“What?” Cole asked.

She didn’t know.

He came back for another kiss, gentle, pleading. He pulled back again and whispered, “What is it?”

“Do you feel that?” she said.

“Yeah,” he said. “Fuck yeah. So do you.” He ground his hips between her legs and she felt him grow hard again. His tongue, too, rolling into her mouth and shaking the ground underneath her. His body, pressing her down, shaking. Annica, shaking. The whole beach, shaking. They pulled apart again, this time Cole’s wide-eyed expression matching hers. “What is that?” he said.

So it went beyond them. Beyond their mouths, and their hips, and the tight squirming of their bodies. Beyond the beach, too. A shaking that began in slow, rhythmic waves like the ocean, like them. A rocking motion. Memories of being sick on the cargo ship. Memories of Cole out on the railing in the storm.

It frightened her. She sat up, desperately groping for her clothing.

“Earthquake,” Cole said, moving to pull on his pants and hand Annica her shirt. “We’re okay, it’s just an earthquake.”

“What?”

“I mean, I know I’m earth shattering and everything. But this one might actually be the earth. I’m guessing you’ve never felt one before?”

No. She knew that was a fact. She had never felt anything like this before. Him or the ground underneath, how it all felt, how it all shook and rattled her senseless. She felt dizzy. “An earthquake?” she said again, trying to convince herself, to ground herself somewhere in reality.

Cole said, “I’m guessing you don’t get too many of those in Washington.”

“No,” she said. “Not like San Diego, I guess.”

“Well, congrats on your first earthquake. You okay?”

“Yeah,” she said, feeling a little thrilled, as if she’d just survived and stepped off some scary roller coaster. She had survived the ups and downs and now was staring back into Cole’s beautiful eyes. She had survived a lot today.

The noise sounded again above them. “What’s that?”

Fluttering wings, hundreds of them, tiny dull shapes streaming overhead. Birds leaving the island.

“Crazy,” Cole said. “They started up before the shaking.”

“Animals have that sixth sense for earthquake,” she said. “I definitely don’t.”

“It’s okay. You were distracted.”

“I was, very well,” she said. “Very happily.”

She leaned her head up to him for another kiss, but froze in place at another, larger sound. A big rustling around in the leaves behind them. “Oh, God,” she said, horrified now at Cole’s reaction. He had been calm with the shaking and with the birds, but to this, he’d spun onto his feet with alarming speed.

“What is it?” she asked again, getting tired of the question. She wasn’t used to earthquakes or things lurching out of jungle foliage.

With the rustling came a sort of guttural, human sound that immediately repulsed her. And then a snorting.

Snorting?

Cole had both his hands to his pants, one at the belt and the other his holster, feet wide for firing. He hiked up his pants again and said, very calmly, “Get back.”

“Huh?”

“Get behind me and stay there.”

“What is it?”

A round, blurry mass emerged from the darkness of the jungle, flashing across the sand toward them. A wild boar. The shine of its snout bounced along as it hustled across the sand and away from them, arching away suddenly after spotting them.

“It’s okay,” Cole said. “It’s okay, the earthquake must have scared him out.”

The shaking had the effect of a hunter flushing out the game. Fortunately, Cole didn’t draw his weapon on the poor creature. Instead, they watched the animal pick up speed as it bounced away, flicking up sand until disappearing around the next corner of green.

“Okay,” Cole said. “Now that’s out of the way . . .”

Annica laughed, still a little nervously, from the surprise, from their bodies . . . “Can’t the world just wait a minute?”

“I know,” Cole said, still looking down the beach. “We’re not getting too lucky with this, are we?”

She walked up and wrapped her arm around him, leaning her head against him. “I actually feel pretty lucky,” she said. “Don’t you? A little bit?”

“A little bit,” Cole said, looking back to the woods. He leaned down, dropping a kiss on the top of her head. Neither of them had said anything about their impromptu romp on the sand. They didn’t have to. It had felt right. A satisfying end to a seriously fucked-up day.

“Maybe more than a little,” she said, grinning.

