Peter Kline's Arc

Chapter 4 of 4

The rock wall held the storm out and held Peter in. He sat on the cold stone and stared at the small gap the wind whistled through. There was no way past it fast. If the shark came now, he could not run. He could only sit in the dark and wait to be found. That thought made his chest go tight. His breath sped up. He pictured the fin cutting the snow outside. The gap in the rocks was too small for the shark, but not too small for his fear to slip out and call it. Sweat ran cold on his back. He pressed his hands flat on the stone stool and tried to slow down. He could not. The girl watched him from her seat. She had saved him twice now. She had taught him the shark's one weakness. But her eyes were not soft. She looked at the rock wall she had built, then at him, and Peter understood. She was thinking about the gap too. She was thinking she could still take it down and leave him sealed inside alone. "You breathe wrong," she said. Two words, flat. She did not move to help. "I can't," Peter said. His voice shook. "It's coming. I know it's coming." "Then it comes for you," she said. "Not me." She stood and set one hand on a loose rock near the top of the wall. Her meaning was plain. She would open a gap, slide out, and pile the stones behind her. Peter would be bait, and the shark would tear through the wall to reach his fear. Peter looked at her hand on the rock. He understood then that no one would calm him this time. The girl would not slap his chest and breathe for him. If he wanted to live, he had to do it himself, alone, right now. He closed his eyes. He shut out the whistling gap and the girl's hand. He counted his breath the way she had taught him on the tundra. In. Hold. Out. His heart slammed. He did it again. In. Hold. Out. The fin in his mind grew thin. Slower. The cold stone under his hands felt solid and real. In. Hold. Out. The shadow faded. No shape moved beyond the rocks. The wind was only wind. When Peter opened his eyes, the girl still stood by the wall. But her hand had come off the rock. She was watching him breathe, and something in her face had changed. He had beaten the panic himself, in a sealed cave, with no one to lead him. She saw it. "Now you keep yourself," she said. She sat back down. Peter breathed. The shark had not come. He had held the fear alone, in the one place he could not run. He was still trapped in the dark with her. But now he knew a colder thing. She would not save him again. From here, he saved himself.