CHAPTER 43 #2
The impact sprays water against the hull of the yacht as I plummet twenty feet through open air.
I hit feet first, the collision jolting through me so hard it feels like my legs have been rammed into my stomach.
The water is thicker than I expect, warm and slick, engulfing my body like a mouth as I sink.
For a moment, I’m suspended, weightless, with no sense of up or down.
The surface is nothing but a wavering smear of gold above me.
Then, just as my lungs seize, instinct takes over. I kick upward, break the surface, and drag in a ragged gasp. The water erupts with light around me, spectral ribbons shimmering from the bioluminescent algae drifting below.
“Dickie!” I spin in the water.
He’s nearly ten feet away, thrashing but barely staying afloat. His limbs flail wildly, and his mouth gulps more water than air as his head bobs back and forth. For a brief, terrifying moment, his arms slap at the surface before he seizes up, his body going rigid with panic.
Then he slips under.
I dive and kick hard toward him. The water stings my eyes, the glow around me distorting my vision, but I close the gap between us until my fingers catch his shirt. I fist the fabric tightly and wrench Dickie upward, fighting the heavy drag of his body as I haul us both toward the surface.
We break through in a glittering spray of water. He’s coughing and choking, his hands clawing at me in blind terror.
“Dickie, breathe,” I sputter, struggling to keep us afloat. But he’s past hearing, dragging us both down as he spirals into hysteria.
Shouts resound from above. I twist in the water and spot two Blues—the same ones we pelted with golf balls earlier—on the deck of their yacht, waving and pointing, their faces stretched with alarm.
I curse and scan the lake, seeing nothing at first. Then there’s a tremor, ripples where the water should be still, followed by a bloom of color swirling beneath the surface.
Piranhas.
My body lurches as if it can already feel their teeth. They’re coming straight for us. I whip my head toward Edmund’s yacht and, there, barely visible through the glow, hang the silver rungs of a ladder.
“Dickie, we have to swim!”
I drag him toward Edmund’s yacht, which is slowly sailing away, my arms burning with each stroke. The water clings, heavy as seaweed, pulling at us as I force us toward the ladder. But when we finally reach it, Dickie goes limp. His head drops against my shoulder, mouth slack, breath gone.
“Dickie?” I shake him. “Dickie!”
A few feet above, the ladder waits like an outstretched hand. I know I could swing high enough to grab it and save myself. But to live, I’ll have to let Dickie go.
The Blues start yelling, drawing my eye back to their yacht. One throws a chair into the lake, while another hurls a table, sudden flashes of noise and movement meant to distract the piranha swarm. But it’s too late.
The water ahead erupts in a violent swell of scales and teeth. There are too many of them, moving too fast, like a tide of sawblades spilling from the glow.
I watch, my heart slamming against my ribs, knowing it’s my last chance to save myself. My head screams at me to climb, to survive, but my arms refuse to loosen. I grip Dickie tighter, as though he’s part of my own body.
I shove away from the hull, my chest heaving as I force air into my lungs. Then I reach for him. My last hope.
“EDMUUUUUUUND!”
The scream rips out raw and jagged, shredding through my throat, my heart, the night itself. The name echoes over the water, reverberating across the lake so loudly that the two Blues on the neighboring yacht freeze mid-motion.
Please.
Please let Edmund hear me.
Please let him run.
If he doesn’t, Dickie and I are going to die, right here in each other’s arms.
The piranhas close the gap in a volcanic rush of water. Twenty feet. Fifteen. I see their red, orb-like eyes and gaping jaws. I curl my body tighter around Dickie, cradling his limp head against my shoulder, trying to shield him as best I can.
I close my fingers around Dad’s daffodil brooch, still pinned to my cover-up. And then, all at once, it hits.
Teeth sink into my leg. I scream as pain detonates through my thigh, white-hot, burning all the way down to the bone.
Another bite follows. Then another. My thigh muscles seize around each agonizing bite, constricting protectively.
Blood jets into the lake in thick, green clouds, dulling the luster.
My vision narrows, the edges dimming like a faraway light. The pain is blinding, but my mind floats above it, as if the body being torn apart isn’t mine. I can’t tell where I end and the water begins. I go still, unsure if I’m dying, knowing only that everything is stretching and slowing down.
Then shouts echo from above.
I force my head up and open my eyes weakly.
