Chapter 78
iris
Amy is in survival mode. She doesn’t realise I’m pushing her out of reach of the deadly engine propeller blades; she thinks I’m trying to drown her.
She dives beneath the wreckage of Jesse’s Chris-Craft, dragging me with her. I release her the second she’s safe from the blades, but she’s panicking, kicking out at me, thrashing around in the darkness.
A memory comes to me, fierce and visceral: our last moments on the Lady, when I was the one panicking in the darkness as Nicky swam ahead of us through the galley kitchen to freedom. Amy saved me, then, talking me through my terror.
We need to slow your breathing.
In through the nose.
Out through the mouth.
I swim away from her, out of the wreckage and up to the surface, inhaling a deep gulp of cool air as I tread water. The WaveRunner has drifted out of sight; it’s just me and Amy, out here in the middle of the lake in the darkness, with no one to help us but ourselves.
I duck back beneath the hull to look for my sister, keeping hold of the edge of the boat so I don’t become disoriented in the darkness. The air pocket is so shallow I have to turn my face upwards to breathe.
‘Stay away from me!’ Amy shouts.
‘Amy, it’s me—’
‘You tried to kill me!’
‘Kill you?’ I exclaim. ‘I’m trying to rescue you!’
‘You just tried to drown me!’
‘Amy, please! I know you hate me right now,’ I say into the darkness. ‘I don’t blame you. What I did was unforgivable. But those texts weren’t from me. I swear to you, it wasn’t me.’
‘They came from your phone.’
‘I know, but—’
‘If you didn’t send them, who did?’ Amy cries.
I can’t tell her her son is the one who tried to kill her.
Fifteen months living wild in the mountains, brooding on his grievances, starved of any proper human contact or affection, has warped his mind, and God forgive me, but I’m to blame for that. He just tried to murder his mother and grandfather in cold blood, and it’s as much my fault as it is his.
‘Amy,’ I say. ‘I swear on the lives of everyone we love, I would never hurt you. Please, let’s just—’
‘Colt’s dead,’ she says, baldly.
I can’t control my sudden intake of breath.
There’s no going back now, then.
‘I wish you’d never told me Nicky was still alive,’ Amy says bleakly. ‘My son hates me so much he’d rather let me think he was dead than come home.’
There’s nothing I can say that’ll make this better.
‘I’m done,’ she says suddenly.
There’s a sudden eddy of water against my face.
‘Amy,’ I say.
My voice echoes in the hollow space beneath the hull.
‘Amy!’
I dive blindly beneath the surface, groping in the dark. My hand makes contact with her shoulder and I grab her beneath the arms, kicking backwards with every shred of energy I have left, taking us away from the wreckage and up to the surface.
Amy doesn’t try to fight me, but she doesn’t help, either. She’s a dead weight in my arms, and I can’t support us both for long.
‘Amy,’ I say, panting, ‘Ames, I need you to help me.’
‘You don’t need me,’ she says.
‘Please, Amy,’ I say. ‘We have to get out of the water. We’re going to die of hypothermia if we don’t. We need to try to climb onto the hull.’
‘You get out,’ she says. ‘Leave me.’
‘I can’t,’ I say. ‘I can’t climb on top of the keel by myself; it’s too steep and slippery. We have to help each other, or we’re both going to die.’
She doesn’t respond, and so I start to swim towards the upturned hull, one arm around Amy’s shoulder, dragging her through the water. Our progress is grindingly slow, and I’m exhausted and defeated by the time we reach the wreckage.
‘Please, Amy,’ I say. ‘You’re my big sister. You promised you’d look after me. I don’t know what to do without you.’
She pulls away from me. For a long moment, we tread water in the moonlit darkness, alone in the cold, wild lake. I have no idea what she’s thinking. All I know is that I don’t want to face whatever is coming for me without her.
Finally, Amy turns towards me. Her eyes are dark with an emotion I can’t quite pin down: sadness, frustration, pity, acceptance.
And then suddenly I recognise it, because it’s the same one I’ve seen again and again in my life, every time my sister has had to save me: from our parents’ wrath, from a broken heart, from my illness, from myself.
She sighs and swims around to the other side of the wrecked hull.
‘We’ll have to do this together,’ she says. ‘Otherwise we’ll simply slide off when we try to get on the boat. We need to hold hands over the keel, and then climb up at the same time, using each other’s weight as a counterbalance.’
It’s like a switch has flipped. My sister of fifteen months ago is back: cool, practical, level-headed.
Only now do I realise just how much I’ve missed her.
I lean over the hull as far as I can reach. Amy takes my hands, and together we walk our way up onto the wreckage from opposite sides.
We’re both still waist-deep in the water. Only the blade-sharp keel of the boat is above the surface. There’s nowhere to sit down. All we can do is lean backwards, our feet pressed hard against the hull, holding on to each other’s hands.
It feels as if my arms are being pulled out of their sockets. I can’t see my sister’s face in the darkness, but I can only imagine the pain Amy is in from her damaged shoulder.
I don’t know how long we’ve been clinging to the wreckage when we hear the sound of a boat moving through the water, and we realise we’re not alone.