He smiled back. “Maybe more.”

She tried looking back where he’d been scanning. But nothing stood out from the dark green wall. “Do you see something?”

“I thought I did,” he said. “Maybe not.”

“Maybe that earthquake shook loose whoever was following us.”

“I’m worried they’ll be coming next out of there.”

They both watched, together, holding each other. The ground was finally stable under their feet.

At first she thought it was just her imagination. What were the odds? Shaking branches at just the exact spot she’d been looking at. Shaking branches coming closer, turning into another blur of a shape and Annica escaped his arms immediately and ran toward the water, running blindly away from the movement. She could see Cole behind her, trailing. She just wanted to get away from the edge of the forest, where surprises kept emerging. When she turned back, he was too close, and she’d stopped too fast, both of their bodies coming together with a solid thunk, and now both of them were lying on the ground in one big nervous, laughing pile as another wild boar ran off down the beach.

When the laughs subsided, neither of them moved off each other. Convenient, Cole back on top of her, smiling down. “Let’s just stay here, on the ground,” he said, “no matter what else.”

“Yeah, but now we’re out in the middle of the beach again. With you on top of me.”

“Remind me why that’s so terrible?”

“Someone might see us,” Annica said. “Was that it?”

“Hmm,” he said. “I forgot about that. I think the earthquake shook something loose in my head. I can’t seem to remember anything outside of what we were last doing.”

“Isn’t it nicer that way?”

“Blissfully stupid, yes.”

“It’s not a good position for a journalist, but . . .”

“I like this position here,” Cole said with a smile, his eyes drifting down her body.

“That one, too.” She watched him climb lower and pause at her waist. “You’ve really got me discombobulated,” she said.

“I want to do worse.” Cole was looking down at her, licking his lips.

“You do?”

He started to unbutton her pants and she felt a quick shock of resistance, pushing her hands down to block him. Cole looked back up her and said, “What’s wrong? You don’t want worse?”

She didn’t know what to say, her hands easing, relaxing.

“Is this too worse?” he said, trying again, his hands fumbling easily out of hers and trying again at her pants. She felt the button pop open, her hands lying still and loose now.

“Just relax,” he said.

She laid her head back.

“That’s it.”

Annica felt fresh air against her skin as the zipper opened up, his fingertips around the sides of her jeans, tugging, pulling down. She wanted this, shamelessly. It had only been twenty minutes, tops, since he’d been inside her, and she wanted him again. And she wanted it faster. She tried helping him, her hand moving in to slide her pants down, but he held her hand away.

She let it fall back into the sand as she closed her eyes. She listened to the waves again, the sound coming in more clearly. She could feel it rumbling through the ground under her.

Fresh air on her thighs now. She spread her legs for him.

He climbed back up to her. Her hands found him there, shirtless.

“That was fast,” she said.

“What, your pants or my shirt?”

“I don’t know,” she said, feeling his weight back on her, opening her eyes to see his. She laid a hand down his abs and worked on his pants again.

“I took my shirt off in case you wanted to use it again.”

“Use it?”

“Like a blanket,” he said. “For the sand. It stretches out pretty wide unbuttoned.”

“And why’d you take off your undershirt?”

“Oh,” he said. “I guess that’s for you, too.”

“What am I supposed to do with that, Cole?”

“It’s what you’re supposed to do without it.”

“Oh,” she said, like she was uncovering some great story. “I see.”

He was kissing her neck, and she felt the curve of his lips as he smiled. It was easier between them now, happier, the furiousness of the first time drifting into a happy comfort.

“I’m guessing you have a lot of experience with this,” she said. “Sex on the beach, literally.”

“So that’s what we’re doing?”

“I don’t know what you’re doing.”

“I’m making you comfortable,” he said, leaning off her and spreading the shirt across the sand. “Here,” he said, patting it, “park yourself right on here.”

“You make it sound so romantic.”Annica moved herself onto his shirt. It was still warm from his body. It felt nice and dry and soft after the sand.

“I know,” Cole said. “But there’s nothing really romantic about it.”

