Gasp (Visions) - Lisa McMann Page 0,52

And there I see my little brown-haired man, without a life vest, jumping off the railing.

Forty-Five

“No!” I shout. I slide over to the railing and look out after him. “Shit!” I look at Rowan, knowing I need to go after this guy, but remembering the matching sweatshirt woman. “Ro! There’s an older woman on a backboard not far from where we were sitting—Ben knows about her and will help you get her to the lifeboat. Don’t worry about my red sweater guy. Just get the woman and then you get in that boat too, you hear me?” The ship groans and tilts more, and I slip on the wet deck and land on my back. “Shit.” My panic shows in my voice. “Okay, Rowan?”

She can tell I’m freaked. “Okay, I promise! Are you going after him?”

“Yes, I have to. I’ll be fine!” I whip my sweatshirt off and toss my shoes aside, clip a life vest to one end of my rope, and then, without allowing myself to think, I climb the railing and balance there for a second, looking at the horrible scene below. Waves churning. The runaway empty lifeboat floating far away—we didn’t even have a chance to try to save it. People struggling in the water and hanging on to the sides of the lifeboats, unable to climb in. It’s a long enough drop to the water to give me pause.

I spot my little man in the water as the ferry shudders and tilts again. My foot slips off the railing, I lose my balance, and suddenly I’m falling. Before I can take a deep breath, I hit the water and keep going. The cold on my face makes me want to gasp, but I fight it, and before long my life vest has me popping up above the water again.

Wiping the water from my eyes, I get my bearings, and as a huge swell lifts me high, I see the little man. His head is tilted back and he’s not yelling or trying to swim or struggling or anything, which Ben says is a major warning sign of drowning. I swim toward him as fast as I can, dragging my rope and extra life jacket with me. As I get closer, he bobs under the water and comes back up again.

“Sir!” I scream, unclipping the extra vest from my rope. “Take this!” I throw the life jacket at him and then swim the rest of the way as his head slips under the water again. I grab his shirt and lift him, and he grasps and clings to me and coughs, almost pulling me under the water. I thread the vest underneath his armpits to keep his face above the water, and I can only hope he can hang on, because I can’t risk trying to get the thing on him the proper way.

My thighs burn and I’m out of breath. “Sir!” I yell in his face. “Hang on to this!” He manages a nod.

I strike out for the nearest lifeboat with the other end of the rope, checking over my shoulder every few seconds to make sure he’s still there.

From here, the ferry looks huge and scary and completely misshapen as it sinks lower in the water, tilted at a strange, extreme angle. I can see the entire front deck, people crawling around trying to hang on. There’s still one lifeboat attached to the ferry and being loaded, and as I push through the water I spot Rowan, Ben, and a crew member lowering the older woman on the board into the lifeboat using their ropes.

And then I see Sawyer on the rear deck railing, the blond girl with the polka-dot headband riding on his back. She must be injured. They’re getting ready to jump. A wave of relief washes over me—she must be his last victim if he’s going over the side with her. Come on, Sawyer, I think. You can do this. I send him all the mental energy I can muster to help him get past his fear and jump to safety.

I check on my guy, who is still hanging on. “We’re almost there,” I call out to him, and wind up with another mouthful of water as the tumultuous waves surround me. I am quickly growing exhausted. It’s about all I can do right now to get to the lifeboat so the people in it can drag this man in. Finally I make it, and a woman grabs the rope from