My teeth chatter so hard it hurts. Now that the adrenaline has faded, I feel every inch of my soaking-wet body. I shake uncontrollably, and my chest is tight with the memory of the water.
That’s when I realize it’s quiet. Too quiet. No crickets chirping. No vines shaking in the dark. I edge backward, away from the still water. But there’s nowhere to go. The island is too small.
There’s a splash in the dark. Panic shoots up my spine, and I shriek, rocketing to my feet. I whirl left to right, looking for movement in the rippled water. I’m so dizzy from lack of oxygen that my vision drags and blurs like a movie on fast-forward.
My heartbeat rushes loudly behind my ears, and I can’t hear, can’t hear. There’s something in there.
There’s another splash behind me. I scream and whip around, breathing hard and fast. Another splash to the left. No, the right. I spin again and again, stumbling in the dark.
“We’re coming for you!” Lyla calls back.
I risk a glance at the shore and see Lyla hauling the boat out from under the cabin into the swamp.
“Hurry!” I yell.
Glass shatters distantly, but I’m too focused on the movement to investigate.
It all happens so fast. There’s another loud splash. Something flashes out of the water. And then a gator blinks at me from the shore.
The gator stares at me with reptilian, predatory eyes, shifting on its short, powerful limbs. Sharp white teeth slice out of a pointed jaw, scales shining like a suit of armor in the dark.
I don’t move, don’t breathe. There’s nowhere for me to go. I can’t outrun it. I definitely can’t outswim it. I close my eyes tight. Make it quick, please.
An explosion pierces the night.
I shield my face as water showers over me. I wrench my eyes open and blink away the droplets in time to see the gator skitter into the swamp.
Hartley is standing on the shore with a shotgun propped under her arm and her sights set toward me. The boat is in the swamp, cutting through the sludge like a knife through warm butter.
Hartley shoots again. The bullet lands just left of the island— of me—and a huge splash of water rains over my head.
The boat slides up to the island.
“Get in!” Lyla calls when she’s as close as she can get without wedging into the mud and risking getting stuck. She extends her arm.
I don’t want to go anywhere near the water with the gator inside, but the only other way back is the tunnel crossing, and that’s not happening.
I slosh quickly inside, grabbing onto Lyla’s outstretched hand. She hauls me up, and I drop heavily into the bottom of the boat, curling into a ball, as far away from the edge as I can manage. A keening noise escapes me as I realize how close I came to getting attacked by an alligator.
“Hope! Are you okay? Are you hurt?” Lyla inspects my body for wounds.
I send a panicked glance around the swamp. “Just g-get me out of here. Please.”
Lyla nods and grabs onto the oars. I desperately pull in air while she heaves the boat back.
The bow lodges into the muddy shore. Lyla jumps out, Farrah at her side, helping to haul it farther up the bank. My legs are shaky and unstable when Lyla helps me climb out of the boat. Hartley appears and hooks her arm under my other shoulder.
“You okay?” she asks.
I don’t know. But I nod.
“Good,” she says, and she sounds like she means it. Then her eyes return to the swamp, ever ready for more danger.
I look too, but the water is still and dark, as if the whole thing were a figment of my imagination. A violent shiver racks my body.
She saved me. They both saved me.
Lyla’s in the middle of telling me she’s got all my stuff in her bag, but I interrupt her. “Thank you. For coming after me,” I say. “You—you didn’t have to do that.”
“Of course we did,” Lyla says.
I send her a wobbly smile. I can’t speak, or I think I’ll cry. I’ve never been so grateful to be alive.
“What do you think the Society will say?” Hartley asks darkly. And it hits me what she means: I didn’t complete the dare.
“She can’t have been expected to get back in the water with a gator right there,” Lyla says. I don’t think I’ve ever heard her speak so forcefully.
“Maybe not, but they’ll probably consider it a fail,” Farrah says. “Like with Nikki.”
They argue about what this means for my game, but I tune them out. The only thing I care about is going home. Climbing into bed with Mom and forgetting about this whole messed-up night.
A flash of movement by the cabin catches my eye. I inhale sharply, instantly remembering the figure I thought I saw at Six Flags. Only I know I didn’t imagine it this time.
“What?” Lyla asks.
“There’s someone here,” I whisper, eyes trained on the shadows that moved just a second ago.
Hartley abruptly lets go of my arm and springs toward the cabin.
“Hartley, stop!” Lyla yells. “Shit.” She swings to face me. “You okay?”