own breath, I could hear her scream. I pushed at her hands, seeking her head, her face. One wild hand punched me, dazing me, almost knocking my regulator out. I found her head, though, and I pulled her face to mine. Behind the mask her eyes were crazed, and her hands tore at me, knocking my own mask away. I let it go.
I was doubly blind now, the salt burning my eyes, but I held her head steady, made her look at me. Right then her bubbles stopped. I heard that half suck in, and then the halt of sound, and I knew that she was out of air. She spit her regulator out and screamed at me, a banshee wail, releasing her last bubbles.
She seemed then to understand at least what I was, and her hands came for my face. Her nails scraped at my cheek as she tore at my regulator. She was past human thought, and I knew she would kill us both if I fought her. I let her take my air source and jam it into her own mouth. I heard her panicked, deep inhale, and then she was choking on the water caught inside it. Her body spasmed, coughing, but at least she was no longer fighting me. I kept up a slow and steady exhale, finding the secondary air supply that was built into my BCD. I put the mouthpiece in. Now we were both on my tank, tied together by a frail length of tubing and the twining of something ropelike and binding. I did a quick gauge check. I was down to my last fifth of a tank, and Roux was breathing in great, heaving gulps.
I got her face again, pulled it close to mine, forehead to forehead, my bare eyes peering into hers through the mask. I breathed in and out, slow and steady, calming her by something like osmosis. The netting had me now, too. I could feel it. I waited until she was still, her breath easing, then managed to free one arm and reach my thigh.
She jerked again when she saw the silver flash of my knife near her face. I kept a good grip on it. If I dropped it, we were screwed. She had me so entangled that I doubted I could get to the backup mesh cutter I always stowed in a low pocket on the BCD.
I began cutting the netting away, patient, slow, my movements minimal, preserving air. She hung still, letting me work, and once her hands were free, she reached to see my air gauge. I heard her shuddering cry when she saw it. Not good, but I didn’t think about that. I got myself loose and then peered at her through the churning silt. Her BCD and tank were too entangled. I cut some straps and unfastened others, then helped her slide out of it. I’d dropped my light, and I could see its beam slicing through the blackness to our left. Its beam was the only way I knew which direction was down. I left it, reaching instead for the wreck reel clipped to my waist, finding the line. Roux clung to me, slim and trembling in her wet suit, her protective shell removed.
I had to move her hands manually off my arms, putting them on my body. She barnacled onto me, shaking. I followed the reel’s line with my hands, working us out of the wreck, foot by foot.
Once we came around the corner, I could see light from my entry point. My air had redlined, and we were seventy feet down. No time to get back to the other air tank. We had to go up. Right then. Still, I took it as slowly as I could, considering the doubled buoyancy, following our shared bubbles up, Roux shuddering and moaning in my arms.
Three minutes later and I would have found only her body. A minute later—thirty seconds, even—she might have drowned me with her, damn her eyes.
We broke the surface, and I dumped the last bit of my air into the BCD, though it wasn’t enough to keep us on the surface. I turned her, cradling her with her back to me, floating her in a tired-diver hold. We both dropped our mouthpieces. No point. The tank was dead dry. She took in heaving gulps of fresh air, limp, and I used my free hand to blow more air into my BCD, making it buoyant enough to