I don't drown. At least, I keep telling myself that as my ankle goes slick and something cold wraps around it like a bargain I didn't read the fine print for. Underwater everything is muffled and red and wrong. The world shrinks to my lungs and a stupid, hot panic that punches at the inside of my ribs. I kick hard—one, two, three—fins slashing, bubbles spitting foam. The reef blurs into the green-blue wash; the snorkel snaps like a cheap promise filled with sea. My leg twists. Whatever's holding me isn't a net; it's smooth and soft and it moves with an intelligence that makes me shove air in until my ears feel like they're about to split. Kick! The word isn't a whisper. It's a command my mouth makes all on its own. My foot slams against something rubbery. It has suckers. An octopus—good. A big sucker—bad. A hundred tiny mouths—worse. I glance up. Light spears through the water; the surface shreds into a hundred glittering knives. I see the boat, a white oval, a slash of canvas and the bobbing head of Marco, who thinks he taught me how to relax last summer. I see the metal ladder that will save me. I see the world be simple again if I can just reach it. And then the thing tightens. Not like a trap closing, like hands carefully rearranging a book on a shelf