Chapter 54 - The Frozen Shallows
The tide was a merciless machine. It dragged us through the serrated teeth of the reef, slicing through our clothes and tearing the skin from our forearms as we shielded the children. But the very rocks that threatened to kill us were our salvation: the frigate’s sonar could not track our bodies amidst the churning whitewater and jagged stone outcroppings.
After what felt like an eternity of swallowing brine and fighting the undertow, my knees struck gravel.
I crawled onto the black, wet stones of the desolate shoreline, dragging Mia up onto the shelf of rock. Clara collapsed beside me seconds later, coughing violently, her chest heaving as she rolled Lily into a protective embrace. Both girls were shivering uncontrollably, their lips blue, their eyes wide with sheer, silent terror, but they were breathing.
I rolled onto my back, staring up at the low, slate-gray clouds of dawn. Out in the bay, two miles away, the frigate’s searchlights swept futilely across the smoking wreckage of the trawler. They believed we were either incinerated in the blast or drowned in the reef.
"Julian..." Clara rasped, shivering so violently her teeth clicked together like dice. "Where... where are we?"
I forced myself up, ignoring the agonizing fire in my ribs. I looked inland. Rising through the coastal fog, about three hundred yards past the tide line, stood the hulking, rusted silhouettes of the abandoned Saint-Nazaire industrial salt mills—a relic of the early twentieth century, abandoned for decades, its colossal silos and crumbling conveyor gantries jutting into the gray dawn like ancient monoliths.
"Temporary shelter," I breathed, pulling Mia tight against my chest to share whatever residual body heat I had left. "We have twenty minutes before their drones scan the shoreline. Move."
May you like
We stumbled across the gravel beach, our soaked clothes weighing us down like lead armor. Every step was agony, but the sight of my daughters' pale, trembling faces propelled me forward. Clara kept pace, her jaw set, her instincts as an operative keeping her eyes constantly scanning the tree line beyond the salt works.
We slipped through a collapsed section of the perimeter fence, disappearing into the vast, cavernous shadow of the primary processing hall.
