Chapter 1

When the rescue team captain, Mara Hill, finally found me, I was fast asleep. I was jostled awake by her frantic hand on my shoulder.

“Victoria, there’s been an incident! Your sister’s submersible, the Deep Dweller, has gone missing at 10,900 meters in the Marisiana Trench! They hit some kind of unidentified seismic event. All comms are down. Chances of survival are slim!”

I groggily opened my eyes and looked at her.

“So?” I asked flatly.

Mara was stunned for a second, as if she had not expected that reaction. Then, she anxiously said, “We need you! You’re the only person in the world with successful deep-sea rescue experience at that depth. You are their only hope.”

I calmly lay back down and turned over to go back to sleep. “Sorry. Can’t help.”

“What?”

“I said I can’t help you,” I repeated. My voice was calm and cold. It was as if those trapped on the ocean floor were my sworn enemies.

“Victoria Archer, what’s wrong with you? Your sister, Cindy, is down there! Along with twenty researchers! Their oxygen will only last seventy-two hours at most!”

“My husband, Noah Archer was the chief commander for the last rescue operation. He has more experience than I do. You should ask him instead,” I said, cutting her off.

Mara grabbed my arm and hauled me upright in disbelief before yelling at me in fury, “What the hell are you talking about? Of course, we contacted Commander Archer! He’s not in the country!”

I let out a dry chuckle. “Oh, I know.”

With that, I pulled the blanket over my head and shut her out.

She could only stomp her foot in frustration and storm out of the holding cell while muttering a string of curses under her breath.

Finally, there was silence.

A few minutes later, a custom ringtone started blaring. It was my father, Ferdinand Locke.

I answered.

“Victoria, why in God’s name did you refuse the mission? Your sister is down there!” He launched right into his questioning. His voice was tight with barely contained fury.

“Dad, as I said, call Noah instead. He’s more professional.”

“I can’t reach him! His satellite phone is off!” My father’s tone grew more frantic.

I let out a soft chuckle and replied with a nonchalant tone, “Oh, that’s perfectly normal. That’s because, right now, he’s on board the Deep Dweller.”

On the other end, my father’s breathing hitched.

Then came the thunderous roar of his fury. “What nonsense is that?! Noah left last month for the Aurora Initiative in the Everfrost Zone! I assigned him there myself! He won’t be back for another month! There’s no way he’s on the Deep Dweller!”

“Really?” I feigned surprise. “I must’ve remembered wrong then.”

“You…”

I hung up before he could finish.

The phone rang again almost immediately. This time, it was my stepmother, Linda Locke.

Her voice came through thick with sobs. She sounded as if she were on the verge of falling apart.

“Victoria, I’m begging you. Please save your sister.”

I leaned back in the chair with my eyes closed and listened quietly to her performance.

“And more than half of the researchers on that vessel are your students. You trained them yourself. Are you really going to do nothing and let them die at the bottom of the sea? Can you live with that?”