Page 14 of Heatstroke

He poured a drink he knew he wouldn’t touch and stood by the open window, staring out at the ocean. From here, it looked like another country entirely—distant, unreachable.

He didn't remember throwing the glass. Just the shatter. Crystal against wall. It exploded like a gunshot, shards skittering across the tile.

Then he was on his knees.

The sob caught him off guard—raw, animal. He hadn't cried since the night Jolene died. Not at the funeral. Not during the investigation. Not even after her husband asked him, voice barely holding together, if there was anything else he could've done.

Daniel had said no, but the guilt had never left. It had only waited. Waited until now, until this—until Thierry.

He didn't try to stop the tears. He let them come, shoulders shaking, breath stuttering. He let it wreck him.

When the worst of it passed, he reached for his phone with trembling fingers.

Daniel:I'm sorry.

He stared at the screen until his eyes blurred again.

Then, without waiting for a reply, he turned off the light.

SIX

CORAL STEPS

The reply came at dawn, when the sky was still the color of bruised plums and the air smelled of salt and wet earth. Daniel's phone buzzed against the nightstand, pulling him from restless sleep. He reached for it, throat tight, expecting anger, exhaustion, some final dismissal.

Instead, it was an invitation.

Thierry: Anse Mistral. Sunset. Bring goggles.

No plea. No demand. Just those five words, simple as the tide. Daniel exhaled, his ribs loosening for the first time in days.

Anse Mistral wasa crescent of white sand tucked between black volcanic cliffs, the kind of cove locals shared with only the most special of tourists. Daniel arrived early, his rented fins slung over one shoulder, the neoprene of his dive socks still damp from yesterday's rain.

Thierry was already there, waist-deep in the shallows, his back to the shore. The dying sun gilded the water around him, turning his skin to liquid bronze.

Daniel hesitated at the shoreline, his toes curling into the wet sand where the tide licked hungrily at the beach. The last molten rays of sunset painted the water in liquified gold, each wavelet crested with fire as it rolled toward shore.

His chest rose and fell in quick, shallow breaths—not from exertion, but from the weight of what lay beneath that shimmering surface. The goggles dangling from his fingers suddenly felt absurdly inadequate, like trying to armor himself against the universe with children's toys.

Thierry turned.

The water reached his waist, swirling around the sharp angles of his hips where his swim trunks hung low. Droplets clung to the ridges of his abdomen, catching the light like scattered diamonds. He said nothing. Didn't need to.

That slight tilt of his chin—an imperceptible movement that somehow carried the gravity of a shouted invitation—was enough. Then he was gone, sliding beneath the surface with the silent grace of a predator, his dark form dissolving into the deep blue.

Daniel exhaled sharply through his nose and followed.

The ocean swallowed him whole. The shock of coolness against his sun-warmed skin made his breath hitch, the sudden silence pressing against his eardrums like a physical presence. When he opened his eyes, the world had transformed into something from a dream.

Sunlight shafted through the water in golden columns, illuminating particles that swirled like distant galaxies. Below him, the ocean floor dropped away in terraces of living rock, purple sea fans waving lazily in the current, their delicate fronds trembling with each pulse of the tide.

Ahead, Thierry moved through the water with effortless power. His body cut through the blue like it was his natural element. The muscles of his back flexed beneath skin goneamber in the filtered light, his shoulder blades rising and falling with each stroke. Schools of tiny silver fish scattered before him, and their synchronized movements created flashes of light like scattered coins.

Without thinking, Daniel found his rhythm matching Thierry's, their kicks falling into sync as if connected by some invisible tether. His pulse, which had been a frantic drumbeat in his veins for weeks, slowed to match the ocean's timeless cadence.

Here, surrounded by this ancient, breathing world, the ghosts that haunted him seemed small and far away. The water demanded presence, required complete surrender to the moment—there was no room for yesterday's regrets or tomorrow's fears when every breath was measured and precious.

Then—contact.

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