Edmund stands on the upper deck, balanced on the railing, one hand clawing at his hair. He sees Dickie, me, the piranha swarm, and the blood seeping into the water. His eyes lock on mine, and for an instant, the world collapses to that single point of contact: him, me, the weight of that stare.
I cling to it because I know.
He’s coming for us.
Rosamund grabs Edmund’s arm from behind and yells something, the sound muffled by Charlotte’s terrified screams. He wrenches free, swings his legs over the railing, and jumps.
The dive slices through the darkness in a blue streak of motion.
His body arcs smoothly, head tucked, arms outstretched, striking with enough force to shatter the surface into a spray of foam.
The piranhas are still devouring my lower half. The pain is everywhere, too much, stabbing through my thighs, knees, and calves. I can’t tell if my legs are still attached, only that they feel too light. The world flickers at the edges until every color bleeds into green.
Then the biting stops.
The piranhas scatter, driven back by the pulse of Edmund’s Rippletone. They burst outward in unison, an explosion of scales and teeth in every direction.
My blood still clouds the water. The pain still burns through me. I’m seizing so hard my grip slips. I can’t hold Dickie anymore.
I can’t—
Then Edmund is there, swimming through the last of the piranhas with furious, desperate strokes. One arm hooks around Dickie’s shoulders, and the other around my waist as I begin to sink. I feel his raw strength, the shuddering force of his body, the brute will of someone ready to die, too.
“Loredana!” Edmund’s voice tears on my name as he pulls me close. “Loreda—oh, fuck.” His arms lock up, his breath buckling into a hoarse, grating sound as his eyes catch on the bleeding bite marks across my arms.
Above, screaming cuts through my dizziness. Charlotte’s voice, shrill and panicked: “Jack! Now! GO!”
Jack jumps into a hoverboat on the side deck and launches it off the yacht with a screech of hydraulics. The vessel crashes into the water, its nose rising as Jack drives hard and fast, heading straight for us.
Edmund swims forward, kicking with brutal force as he holds Dickie and me to his chest. He’s silent now, white as bone, his heart pounding so hard I think it might crack through his ribs.
When the hoverboat reaches us, Edmund hoists Dickie toward Jack.
“Take him—now!”
Jack catches Dickie’s shoulders and drags him aboard with a panicked curse.
Then Edmund slants toward me, one arm hooking beneath my thighs.
He moves like he means to be careful, but the instant he sees my legs, his body goes rigid, as if life is draining from him the same way blood is draining from me.
I turn, trying to look, but he blocks me.
“No, Loredana. Fuck. Please—keep your eyes on me.”
Jack shouts over him. “Get her in! Ed, get her in now!”
Edmund shifts his hold to my waist and lifts me toward the hoverboat. Jack leans out, grabs my arms, and pulls. My body scrapes over the gunwale—splinters, paint, blood—but the pain feels distant, like I’m watching from the yacht’s deck above with the others instead of living it.
Inside the hoverboat, Edmund is no longer there to prevent me from seeing the damage the piranhas caused.
My head drops, and when I see what’s left of me, I clamp up, paralyzed.
My right leg is flayed open, like a half-peeled fruit.
And my left leg… my left is nearly gone.
It’s torn to the upper thigh, a tangle of raw muscle, shredded nerves, and green blood jetting in hard, arterial spurts.
The white glint of bone shows through pink flesh.
The pain should kill me. Instead, my mouth opens in a scream that never escapes. My body convulses, then curls into shock so deep I can’t move.
“Loredana?” Jack’s voice is thin, terrified. “Loredana—?”
His head snaps toward Dickie, who lies blue-lipped and unbreathing. He drops to his knees and starts chest compressions. Tears blur his eyes as he mutters, “Come on, brother—breathe.”
The hoverboat rocks hard as Edmund vaults inside.
Water streams from his clothes as he drops to his knees beside me, panting raggedly.
He grabs my cover-up and rips off a strip in a single, savage tear.
His hands, white-knuckled and slick with my blood, shake so violently he nearly drops the fabric.
When he wraps the cover-up around my thigh and yanks it tight, a shrill scream finally tears free, ripping out of me like a wound bursting open.
“I’m sorry,” Edmund chokes. “I’m sorry.”
He keeps twisting the knot tighter and higher until the bleeding slows.
Behind him, Jack is still counting, breathless and rasping. “Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Breathe!”
The hoverboat slams onto the side deck of the yacht with a scraping sound of wood. String lights spin above me in a dizzying whirl. Two Pinkies rush forward and seize the vessel, gripping the gunwales to keep it from pitching.