The Undertow / Season 1, Episode 12
Piercing the Fog
Rena’s boots slammed against the warped boards of the north pier, the echo swallowed by the roar of the tide below. Her breath burned in her chest, sharp as the salt stinging her lips, as she sprinted through the pre-dawn murk. The fog clung to her skin, a cold, wet shroud that blurred the beam of her flashlight into a useless smear of yellow. Somewhere ahead, a child’s cry—thin, ragged, almost lost under the crash of waves—cut through the dark. It was the same boy. She knew it before she saw him. The same one she’d yanked back from the edge twice now, his small frame trembling under her hands, his eyes fixed on something in the water that no one else could see. “Hold on!” she shouted, voice cracking against the wind. Her radio hissed static on her hip, Nowak’s voice garbled but urgent, something about backup, about not going alone. Too late for that. Her legs pumped harder, the pier’s uneven planks slick underfoot, threatening to send her skidding into the black churn below. The air tasted of iron and decay, the ocean’s breath heavy with something fouler than seaweed rot. Her stomach twisted, not just from the run, but from the memory of those tide logs she’d pored over last night in the station’s flickering light—June’s pattern,...