Sea Haven 01 - Water Bound

air from leaving the float once it reached the surface. She climbed her hose a foot a second until she hit ten feet where she stayed for five minutes to be good and safe before completing her ascent.
    Working in the water was exhausting because of the continual flow of the waves. The wash could push forward and back against a diver, and exposed as she was and having to be careful not to fall into the abyss, harvesting the urchins had made her arms feel like lead. At the surface she hooked the bag lines to the floating ball and climbed on board. Using the davet, she hauled two full nets aboard and stored them in the hold.
    Exhausted, she sat down to rest and eat two more peanut butter sandwiches and a handful of peanut butter cups, needing the calories before bringing in the last two nets.
    The strange dread that had been building in her seemed to have settled in the pit of her stomach. She sat on the lid of the urchin hold and ate her sandwiches, but they tasted like cardboard. She glanced at the sky. It was clear. Little wind. And the sea itself was calm, yet she felt threatened in some vague way she couldn’t quite comprehend. As she sat on her boat, she twisted around, looking for danger. It was silly, really, the feeling of impending doom. The day was beautiful, the sea was calm and the sky held no real clouds.
    She hesitated before she donned her equipment again. She could pull up another four nets filled with sea urchins, bringing her total to four thousand pounds, enabling her to pay a good amount of money toward the farm. She was being silly. This part of the ocean had always given her a bad feeling. Resolutely Rikki put on her weight belt and hooked her hose to her belt before reaching for her tank.
    The air around her suddenly changed. It was charged, and pressure pushed on her chest. She was still reaching for her tank when she felt the 30

    tremendous swell building beneath her. Rikki turned her head and her breath caught in her throat. Her heart slammed against her chest as she stared at the solid wall of water rising up out of the sea like a monstrous tsunami, a wave beyond anything she’d ever witnessed.
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Chapter 2
    THE wave rose over Rikki like a solid wall, lifting the boat as the swell reached her. She threw her hands into the air as if warding it off, singing her song to the sea as she was launched forward into the swollen water. She went under, rolling with the turbulence, falling, her weights taking her down.
    She caught at the hose attached to her suit and shoved the regulator into her mouth, grateful she’d been prepared for a dive and that she’d taken enough precautions to give the boat plenty of scope.
    She sent up a silent prayer that she wouldn’t go into the abyss, or go down too fast or too deep, or any of the other hundreds of disasters that could happen. She tumbled, somersaulting through the murky depths. Her heart was racing, but she knew she had to stay calm. Every instinct in her body was screaming at her to get the hell out of there, to fight to get back to the surface as fast as possible, but at the very best that would mean a helicopter ride and being stuck in a chamber, something someone like Rikki could never do.
    In spite of the wild ride, her breathing remained the same, as she tried, in the inky darkness, to figure out where she was. She didn’t want to end up in the abyss. Her body screamed at her to fight, that if she didn’t she would be dead, but her experience kept her calm, accepting of the ocean’s power.
    Don’t panic. Calm. That was life under the water. Death was fighting. She simply rode out the wild ride, relying on her diver training and instincts.
    Something large crashed into her, knocking her backward. She glimpsed a body smashed hard against the smooth rocks of the shelf. He wasn’t in dive gear, she saw that much before he disappeared. Swearing, she swam after him, kicking strongly, knowing the water was too cold to be without a wet suit. He had no scuba gear, no way to breathe, and he was being thrown repeatedly against the rocks, which luckily were smooth from years of hard swells shaping them into polished artwork that few people would ever see. That art would most likely save this man’s life.
    Kelp wrapped around her arms and held her prisoner for a moment, but she stayed still. Panicking got one killed faster than anything else.
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    Eventually the long bulbous tubes released her and she swam toward the shelf. It took her a few bad