Undertow (14 page)

“Well, maybe you shouldn’t provide him with so much alcohol!” snapped Raef, angry. He dropped to his knees beside me. “Please tell me you’re okay,” he asked, putting his arm around my back and slowly helping me to sit up.

I drew another deep, grateful breath, “Yeah, I’m fine, but I think I left a permanent indent of my butt in the sand. He weighs a ton!” I nodded to the unmoving mountain in the sand. “Is he okay?”

“Eila, who cares?” asked Raef, a raw rage barely contained in his voice. “He almost . . .” He drew a deep breath and his body seemed to actually vibrate with anger.

“Actually, he tripped and fell on me, and then got other ideas,” I said, trying to calm Raef. His dark intensity unnerved me and I placed my hand on his forearm, trying to soothe him.

“Well, he’s passed out now,” said Jesse, oblivious to Raef’s iron glare. “And he’s not
that
type of guy. He’s going to feel like an ass in the morning. Well, if he remembers.” He looked over to Raef, “I know you would rather leave him here for the sand fleas, but the tide is going to eventually come in and he may not wake up before then. Can you please help me get him to his house? It’s the third one down, past mine.”

Raef looked down the beach, his body so tense I could probably bounce a nickel off his arm and have it ricochet a mile. “Why don’t we just drop his molesting ass in
your
house, since you provided the booze?”

“And have him puke all over my mom’s furniture? No way!”

Raef leaned next to my face and spoke quietly, the anger darkening his eyes, “Are you
sure
you’re okay?”

I nodded.

He sat back and wrinkled his nose, “Is it him that smells like a brewery . . . or you?”

“I’ve been drenched in his Bud, unfortunately,” I replied.

A muscle in Raef’s jaw twitched. For a moment I actually thought he wouldn’t mind killing Ted, and worse, capable of doing so.

He seemed to reign in his rage as he got to his feet and walked over to the linebacker, who was snoring. “Let’s do this,” he said tightly. Together they managed to stir Teddy enough to get him to his feet and dragged him towards his house.

I watched them disappear into the darkness. This evening had not gone quite according to my hoped-for plan. I sniffed my shirt and the powerful smell of beer emanated from it.

Yup, I was definitely Eila, because this was my type of luck.

I decided to run back to my Jeep and grab the smell-free sweatshirt that was on the backseat. I got up, barefoot, and jogged back along the beach and past the throngs of classmates, cutting through the dunes once again. I hopped up onto the boardwalk and started to walk back to the parking lot.

Unlike the beach that was in full party mode, the boardwalk was now deserted. The wind blew in gusts that were cold and raw across the salt marsh, and I was looking forward to getting into a dry top. 

As I approached the bridge, I saw that there was another partygoer headed my way. I dutifully started to walk farther to the outer edge of the bridge and its low railing. As the figure approached, however, my instincts started to stir and the hairs on my neck rose. I slowed, but the figure kept coming.

He was tall and slim, with a baseball hat and a young man’s stride. I didn’t think I knew him, but it was hard to see anything in the colorless moonlight.

I told my gut that I was just freaking myself out, since I couldn’t recognize him and we were all alone. I told myself that the incident with Teddy had made me more edgy of figures heading my way in the dark, and this kid, most likely, was harmless.

Most likely.

And then a frightening thought came into my mind: that the beach and the crowd were too far away to help me if this guy was not so friendly. I started to speed up, thinking that if I could just get to my Jeep, I’d be fine.

Soon we were both nearing the top of the bridge and my instincts were screaming, but it was too late. Just as I was about to pass him, he reached out and in one powerful move, knocked me over the railing.

I tumbled from the bridge, striking my ankle against a piling as I fell and hit the black water, back first, before I could even scream.

The impact with the river knocked the wind out of me and the brutal cold felt like a thousand shards of glass. I plunged deeply into the water, swimming recklessly in the thick blackness, disoriented as to which way was salvation.

