I was frozen with indecision and wasting seconds standing there. But then Mitch began backing toward the finger of land that jutted out into the center of the pond, dragging Dekker, which snapped me back to the present. I had to do something. But by the time I got to a phone, Dekker would be drowned. I had no choice now. I had to go down there, down to the water.
THE WET AND the cold enveloped me as Mitch dragged me out on the berm. I’d recovered enough to try to dig my heels in, to stop his progress, but the ground was frozen. I knew Mitch wanted to drop me off the tip of the berm where the contaminated water was deepest.
In desperation, I twisted my body back and forth, attempting to somehow get on my feet and run.
But Mitch stopped dragging me and forcibly threw me to the ground like a basketball. I had no way to stop my own downward momentum. My entire body weight dropped onto my bound hands, wringing a wail of pain from me. But I tried again to stand.
Mitch pulled at a strap on his shoulder and I now saw it was attached to his rifle. He gripped it like a baseball bat and swung, smashing me in the skull.
The next thing I knew, my face was covered in snowflakes, and Mitch was dragging me again, the rifle back in place over his shoulder, my head thrumming and throbbing.
And then I heard a coyote howl in the distance.
Maybe not a coyote.
“Mitch! No!”
MITCH DIDN'T SEE me at first, but when he did, he straightened so fast he let go of Dekker’s head, which clunked on the ground.
I screamed. “Mitch!”
I was still panting but I limped toward them, feeling dizzy with the fear of running toward water, my left leg shrieking with pain every step I took. Mitch was so surprised to see me there that he stood motionless, staring with his mouth open. Now that I was close enough, I saw Dekker’s face was swollen, bloody, bluish.
Terror chattered away in my brain, fear of the water, fear of Dekker’s death. Fear of my mother’s murderer raping me over and over again, for the rest of my life.
But then something weird happened. I didn’t know if it was hypothermia, but all of a sudden my mind got quiet, and I knew what I was going to do.
“How did you get up here?” Mitch said. “How did you do that?”
I walked slowly toward him. The water beyond seemed to glow.
“Nobody’s going to come between us,” Mitch said. “Not ever again.” He pulled the rifle from his shoulder and pointed it at Dekker’s head. Dekker wasn’t dead. Yet.
I walked closer. I was at the edge of the berm. The only thing standing between me and them—-and the water—-was the FORBIDDEN sign.
“Nobody’s going to come between us,” I said, limping around it, a rocket of pain shooting upward with each step. “That’s right. So let’s get him to his car so he can go back to Kansas.”
“No,” Mitch said. “He might come back again. You want to be with him, don’t you?”
“I don’t,” I said, walking out on to the berm, feeling faint, nausea pushing bile up my throat. “It’s you I want. Why do you think I was running west? I was running away from him.”
Mitch didn’t say anything, just stood gazing down at Dekker. I moved a little closer, the water now on both sides of me, only feet away.
“Let’s get him out of here,” I said. “If you’re planning on dumping him in the pond, I don’t care how deep it is, they’ll find him. Let’s let him go. Then you and I will be together. Forever. You don’t have to—-”
“You’ll try to get away,” Mitch shouted.
“I’m here,” I said, holding my arms out, walking closer still. I tottered a little, feeling the pull of the water. I forced myself to look at him. “I came to you, remember? You didn’t find me, I found you.”
Mitch blinked behind his frosted glasses.
“I’ve come home. If Dekker goes in the pond, he’ll be between us forever.” I couldn’t look at Dekker.
“He won’t,” Mitch said, “because—-”
“Because I’ll be dissolved within a -couple of days,” Dekker said in a hoarse voice. “Remember how he said this is some of the most acidic water on earth? Pyrite plus oxygen plus water makes sulfuric acid.”
I didn’t understand what he was saying. “Acid?”
“Don’t go near it, whatever you do,” Dekker said.
My heart dropped to my feet. I was surrounded by acid, millions of gallons of it, and the ground beneath my feet seemed to ripple, to quake, threatening my balance.
Mitch smiled hopefully at me. “He’ll just disappear,” he said. “As if he never existed to begin with.”
Like Randy.
“If you put him in there,” I said, edging nearer, “I’ll have to go in after him. If you let him go, you and I will go back to your cabin and we’ll be together.” I was shaking violently.
It seemed to me that one way or another, I was going to end up in that lake, and it was going to hurt. Badly.
“Your choice, Mitch,” I said. “He goes in, I go in.” I held my arms out. “Or you can come to me right now. Come to Marianne.”
Mitch’s tiny eyes were unfocused, distant.
“Marianne?”
“Yes,” I said. “It’s me. Hold me. I’m so cold.”