The Danger ( PDFDrive.com )

Star Ling came awake with a start, and stared at her unfamiliar surroundings.
The room was an undecorated stark white, with one bed — her in it — and one
chair — empty. An antiseptic smell permeated the air.
A hospital?
Investigating a stinging feeling, she noted that her hand was bandaged, and a
tube protruded from the taped wrapping. Her eyes followed it all the way up to a
plastic bag of clear fluid that hung from an IV pole by the side of the bed. She
also felt the pure oxygen being administered through a nasal tube.
Am I sick?
There was a whoop in the hallway outside. “She’s awake!”
In barged Bobby Kaczinski, Dante Lewis, and Adriana Ballantyne — Star’s
dive partners. The sight of their familiar faces triggered an avalanche of
memory.
Their summer internship at Poseidon Oceanographic Institute had led the
four teen divers to the site of a seventeenth-century shipwreck off the Caribbean
island of Saint-Luc. When their discovery pointed to the existence of a second
wreck in much deeper water, they had gone to investigate in Deep Scout,
Poseidon’s research sub.
Star remembered that. And then … the accident. She closed her eyes tightly
to keep the tears from coming, and knew the answer before posing the hopeful
question: “Did I dream it all? The captain?”
“It was no dream,” Kaz confirmed sadly.
Captain Braden Vanover had been their friend and mentor. When everyone
else at Poseidon had treated the interns like unwanted excess baggage, he had
spoken up for them, taken them under his wing. He had been at Deep Scout’s
controls when the submersible had failed. It was due to his skill alone that any of
them had survived.
“Did we kill him?” moaned Star.