I pulled with all my might toward what I hoped was air and reached the racing surface, gasping for breath. My muscles were seizing from the frigid ocean temperature and the current was mercilessly dragging me away from the bridge.

I was coughing and retching from the water I had inhaled, but I still managed to yell for help. I was fighting the powerful current, trying to keep my head above the icy depths. I yelled again glancing toward the bridge and caught sight of someone racing along the boardwalk.

I watched, stunned, as he climbed the railing and jumped.

I heard him hit the water and then there was silence for a moment. My body was starting to weaken in the biting cold, but I continued to fight, my desperate pleas becoming softer. Then I heard him in the night, calling my name. Raef.

“Eila!” he yelled from somewhere in the river.

I opened my mouth to call back to him, but just as I did, something grasped hold of my leg and hauled me down into the blackness.

It dragged me under, toward the river bottom, and I willed myself not to bend to my screaming lungs and pure fear. I kicked with my free leg furiously, but did not seem to connect with anything. My chest started to burn, the instinct to breathe soon to overthrow my will. I was going to drown, and my desire to live made me flail at the creature that was dragging me.

But then suddenly whatever had me started to jerk, back and forth, swirling the wat
er around me. As if it was having some sort of spasm.

It released me, but the rip current was now dragging me far from hope. My lungs had hit their limit when something clutched desperately at my arm and hauled me to the surface. As my face broke through the water, I gasped for air.

Raef pulled me to him and held me fast, grasping me tightly to his chest. “Eila! Breathe! Do you hear me? Breathe!” he commanded, a reckless, wild fear ringing clearly in his voice.

I drew a deep, sputtering lungful of the night air as relief ran through me. His powerful arms wrapped defensively around my frozen body, one strong hand wedged between my shoulder blades, holding me upright.

As he heard me draw another, life-giving breath, he pressed his icy cheek against mine. He whispered, quietly in my ear, a word of thanks to a greater power, as his voice cracked slightly.

I forced myself to control my chattering mouth, well aware that something may be in the water with us. I managed to breathe the warning into his soaked hair, my body vibrating from the violent shivering. “Sssomthing’s in the waterrr.”

“Not anymore,” he replied darkly, but my frozen mind couldn’t process his words. He swam quickly through the current to the edge of the river, towing me effortlessly in his arms. He tried to get me to my feet on the riverbank, but I crumbled under the throb of my ankle.

“Can you stand?” he asked, latching onto my waist to support my weight.

I shook my head. “Hit my ankle,” I gasped. 

He instantly gathered me into his arms and I clutched him tightly, as he ran along the river’s edge back to the parking lot and my Jeep.

It was as if I weighed nothing. I never knew he was so strong.

I felt exhausted, succumbing to a fatigue that I never knew existed and my chest seemed tight. I was shaking so badly that I thought my teeth would break.

Raef ripped off one of the soft-sided windows from my 4x4 and reached through to unlock the door. He set me down on the passenger seat and I wrapped my arms around me, trying to contain the little heat my body was vainly attempting to produce.

Raef climbed in the other side and looked at me shivering uncontrollably. “Strip down to your underwear. Your clothes are going to speed up hypothermia,” he instructed, handing me the blanket from the backseat. I started to strip, too freakin’ cold to be self-conscious.

“Where are your keys?” Raef demanded urgently, as he searched my soaked jacket. I pointed toward the river, my shaking preventing me from speaking clearly. Without hesitating, he grabbed the drive column just below the steering wheel and ripped the cover off, hot-wiring the Jeep to life in mere seconds.

He looked at me and reached over, stroking the back of my neck, as if to let me know he was going to make it all right. He then grabbed my cell phone from the
glove box and called Ana, letting her know what happened.  She told him to meet her at Dalca’s house, as she was there catching up on some reading.

Slowly, my body started to warm, just trembling in spurts. Within a few minutes, Raef had turned onto Main Street and pulled into Dalca’s house.