“No? Sex on the beach?”

He said, back on top of her. “I’m feeling something else.”

“I can tell,” she said. “I’m feeling it, too.”

She reached for his mouth and sucked him in. She wrapped her bare legs around him now, remembering the pants he still had on, the barrier between them. She started pulling them off and he helped, only he was taking his boxers down, too. His cock sprung out of the waistband and slapped warm against her thigh.

“You’re right,” she whispered. “I can feel it.”

His hands were moving down her body. “Can you?” Hands between her thighs now, his hands running over her. She could feel herself soaking. “I can feel you,” he said.

He rubbed her gently through the fabric of her panties, aching shivers running through her. She had no idea what he was going to do. She only knew what she wanted him to do.

She fought back against her impulse to tense up, forcing her body to relax and go limp for him to explore and for her to enjoy the meandering of his hands—though they had narrowed in on one contour of her body, exploring, warming, exciting. Annica retreated back into her head and tried to block out everything else outside of this moment. The horrible possibilities, the consequences. What tomorrow may bring. What mission she would or wouldn’t have to partake in to help clear up the mess she got started. For once she could just be another happily satisfied vacationer, lying on the beach with her man. Doing what couples do when they weren’t worried about getting snuffed out. Though she supposed it was more like what lovers did, away from the prying eyes of the tourist spots. Two people, desperate for each other, sneaking off for a few moments of privacy. Of Cole. She shook underneath him, each time taking a deep breath, her chest shaking with it. This was a kind of adrenaline she hadn’t even felt back when her life was in danger at the Kahn facility. It was stronger and definitely more enjoyable.

She felt even shakier when he peeled up the bottom of her shirt, resting his face against her belly. He left her clothes on this time, pushing them out of the way instead, his lips caressing her skin as he held her in place. Kissing her there, sucking lower, one finger curling back her underwear, his tongue quickly moving in to fill the space. She held his head how, feeling the movements of his face, his jaw muscles moving along his scalp as he suckled her, lower . . . And then way lower, his mouth skipping over everything completely and landing along her upper thigh, higher while his fingers crept into her panties from the sides, teasing over her, and then opening her. He was taking his time this round.

She wiggled and squirmed under the pressure, twisting in the sand onto the unbuttoned shirt beneath her. It was a good move, that shirt. Very considerate, almost as much as the delicate care he’d taken with each touch, each stroke of his fingers. Each move blasting a wave of ecstasy through her body and forcing her back down in the sand. An invisible force on her chest holding her down like a weight. A weight in her mind, dulling thought and blasting everything away. She lay there in the sand, heavy, his, still shaking as he rubbed her faster, her clit throbbing between his fingers.

Her fingers dug into his hair, grasping on as if it were the only thing holding her to this world. Eyes shut. The sound of the ocean. The feel of his mouth on her skin. On her ocean. The warmth of his mouth now coming down on her, swallowing everything but the burning, radiant light that seared through her body. She trembled on the beach under him, finally achieving what they’d worked so hard for.

Her eyes were still closed when the wall of foam—and then solid water—crashed into her body, and then over her until she tumbled across the sand, floating now, surging across the beach with an impossibly huge wave. Her eyes stung when she opened them, salted jets of water spraying into her eyes. But she could feel Cole with her, holding on to her legs, and then climbing up to her body as they tumbled together. His voice garbled something under the roar of water. It took them up the beach, thudding and sliding along the sand, her skin burning and scraping with it. When she finally got a glimpse of their latest emergency, it was clear even in the darkness that the whole coast was being swallowed in one giant wave. She still had Cole with her, his bear hug keeping her against his body. And at times he seemed to help her head above the water. He did so again, and she took another deep breath, staring in front of her at the darkness of the jungle. They were fast approaching it.

Another garbled command from Cole. She could tell from his tone that it began as some helpful, rational instruction for what to do when this giant wave pushed them full speed into the thick jungle. Had he experienced this before? Was this just another part of Hawaiian living?

