American Made (Against the Tides #2) by Katheryn Kiden Page A

my breath rushes out of my lungs. I throw my hand in the air after unhooking the line to show that I’m clear and swim as hard as I can through the rotor wash to get to the raft. The fact that the guy isn’t trying to flag me down or make any movement at all scares me so I try to get to him as fast as possible. 
    It feels like it takes forever for me to reach him. Pulling myself against the edge of his raft, I check him over the best I can. His eyes flutter a few times before he squeezes them shut.
    “Sir, my name is Gentry Rice. I’m with the U.S. Coast Guard. Can you tell me your name?” His eyes crack open as I yell at him over the noise around us but he doesn’t respond. Hypothermia is the first thing that pops into my mind and I know if I don’t get him out soon it could be deadly. I call up to Tim, letting him know what is going on, and have him send the basket down.
    Everything after that is calculated moves to get him into the basket and pulled into the cabin. Once he’s inside, his care his handed over to Angie, the flight medic, and I wait to be pulled back up. I climb over everyone once I’m inside and take my seat so I’m out of the way. I hand things to Angie as she asks for them while I sit and catch my breath. Warming blankets, blood pressure cuff, anything to make her job easier while hoping for the best.
    “He’s drunk, you guys,” Angie says after wrapping him up. She motions me closer and opens his mouth. As much as I don’t want to sniff this guy’s breath, I do it anyway. I don’t have to get as close as I think I do before I’m slapped in the face by the smell of rum.
    “That explains why he isn’t complaining about freezin’.”
    We’re almost back to base when Sebastio starts finally starts moving. His arms flail as much as they can around being strapped down and he begins yelling about his legs. Angie attempts to calm him down, asking what is wrong with his legs because there is no physical damage.
    “I lost everything, God damn it!” he screams, his voice echoing around us. “Fuckin’ woman left me and took everything. My fuckin’ home. My beautiful fuckin’ Pearl Necklace went down with a full load of my junk. The least I could’ve gotten out of this fuckin’ catastrophe is for Jaws to bite off my leg!” Angie continues to try to calm him down and after a few more minutes of him screaming it turns to drunken sobs. “I would have rocked the shit out of a fuckin’ peg leg.”
    I bite back a laugh as we touch down on the ground and the paramedics unload him. Tim reaches across the cabin and punches me in the shoulder when I finally can’t hold it back any longer. When I get ahold of myself and climb out, Knox’s crew is there waiting for us.
    “Were you just laughing?” he asks, stepping up beside me. I nod, waiting for them to close the doors to the ambulance before I speak.
    “We searched for that fucker for how long? Found him and thought he was dead. Turns out he’s just trashed.”
    “Seriously?”
    As we head inside, I start stripping off my gear because I feel the exhaustion setting in and I know if I sit down before it’s off, it won’t be coming off anytime soon. “Mhm. No boat in sight. Capsized life raft with him on top of it. He started bitchin’ a few minutes ago about not gettin’ his leg bit off by a shark and gettin’ a peg leg.”
    “Oh Jesus.” He laughs. Hauling his phone out, he shoves it toward me. “That’s awesome, but this is better.”
    I expect a dirty photo, but that’s not what I get. It’s a photo of a paper target with the bullseye shot out of it with the caption “Boom bitches”. Just like that, Emerson is back in the forefront of my mind.
    I chuckle, shaking my head. “I’d say she’s ready.”
    For the past five weeks we’ve worked every day at the range to re-train her body to shoot from the opposite side of what she’s used to. We would go between shifts and, thanks to Rush’s connections, we were allowed in