It was only then that I started to feel it - a burn that was starting to claw at my leg.

A pain unlike anything I had ever felt before.

10

Raef carried me quickl
y
through Dalca’s backdoor and into the kitchen, stopping at the table to hook one foot under the chair nearest us and pulling it out away from the table.  Gingerly, he sat me down in the chair, keeping my left leg in his arm. 

He reached for the empty seat to his side and looked up to Ana, who had rounded the kitchen entrance, a pillow in her hand. Raef took it and in one smooth movement, tucked the pillow under my leg and rested both on the chair.

As gentle as he was, my face betrayed my outward stoicism and I winced at the burn, still twisting itself around the wounded ankle. It was as if someone had branded my leg, then continued to drag a burlap rope around it.

The sensation was brutal.

Raef, kneeling next to me, didn’t miss the flash of pain cross my face. “I should never have left you alone,” he said, furious at himself.

“It’s not your fault. I decided to go back to the car. How would either of us have known that some lowlife was going to be such a jerk and send me for a swim,” I said, wrapping the old blanket tighter around me. He was right about getting out of my wet clothes as fast as possible. I had warmed up fairly quickly now that I was down to just my skivvies and a fleece blanket. Raef, however, was still in
ice-cold apparel.

“You really should get changed,” I said, amazed he wasn’t shivering like I had been. “You’re going to catch pneumonia. Maybe Dalca has something here.” I looked to Ana, hopeful as my leg started to throb harder.

Ana rolled her eyes, “Oh fine. I think Dalca left some stuff here for me to bring to Goodwill. Let me go look.”

She disappeared around the kitchen doorway, and I could hear her footsteps heading up the staircase to the second floor. I looked back down at Raef, who was still kneeling next to me. “Thanks, by they way, for jumping in after me.”

Raef reached out and caressed my cheek with his wide hand, “Always, Eila. Always.”

Just then Ana came in with a t-shirt and jeans. “Alright, Michael Phelps, here are some clothes. Now strip.” Raef turned to Ana who was holding out the clothes.

“We need to take a look at Eila’s ankle. She said she hit it falling into the water. And . . . there was also
something
in the water with her,” he said, looking almost . . . dangerous.

Ana’s normally flippant demeanor was crossed with a fleeting shadow of fear. “Good thing you were there,” she replied slowly.

It was strange, but I had a sneaky suspicion that they had a shared idea of what hauled me down into the frigid channel.

Raef pulled the soaking t-shirt over his head and I gasped. He spun around, “What? Are you alright?” he asked, worried.

“Uh, yeah. But YOU aren’t!” I reached out to touch his flawless physique that was now marred by a deep gash on his back, but he turned deftly out of my reach. His move to avoid my touch surprised me a little.

              Ana leaned over and inspected Raef’s back and then glanced at him, her jaw tight. “What? I didn’t feel it!” Raef said defensively.

She looked over to where I sat. “If you don’t mind I need to take your personal lifeguard upstairs where I have a first aid kit. Can I borrow him?” There was a sparkle in her knowing eye and I returned her gaze with a half-hearted look of death.  She knew I liked him, but it was mortifying to have her flaunt it in front of him.  Of course, I thought he liked me too, since he did jump into 55-degree water to save me, sea creature and all.

“We need to call her,” said Raef, apparently not listening to Ana about the Band-Aids.

“I will, but you need to be fixed first,” said Ana, her eyes darting to me for a moment.

Finally Raef followed Ana out of the kitchen, “I’ll be fine Eila.” Oddly enough, I heard Ana mumble something under her breath. It made no sense, but I could have sworn she said, “
Speak for yourself.”

In the silence of the kitchen I suddenly felt very alone. My ankle was starting to really burn, and I knew I must have seriously raked it on the side of the boardwalk. I had no desire to look at the damage yet however, as I tended towards squeamish when it came to my own blood. I took a deep breath, attempting to shake off the pain.

