Chapter 13
Amelia
I was submerged in icy cold water. My eyes were open, but I couldn’t see anything but darkness.
Panic gripped me by the lungs as my dress tightened around my legs, making it impossible to kick.
I frantically paddled my arms toward the surface.
My hand brushed something–Hudson’s hand?
–it gripped my fingers and then was torn away from me.
My chest burned for air, but my legs were in an impossible vice of twisted fabric.
This dumb bridesmaid dress was going to be the literal death of me.
I flailed my arms around, completely disoriented.
It was too dark to see what way was up and which way was down.
Air landed on my face, and I greedily gulped in as much as I could before I was flung back under the water.
Panic clawed as violently at me as the waves, urging me to desperation.
“Amelia!” Hudson called out, but his voice sounded distant in my ears as another wave battered me back into the sea. Then air and another gulping breath mixed with salty water that made me cough and sputter. The pattern repeated. “Swim this way.”
The water crashed over me again, and again, and again. Until my life was a series of panicked breaths and trying to get oriented. How long could I do this for? How long until I breathed at the wrong time?
Quinn. I pictured my baby girl as I fought through the muscle cramps, the aching cold, the sense of helplessness washing over me.
“Amelia!” Hudson’s voice sounded farther this time. More desperate.
I kicked toward him. Or it was away from him.
I was unmoored in this wild ocean, kept alive only by my life vest and the whims of nature.
Water came from above, from below, it surrounded me.
There. I spotted him not that far away. “Hudson!” I screamed.
It sounded gargled, distorted, nothing like my regular voice.
He turned and our eyes met above the surface of the churning ocean.
It was the last thing I saw before another wave crashed into me from behind, and this time I couldn’t find my way up. This time, I breathed, and instead of air, water filled my lungs.