Secrets Under Water

Chapter 1

CHAPTER ONE

A face hovers above me, eclipsing the ceiling light, cloaking itself in shadow.

For one suspended second, my mind doesn’t comprehend what’s happening, as if the world has paused on a single, unbearable frame. As if it’s mercifully trying to protect me.

Then panic seizes every organ with icy, spindly fingers. My scream never takes shape—it doesn’t have time. One hand clamps over my mouth, the other in my hair.

I’m shoved underwater.

Terrible heat, terrible fire spreads through me.

The bathwater, seconds ago harmless, turns animalistic—invading, consuming. Water rushes into my nose, my eyes, my ears.

I’m coughing and choking and inhaling and…drowning. My lungs scream for relief, for air, for life. But I can’t move. I’m shoved down, harder.

I fight, but the hand in my hair grabs a fistful, slamming my head into the porcelain. My scalp joins the rest of my body in white-hot fire.

My entire world is a pinhead, reduced only to the sounds of thunder—blood roaring, water sloshing, the echo of my head scraping the tub, my attacker growling—and the burning need for air.

It’ll be a silent death.

Alone. Unnoticed.

I try, still. I do. Even though no one’s around to hear.

I bang my limbs against the porcelain, thrashing. I shove shampoo and soap bottles to the floor. My fingers claw at the wrists holding me down as my eyes try to make sense of the swirling, watery portrait of the face above me.

A wet hairline beaded with steam.

Dark eyes.

Mouth set in a hard line.

My thoughts fracture. My chest screams. I’m imagining things. I have to be. My mind has given up. Given me a friendly face for comfort in the end.

No. Not like this.

My heel connects with something solid. A shin. A thigh. He’s standing in the bathtub with me, using his full weight to hold me down. The water sloshes over the rim, soaking fabric, splashing onto the tile.

My lungs seize. I’ve never felt pain like this.

I don’t know how long it’s been—it feels like hours—but it has to be over soon. It has to be.

With one final, desperate attempt, I twist to the side violently and manage to wrench my mouth from his grasp for a fraction of a second.

Darkness flashes across my face, another eclipse, as he stumbles forward.

Light. Then dark. Then light again as he fumbles for his footing, catching himself on the side of the tub.

I break the surface with a desperate gasp. Air knifes into my chest like shattered glass, but the pain doesn’t end. It only splinters. Because this isn’t my brain protecting me. This is real.

Disbelief claws at my brain.

I gasp in breaths, desperate to find my center of gravity again. The ceiling swims above me, warped and unfamiliar.

He grabs hold of me without a word, shoving me back under. Water floods my mouth, and my vision sparkles with tiny white bursts.

Stars. No, not stars. Nerve endings misfiring in warning.

Death. I’m dying.

My scalp screams when he grabs a new handful of hair, using all his weight to slam me against the bottom of the tub.

I can’t fight anymore. I don’t want to.

And so, I don’t.

My body goes slack. I’m everywhere and nowhere all at once. The roaring fades to a dull hum, like a radio losing signal.

This is the end.