What I could not shake off, however, was the feeling that something far more dangerous than a seal or squid was in the water with me tonight.

I started to replay the events of the evening in my head. Of walking back to my car via the narrow, elevated boardwalk. Of approaching the bridge that spanned the channel and realizing I had to pass that kid.  I remembered my danger instinct switched to red alert, but I thought I was just insane. I should have listened to my screaming, internal alarm.

I remembered the water was like breaking through ice, the cold physically burning and sucking the air from my lungs. I remembered looking up to the bridge to see Raef running to the highest point to jump to me.

And then something bit me. 

No, that’s not right
.

I searched for a reference point to the sensation. It wasn’t a bite.
A bite would involve sharpness, right? Teeth
? It was something else. Something completely different.  My leg started to flare even hotter. The pain was starting to become unbearable.

Just then, Ana appeared followed by a dry-clothed Raef. Ana had a few
Band-Aids on her lower arm. “What happened to you?” I asked her.

“I slipped while cutting the gauze for Raef. It’s nothing,” said Ana. “You, however, don’t look so grand. I’m calling Dalca.” Ana moved a tad quicker than I would have liked. Her urgency made me nervous.  She hurried out of the kitchen and I heard her cell phone dialing.

Raef pulled a chair over to me and sat down. He looked very concerned. Too concerned. I was certain they knew something that they weren’t sharing.

I was about to pry the information I sought from them, but was waylaid by a razor-like shot of pain.  Instinctively I drew a sharp breath through my clenched teeth. “Jeeze, my ankle is just about on fire,” I said with a shiver that was more from the memory of being dragged under the water than my body temperature.

“It burns?” asked Raef, now alarmed. “I thought you said you hit the wooden boardwalk when you fell.” He leaned forward to start quickly unwrapping my leg from the red, tattered blanket.

He looked toward my face for a moment as he worked, his
expression a mix of concern and . . . pain? No, not pain. Self-torture. His eyes, such an incredible shade of cobalt, seemed to try and free me from the pain. Even in my agony, my heart tripped over itself at the sight of him and his gentle touch on my cold skin. I tried to control my face, but the burn was simply too much, and my eyes started to pool with tears.

As his fingers brushed near the top of my thigh his voice became fast and serious. “Ana! She has been exposed. She’s been . . . poisoned,” said Raef, his eyes on my leg.

Poisoned?
I looked down and was horrified to see red cracks slowly extending up from the wound. They were actually lengthening
while
I looked on.

I’m not sure if it was pure panic or the sea creature’s intense venom, but my heart started to race and the room began to spin. I closed my eyes to try to offset the dizziness, but with each passing second it became more difficult to breathe. Some invisible force was crushing my chest.

“Eila?” I heard Raef ask, then swear sharply. “Eila! Can you hear me?” 

I felt his hands on my face and I finally forced my eyes to open, but I gasped, terrified at what I saw.

The blue of Raef’s eyes had turned to a merciless black once again.

Adrenaline flooded my body and I tried to push away from him and his
otherworldly glare but I was so damn weak. He looked away from me for a moment, and when he turned back, his eyes were blue. 

Holy crap, I was really losing it.

My head was spinning and now apparently hallucinating once again. I couldn’t breathe and the room was fading away from me. I could hear Raef pleading with me to respond, but I couldn’t. 

“Ana, hurry! It’s spreading into her blood stream!” I could hear the alarm in Raef’s voice, followed by Ana demanding how it was possible that I wasn’t already dead.

WASN’T ALREADY DEAD?
What the heck!

I was hearing things. Seeing things. My mind was a lying fog of confusion.

I was exhausted from the cold water, from the burning pain, and from my body battling back some strange poison. I fought against unconsciousness, but I could feel my body start to slide sideways from the chair. Raef called my name again as his powerful arms snatched me into a tight embrace, holding me desperately against his warm chest as the darkness overtook me.