Over the tops of low-lying shrubs now, through the areca and ti plants. No more soft perfumes. Salt only. The sound of the ocean roaring into land, into the dense jungle, she and Cole separating at the first palm tree. Their arm lock had broken apart around the base of its trunk and she was already at another, trying to hold on. Maybe that was Cole’s instructions. Hold on for dear life as the water surged around her.

What the fuck was going on?

This was nothing like the first wave that had interrupted them hours ago. Not even a “freak” wave. It was a mutant wave. The word slammed into her brain. Tsunami.

Hanging onto the thin trunk of a palm tree, Annica remembered the shaking she’d just felt a few minutes ago. Shaking more than when she was underneath Cole, and more than the orgasm he had delivered. An earthquake, and now a tsunami. It must have happened just off the coast. A small one perhaps, since she was still alive.

On the tree, she could keep her head above water, for now. She could breathe. She could scream. “Cole!”

No answer in the mad rush of water.

She was a good swimmer. On the high school swim team, and later a lifeguard. But back then, her harshest tests came in the controlled environments and mostly still water of indoor swimming pools. Nothing like the might of the Pacific Ocean swelling up into land, flowing in hard, and still flowing. It had been a continuous rush of water for maybe half a minute, pressing her against the tree. She had to keep climbing up in order to not be crushed. In order to stay breathing. The water and the rush wanted to squeeze the air out and press her ribs in and collapse her lungs. The water wanted to take her further through the trees and maybe grind her into the embankment leading up to the road. The soft mud there would be treacherous. She would get stuck and drown.

The idea of Cole pinned in the mud surged another rush of adrenaline through her body. It was enough of a spark to get her half up and out of the water, climbing up further now, inching along with all four limbs wrapped and grappling with the wet and scratchy trunk. The water now was almost helping her stay upright and afloat, propping her up into the palm. She swiveled around the best she could to get a look around the tree, down to where the water had rushed to. It was too dark to see anything but the white tips of the waves, the whites of them breaking around trees and rocks. She hoped Cole was one of those objects sticking safely out of the water. And with his head up.

“Cole!” she cried again, forcing her voice louder and higher, willing it to break through the wall of sound from the wall of water. “Cole! Where are you!?”

The water suddenly slowed around her and she almost fell from her perch on the tree trunk. She grabbed tighter, shaking now, her biceps burning, loosening. She kept calling for Cole, but there was no answer. With the slowing water, he should have been able to hear. But the water didn’t just slow. It began to pull back, all of it moving in the opposite direction, sucking her back to sea. Annica’s legs dangled off now, her arms burning even worse.

The water began slowly, leaves and branches and bits of plastic garbage floating past. And a human body. Faced-down and limp and floating by like driftwood. The flow was still slow, and Annica could reach for it, for him, and pull him close to her and her tree. It was Cole. Shirtless. Unconscious. She yelled at his body but nothing moved. She felt no muscle strength in him. No will to survive. She would have to will it for him.

She held with her feet, too. Body wrapped around Cole and the tree trunk as the rest of the water sloped back down to the beach and to the great black open of the sea whence it came. The sound was almost as loud as its initial rush into the jungle. There was also something else now, a distant siren. It sounded like it could have been from Hilo, an emergency siren about the tsunami. But she had no time to wonder about the implications of a natural disaster. She didn’t even think about “the story” of it all.

Cole’s head dipped under the water again.

She lifted her arm up his back, snug behind his head. She lifted more until his face appeared again. A loose, sleeping face. Lifeless.

She waited for the water, still so much of it needing to be pulled back to sea. She waited with Cole, with her body holding both of them, barely. It was a great relief when the water went low enough for ground footing. She was standing now, the rest of the water coursing through her legs, then her ankles. She walked with Cole, dragging him, panicking, and then dropping him on a random clump of palm fronds. A panicked brain made it hard to remember lifeguard lessons.

She crouched by his face. His skin was shiny but dull, gray. She put her ear to his mouth and heard nothing.

Ear to his heart.

Nothing.

He looked dead, and, finally, peaceful.