because that was a hell of a lot better than imagining bubbles expanding in his bloodstream and killing him from the inside out.
    The surface was so close, but he didn’t dare look up. Didn’t want to check the air gauge, either, but he had to.
    Mia must have read it in his face, because she pulled the gauge over and immediately paled. Yeah, it was going to be tight.
    He tried doing the calculations. Even with a mind that was a little foggy from lack of air, he knew it was better to wait out the full decompression stop than to rush. Worst case, they could shoot to the surface after the stop…
    No, he realized. Worst case, they’d be dead.
    No, absolutely worst case, he would live, and Mia would die.
    He made his next intake a shorter one and passed the regulator back to her. Whatever calming effect his gaze had on her, she was doing the same for him.
    We’ll make it through this,
her look said.
We’ll be okay.
    He risked a slightly deeper breath and nodded.
Okay.
    With every endless second of that decompression stop, the urge to kick to the surface grew, until wrestling that