Simon glared back at him firmly asking, “Can you swim?”
Nick shook his head. “No.”
“Then we have to hope Charlotte’s lycanthropy gives her the strength to stay afloat until she gets to us.” Simon climbed over the rail and lowered himself down onto a stone pier.
Charlotte cried out in fear, glancing at the water that was now at her knees.
“Simon will grab you as come past,” shouted Kate, unsure if Charlotte could hear her, signaling the girl to come toward them.
“Kick for all you’re worth,” Imogen encouraged her. The young woman’s veil was off, and fear drenched her white features.
Charlotte hesitated, but only for a moment as the water closed in around her waist. With her last purchase of solid ground, she jumped back toward the bridges. She landed with a great splash fifty feet upriver from the new bridge. She was now below their line of sight, so they all crowded lower to peer through its high arches.
Simon climbed down farther. He crouched on the broad top of the piling with the frothing water just a few feet below him. He watched the oddly small shape of the werewolf flailing in the water. Poor Charlotte was getting dunked over and over, her long muscular arms paddling madly. The current shoved her against the arch of the new bridge, smashing her into the slick stones. She scrabbled with her claws, gouging deep lines in the wet walls, but always bouncing back into the flow.
She emerged from beneath the bridge. Kate gasped loudly as Charlotte went under the dark brown water. There was a deafening silence as everyone held their breath, waiting for her to surface again. Finally, her head burst into the air, her arms flailing madly.
Simon judged which side of the pier the current would take her. His steel fingers dug into the stone above him. Malcolm reached to grab his other arm. Nick was behind him, anchoring Malcolm. Should Simon catch Charlotte’s heavy form, there was real danger they would all be dragged into the churning river. The turbulent water roared through the narrow arch and over a drop of at least six feet into the swirling currents on the downstream side of the bridge. Even in a sturdy craft, only the bravest and most foolhardy riverman would dare “shoot the bridge.”
The young werewolf rushed toward Simon, reaching out in a panic. He leaned into the hard spray, the water pounding him. His feet slipped and he nearly took Malcolm and Nick off the bridge behind him. His fingers were battered in the rolling water just where it plunged over the churning waterfall into the whirlpools beyond.
“Reach, Charlotte!” Simon shouted. “Reach for my hand!”
A hairy arm stretched up to him. She was tiring against the power of the water and its icy chill. Charlotte’s heavy hand slapped against his arm and for frantic seconds her grip slipped, but then her claws dug along his flesh and into the steel of his gauntlets. Her sudden added weight pulled him away from his hold on the piling. He heard Malcolm shouting with alarm. Water cascaded over Charlotte’s face as she hung on to Simon, sputtering. The waterfall roared behind her.
Simon gasped under the strain, but he didn’t have the strength to do more than just hold on. She was too heavy to lift and she was too spent and frozen to pull herself up. With Malcolm’s death grip on his other arm, it felt like his limb would be torn from its socket. “Charlotte, change form!”
Her terrified expression showed she was afraid of how vulnerable she would be as a little girl. If they lost their hold on one another, she couldn’t survive the drop into the vortex. Their eyes met and instead of a hulking werewolf, suddenly she was only a small child. Strength fled and her grip on Simon’s arm loosened.
“No!” she screamed as her small fingers slipped.
But Simon’s steel gauntleted hand held on. Inch by inch Charlotte was dragged up. Her drenched frame emerged from the torrent, so frail and battered. Simon pulled her close, fairly crushing her against his sodden coat and hard breastplate as Malcolm drew Simon back onto the ledge of the pier several feet above the water. Simon handed the girl to Malcolm. The Scotsman wiped her sodden hair from her face. He looked uncommonly distraught.
“Pass her up!” Kate shouted from the bridge.
Malcolm almost unwillingly handed her to Nick, who lifted her to the shattered railing. Kate and Penny took the limp girl and Kate threw her jacket over Charlotte’s shivering body.
“We’ve got you, child,” Kate soothed, wrapping her arms around Charlotte tightly. Her expression of gratitude warmed Simon as she looked down for him. Imogen fell to her knees beside her friend, clutching her wet form tight.
Malcolm and Nick slumped on the stones next to Simon.
“You damn fool,” muttered Nick. “We could have all drowned.”
“Yes.” Simon climbed wearily to his feet.
Malcolm looked at him, his teeth chattering from the cold. “Thank you.”