*  *  *  *

Someone was speaking in whispered tones. At least, I think that’s what I was hearing. It was hard to concentrate through my slamming headache and as I slowly woke, I realized I was tucked into a bed.

Cautiously I opened my eyes to a ceiling that was strewn with branches and crystals. The sun brought a soft light into the bedroom, which was decidedly
not
mine.  How long had I been asleep? Where was I?

As I searched my memory for the pieces of what had happened to land me in a strange bed, the horror of the night before came racing back. I heard the voices again and slowly turned toward the sound, my eyes slits against the sun, which seemed to scream through my head. I could feel something moist wrapped around my leg and as I moved something cool slumped forward over my eyes. I grabbed at the damp cloth that had slipped off my forehead and the voices came to an abrupt halt.

Blinking once again, I saw Raef and Kian by the door. They had been talking to one another, but now they were both looking at me. Realizing I was awake, Raef’s expression radiated sheer relief.

He turned back to Kian briefly. “I’ll be down in a bit,” he said and Kian left, shutting the door behind him.

Crossing the room, Raef reached out and touched my cheek and forehead, as if checking my temperature. He sat slowly on the edge of the bed and softly took my hand, turning it over to feel my pulse. I watched him carefully. Cautiously.

He glanced to my face then back to my fingers, “Your fever finally broke. How do you feel?”

I didn’t answer and pulled my tingling hand gently from his warm palm. Something dangerous happened to me last night and I had strong concerns that Raef was involved, and not just in a lifeguard capacity. Suddenly I wasn’t so sure I knew Raef O’Reilly at all. In fact, I wasn’t so sure I knew anything anymore.

Raef watched me as I moved away from him slightly, but I was quickly reminded of the damage I sustained in the dark water under the boardwalk.  My entire leg felt like it had endured a supernova sunburn, but compared to last night, it was a vast improvement. 

As I edged away from Raef, he shook his head, as if ashamed. “Eila . . . I’m sorry. I should have been with you. I forgot for a moment. Who I am – who we are – and I was careless. It won’t happen again, I swear to you. I just . . .”

I interrupted his plea for forgiveness, “Something was in the water last night. You know what it was . . . don’t you?” Time seemed to freeze and Raef nodded. “What was it?” I never asked such a loaded question in all my life.

Raef cleared his throat, “What do you remember of last night?” 

I watched him carefully as I answered. “Most of it.”  Unfortunately. “I remember being pushed. Being dragged under the water by something damn stronger than a jellyfish. You . . . saving me.”

I shifted slightly, my mind playing vivid flashes of the night. “Was I hallucinating or did I see what I think I saw? In the kitchen and the locker room?” I needed answers but was uneasy with the truth that may be lurking.

Raef answered quietly, “You weren’t hallucinating.”

“Your eyes changed color,” I whispered, the memory of his dark pupils expanding outward and swallowing the blue replaying in my mind.

“As did yours,”
he replied calmly.

WHAT?
No way. Not possible.

I was definitely stuck in some way-too-realistic nightmare. I rubbed my face furiously, as if I could dig my way out of the obvious insanity.

Raef gently pulled my hands from my face and leaned in slightly, “Would you like to see what
you
can do?”

I froze. Panic, fear
, and excitement were twisting through my chest. I wasn’t so sure I wanted to know.

Raef got up, retrieving a hand-held mirror from the nearby bureau. Thanks to the interesting décor, this had to be the living quarters of the Crimson Moon.

He sat down next to me and flicked his head signaling me to come closer and I slid carefully next to him. While his eyes may have changed, I believed his heart to be true. I trusted him. It was that simple.

Our faces, close together, looked back at us in the glass. “Don’t be afraid,” breathed Raef, the words caressing the side of my cheek with prickling electricity.

I turned to reply, but the words halted in my mouth. The blue of Raef’s eyes were slipping away into the black centers, like quicksand into the abyss. It was absolutely mesmerizing and darkly elegant.