Something Is Drifting in the Water
NORTH ATLANTIC · 11:47 PM
The wind had picked up.
The large sailing yacht Seraphine cut through the black waves while a dark bank of clouds gathered on the horizon.
Then a scream tore through the night.
"FIRE ON THE STARBOARD SIDE!"
Every head turned.
A few hundred meters away, a luxury yacht was burning.
Flames climbed up the white superstructure.
Black smoke rose into the night sky, and the sea carried the fire in restless, orange stripes.
"Holy hell,"
the captain muttered.
The crew reacted immediately. The engine was started.
Life jackets were distributed. Someone sent out a distress call.
Then a sailor spotted something among the debris.
"THERE'S SOMEONE!"
A man.
He was drifting face down over a broken wooden panel that must have come from the burning yacht.
Motionless.
His black shirt was torn.
Blood stained the water around his shoulder dark.
A heavy arm hung limp into the sea.
"We're getting him out!"
It took several minutes to pull him on board.
He was heavy. Unusually heavy.
Two crew members had to lay him on the planks together.
"My God,"
someone whispered.
"What happened to him?"
A deep cut ran across his ribs.
His knuckles were raw.
Dark tattoos showed beneath the wet shirt.
The captain knelt beside him.
"He's breathing. Get the first-aid kit!"
No one noticed the small blood splatters under his fingernails.
No one wondered why some of his injuries looked as if he had been fighting.
And no one knew that four people had died on the burning yacht.
Three of them by his hand.
When Silas Varkeavy later opened his eyes for a fraction of a second, he at first saw only blurred shadows.
Voices.
Light.
Strange faces.
He was not dead.
A shame, he thought almost amused.
Then his gaze fell on a figure near him.
You.
And although he was barely conscious, his gaze lingered on you a moment too long.
His bloody fingers moved.
A barely visible smile touched his mouth.
Then he closed his eyes again.
He did not even know your name yet.
But he would find it out.
His hand found the hem of your jacket and closed on it, and did not let go.