The saliva in my throat was thick and oddly dry as I forced it down. What appeared to be a strand of hair, light enough in color it contrasted with the dark water, seemed to reach out toward me, as if it were reaching out for help.
I started running. The silence of the night completely disrupted by the sounds of heavy splashing and the ominous way the water sucked at my pants, trying to hold me back.
“Hello!” I called out, half bent now, using my arms to cut through the water.
It was farther out than I first suspected. Another trick of the lake.
An intense sense of urgency hurled in my veins, causing me to drop into the water in a swimming position.
I was oblivious to the chilled temperature of the lake, the way in which the black water tried to swallow me whole. My arms and legs cut through like a hot knife in butter, and in just moments that seemed to feel like a lifetime, I had reached where the body floated.
There was a body floating in the lake. Drifting ashore like a piece of lifeless garbage.
Closing my hand around a thin and too-cold arm, I used all the adrenaline coiled inside me to yank the body close.
Pale skin collided with mine as I forced myself to my feet, slipping a little on the uneven, muddy floor of the lake. When I was fully upright, the water came only to my waist. Hefting the body above the surface, my limbs shook with cold and fear as I fumbled to cradle it in my arms.
It was so very dark, the fog like a shield, and I was focused on getting ashore. I barely glanced down at the unresponsive body. It was a woman. The knowledge threatened to thrust me back in time, but I fought it even though part of me wanted to go back there.
“It could be a child,” I told myself out loud, hoping the sound of my own voice would anchor me.
No. I didn’t want it to be a child. Not because I was some stellar guy with a hero complex and children were the most innocent victims of all. It was because I wanted it to be someone else.
Someone I knew it couldn’t possibly be. Someone who was long gone and was never coming back.
My feet stumbled when I bolted out of the water and into the too-long grass, but I didn’t fall. Instead, I dropped to my knees and laid the body before me.
Long strands of hair stuck to her face, concealing all her features. Sediment from the lake clung to her skin, and her clothing was ripped and practically see-through.
“Can you hear me!” I yelled. “Hey!”
Her face was turned away, something I couldn’t bear. Water ran down my face, dripped off my lashes, and clung to my clothes. Wiping the offending drops out of my line of sight, I made a muffled sound, grasping her chin between my long fingers.
I turned her face toward mine, holding on firmly, and brushed all the wet strands from her face.
Emotion so raw slammed into me I nearly fell back. The only thing that held me upright was the grip I still had on her chin.
Not even a hit that had my stomach roiling and vomit splashing up into the back of my throat was strong enough to make my fingers let go.
Hungrily I stared at her face until I saw the blue tint to her lips.
“No!” The word ripped out of me as if I were being tortured. Moving fast, I tilted her chin back, swept the inside of her mouth with my finger, and began CPR. I lost count of how many compressions I applied to her chest. My mind was scrambled, and the more I looked into her prone face, the more frantic I became.
Giving up, I grasped her face and blew a breath into her waiting airways. When she did nothing, I blew into her again.
It took immense mental power to rip away and begin chest compressions a second time. Just when I was about to really lose my shit, the sound of water bubbling up inside her brought me back.
Thinking fast, I turned the woman to her side as lake water spewed from her mouth and her back worked extraneously to expel it all.
When I was sure she was empty, I laid her flat. Her breathing was extremely shallow, her eyes still closed. Oxygen seemed to scrape like broken glass down her throat, making me fearsome. Tilting her head back, I gave her two more strong breaths.
They seemed to force some much-needed air into her system, and then the ragged inhalations she took seemed not quite as dire.
Practically climbing on top of her, I palmed her face. “Can you hear me?” I yelled. “Wake up! Are you okay?”
Nothing.
Her body was so limp I began to shake again.
“Shit!” I growled, scrambling up and lifting her into my arms. Her body was frail and her skin still almost translucent. My heart nearly stopped when she fell into my chest, and I gazed down at her face.
“It couldn’t be.” I reminded myself. Then, as I turned toward where I parked my truck, I repeated, “It’s not.”
A ragged, painful-sounding gasp scraped by her lips. I stiffened as her body moved just slightly. Her eyelids fluttered, struggling to open.
“Can you hear me?” I asked, desperate.
Her eyes collided with mine. I gasped, nearly falling. A name I hadn’t spoken in so long it sounded foreign to my own ears cut through the sound of my pounding heart and uneven breathing.
Her eyes drifted once more, refusing to open again.
I started to run, using my familiarity with this place as a GPS. Sight wouldn’t be useful right now because my eyes were incapable of looking at anything but her face.
It wasn’t her.
But oh my God, what if it was?
Slivers of light pricked my eyelids, which up until this moment seemed far too heavy to lift. As I lay against something soft at my back, thought and awareness barely registered.
The gritty feeling as I struggled to raise my eyelids scraped and burned over my eyeballs as if warning me it wasn’t a good idea. Swallowing past the sandpaper in my throat, I stopped working and lay still. Cognizance slowly came forward in the form of something weighing me down and the echo of footsteps nearby.
Adrenaline jackknifed through me, and my body arched upward with the force of my gasp. The weight of whatever held me caused severe panic to fill me, and I began to fight against it.
“No!” I screamed, flailing about, trying to escape the binds. “Let me go!”
High-pitched beeping filled my ears, and the footsteps I’d heard grew more insistent and much closer.
He was coming!
“No!” I screamed.
Strong hands grabbed my arms and pinned me down. I tried to fight back, but they were much stronger than me. Kicking my legs, I tried to free them, but even more weight came down, holding them still until I was gasping for breath and ready to beg.
“Please!” I pleaded as wetness coated my cheeks. It made me realize the grittiness under my lids was rinsed away, and my eyes sprang open.
A man was leaning over me. He had graying hair and wore some kind of white shirt. The scream that ripped right out of me scared us both.
More hands and voices came out of nowhere, and I thrashed around again.
“Miss!” the man yelled. “Miss, calm down.”
“Get away from me!” I screamed again.
“Miss!” another voice yelled, a woman this time. Turning in her direction, I saw a pair of kind brown eyes staring at me. “We aren’t trying to hurt you.”