my daughter, Hannah, who believes in dragons, too. I love you more than you can imagine. Don’t ever stop believing in magic.
Special thanks to Diane S. for your guidance with all things hospital related and Michelle W. for sharing your physical therapy expertise. To Melinda Curtis and Anna J. Stewart for your support and friendship. And thanks to my husband and family for their patience and understanding during deadlines and for keeping me focused, even when I just wanted to watch TV with you guys.
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MIA FIORE COLLAPSED on the deck of the Poseidon. Hands tugged, rolling her over. Faces blurred above her. The ringing in her ears dulled the shouts snapping into the wind. Her arm burned from wrist to elbow. Her toes and legs tingled as if pricked by a thousand sea urchins. Every breath hurt as if her skintight wet suit crushed her ribs together. An oxygen mask covered her mouth. And when she considered drifting into the beckoning oblivion, one of her crew yelled for her to keep awake.
Each smack of the dive boat against the choppy surf of San Francisco Bay pounded through her body, short-circuiting her thoughts as if rearranging time itself. Her brain skipped through images like a slide show on fast-forward: the predive equipment check, the pair of leopard sharks posed for a picture, her dive knife drifting to the ocean floor, fishing line—so much fishing line—wrapped around her, no air to ascend. Dinner with her film crew in the city. Her father’s laughter. A different dinner with the crew. In a different time. Different place.
Another jolt of her body against the unrelenting bay waters. Another command from her dive partner, Eddy, for Mia to stay with them.
More hands lifted her from the boat onto something soft. The straps across her legs drove those tingles deep into her bones. A woman with calm blue eyes and a paramedic uniform replaced Eddy beside Mia. She rattled off numbers and ordered Mia to stay with her before the sirens drowned out every thought.
The effort to remain conscious exhausted Mia. If she could only rest. Close her eyes. Five minutes. Ten minutes. Recharging moments, her father would call it.
Nausea rolled like a powerful riptide through Mia, jarring her awake. Mia gasped at the loss of clean air.
“Easy.” A hand pressed her back. Another mask covered her mouth.
Fluorescent lights had replaced the sky above her head, and a “code blue” announcement replaced the sound of sirens. Even more hands prodded, shifted and poked at her. Still the pain bored through her, the tingles pricked.
Mia rolled her head when she heard Eddy’s voice beside her. Eddy, his wet suit gone, held her cold hand, but he never looked at her. “Dr. Reid? Wyatt?”
Another voice rumbled on Mia’s other side. She’d once known a doctor named Wyatt Reid. But that was a lifetime ago. In Africa when Eddy had needed immediate medical attention and her father had still been alive.
