Her mouth—mid-scream—clamped shut as she smacked the water face-first, plunged downward.
Cold.
Shock.
Cold-shock to freeze her heart.
She commanded her eyes to open. Open wide. Wider. Didn’t matter. Underwater was black. Pitch black. No surface or bottom. No left or right. No up or down. Fourteen feet. Forty feet. Cold and black. She would die.
The taste—salt—made her think buoyancy. She spread her arms, surrendering, and felt them drift upwards. She thrashed in that direction, kicked her feet, kicked the thought of someone pushing her, kick-boxed adrenaline into action, kicked ass, and broke the surface. A wave slapped her, flooding her nose and mouth. Gasping. Heaving. Coughing. Clothes so heavy. Anchor clothes.
She sank.
No one would save her. No one in the world knew where she was. The cold squeezed her chest, lungs. She was drowning. Alone. She thought of Charlie, her baby brother. He had had apricot curls and followed her like a duckling after Mom died.
“Go away, Charlie. Leave me alone.” She’d wallowed in grief, no comfort to spare for the two-year-old. Now Charlie would never know how much she loved him. How sorry she was.
Alexa kicked again, resurfaced, kept her nose high. Inhaling water would kill her. She hadn’t been swimming since she was thirteen. The thought of wearing a bathing suit and exposing her ugly back scars had stopped her, but the summers of swim lessons before the accident infused her limbs. How stupid she’d been—limiting life for vanity. Who fucking cares? She spit, treaded water, glad Keds were lightweight, and craned her neck toward The Apex, a hulking, slippery giant eight feet away. The man—how could she have forgotten the man?—was a dark outline leaning over the rail, watching.
“Help,” she screamed.
He reached for something.
A whoosh of warmth, of slick oil, of putrid rot, coated her head, blinded her, splashed heavy around her. She blinked, flailed, pawed at her eyes. A disposable glove, disgusting and slimy, flew off.
Chum.
The man had doused her with chum.
Sharks.
Hot panic flooded her veins. The sharks were awake, swimming below, their sense of smell activated. Get away from the chum. She ducked, back-paddled frantically. She inhaled tainted seawater, coughed, sputtered, surfaced, kicked out. Don’t kick. Movement attracts them. Something brushed her calf. Something solid, leathery. A white. She screamed, went down.
This is it.
Fight back. She scrambled for eyes to poke, gills to rip, her arms thrashing, hands groping, feet punting, waiting for the body slam, for the massive jaws to clamp her torso, arc into the air, rag-doll shake, to die a white death. But something had roped her. She couldn’t kick. Her foot was tangled, snared. Rubbery blades grabbed and wrapped her ankle. Strands encircled her. What the hell?
Seaweed. She was snared in a bed of seaweed. Kelp. It was all around her. Disgusting, massive, beautiful kelp. She ducked under, pulled her leg out of its grip, pushed up through the thick fronds.
When she popped up, she was facing the beach, thirteen, sixteen yards away. In silvery moonlight a figure ran across the beach to the parking lot. From the cold clutch of the kelp, Alexa watched headlights brighten the parking area and then fade up the hill. She put her face down in the black, kelpy water and stroked with every muscle, kicked free the last strands until she felt the whip-like tips relinquish, and stroked like a machine, until her foot—there, no, yes—touched bottom.