“What? I want to play.”
“I’m not playing,” James told him, every muscle in his body taut and rigid. “Don’t fucking do that again.”
“So you’ll play with the girls and Alexander and Oliver but not with me?” Richard demanded. “COME ON!”
“Richard, stop!” We yelled it all together, but we’d waited too long. He shoved James again, and there was nothing playful about it. James hit the water hard, arms smacking the surface as he tried to catch himself. As soon he was back on his feet, he lunged at Richard, hit him with all his weight, plowed him backward. But Richard was laughing as the water seethed around them—he was so much bigger, it was impossible for the fight to be fair. I was moving toward them, my legs dragging, when Richard’s laugh turned into a snarl and he plunged James face-first into the water.
“RICHARD!” I shouted.
Maybe he didn’t hear me over James’s thrashing, or maybe he just pretended not to. He kept him under, one arm locked around his neck. James beat one fist on his side, but I couldn’t tell if he was fighting back or just fighting to get loose. The girls and Colin and Alexander crashed toward them, but I got there first. Richard shook me off and the cold water slapped me across the face, jumped into my mouth and nose. I threw myself at him again, latched on like a parasite.
“STOP! YOU’RE CHOKING HIM—” His shoulder hit my chin and I bit my tongue hard. Colin appeared out of nowhere, hauled on the arm keeping James under as I yelled, “YOU’RE GOING TO FUCKING DROWN HIM, STOP!”
Meredith grabbed Richard around the neck, then Filippa seized his elbow, and by the time he finally let go of James we were all tangled together, the water surging around us, icy and vicious.
James burst through the surface with a gasp, and I caught him before he could sink again. “James,” I said. “James, are you okay?” He hung on my neck with one arm, choking, water and bile coming up together and splashing down his front.
Meredith was pounding on Richard’s chest with her fists, screaming at him, forcing him out of the water and onto the beach. “Are you out of your mind? You could have killed him!”
“What is wrong with you?” Wren yelled, her voice cracking, tears spilling down her cheeks.
“James?” I propped him up as best I could, my arms in an awkward loop around his ribs. “Can you breathe?”
He nodded feebly and coughed again, eyes squeezed shut. The back of my throat felt tight, stretched like a bowstring.
“Jesus H. Christ,” Colin said, quietly. “What the hell was that?”
“I don’t know,” Filippa said, from where she stood between us, gaunt and shivering. “Let’s get him out of the water.”
Colin and I helped James to the beach, where he collapsed in the sand on his side. His hair hung limp and wet in his eyes, his whole body trembling as he breathed. I crouched beside him and Filippa hovered over us. Alexander looked dumbstruck. Colin, absolutely terrified. Wren cried silently, little hiccups making her shoulders jerk and twitch. I’d never seen Meredith so angry, cheeks burning crimson even in the weak moonlight. And Richard just stood there, bemused.
“Richard,” Alexander said, carefully. “That was fucked up.”
“He’s all right, isn’t he? James?”
James stared up at him from the ground, eyes bright and hard like steel. Silence settled, and I was struck by the senseless idea that we and everything around us were made of glass. I was afraid to breathe, afraid to move, afraid something might break.
“We were just playing,” Richard said, with a thin smile. “Just a game.”
Meredith took one step to put herself between Richard and the rest of us. “Walk away,” she said. He opened his mouth to reply, but she cut him off. “Go back to the Castle and go to bed before you do something dumb enough to get yourself expelled.” She looked like a fury, eyes blazing, hair hanging in wet tangled ropes around her shoulders. “Go. Now.”
Richard glared at her, looked around at the rest of us, then turned and trudged back up the beach. Relief rushed through me and made me light-headed, like blood flooding back to an unfeeling limb.
As soon as he was out of sight, fading into the shadows of the trees, Meredith deflated. “Jesus.” She bent halfway over, pressed the heels of her palms against her eyes, mouth twisted up like she was trying not to cry. “James. I’m so sorry.”
He pushed himself up so he was sitting cross-legged in the sand. “It’s okay,” he said.
“It’s not okay.” She still had her hands over her face.
“It’s not your fault, Mer,” I said. The idea of Meredith crying was so bizarre, so unsettling, I didn’t think I could watch it.
“You’re not responsible for him,” Filippa said. She glanced at Wren, whose eyes were fixed on the ground, tears running down her face, clinging to her chin before they dripped down into the sand. “None of us are.”
“The night has been unruly,” Alexander said, significantly more sober than he’d been half an hour before. “God, what a shitshow.”
Meredith finally lowered her hands. Her eyes were dry, but her lips were cracked and colorless, like she was about to throw up. “I don’t know about the rest of you, but I want to get cleaned up and go to bed and pretend this didn’t happen for like at least eight hours.”
“I think some sleep would be good for everyone,” Filippa said, and there was a murmur of agreement.
“You guys go,” James said. “I just—I’ll be there in a minute.”
“You sure?” Colin asked.
“Yeah. I’m fine, I just want a minute.”
“All right.”