Page 186 of Because I Killed Him
My blood still clouds the water. The pain still burns through me. I’m seizing so hard my grip slips. I can’t hold Dickie anymore.
I can’t—
Then Edmund is there, swimming through the last of the piranhas with furious, desperate strokes. One arm hooks around Dickie’s shoulders, and the other around my waist as I begin to sink. I feel his raw strength, theshuddering force of his body, the brute will of someone ready to die, too.
“Loredana!” Edmund’s voice tears on my name as he pulls me close. “Loreda—oh, fuck.” His arms lock up, his breath buckling into a hoarse, grating sound as his eyes catch on the bleeding bite marks across my arms.
Above, screaming cuts through my dizziness. Charlotte’s voice, shrill and panicked: “Jack! Now! GO!”
Jack jumps into a hoverboat on the side deck and launches it off the yacht with a screech of hydraulics. The vessel crashes into the water, its nose rising as Jack drives hard and fast, heading straight for us.
Edmund swims forward, kicking with brutal force as he holds Dickie and me to his chest. He’s silent now, white as bone, his heart pounding so hard I think it might crack through his ribs.
When the hoverboat reaches us, Edmund hoists Dickie toward Jack.
“Take him—now!”
Jack catches Dickie’s shoulders and drags him aboard with a panicked curse. Then Edmund slants toward me, one arm hooking beneath my thighs. He moves like he means to be careful, but the instant he sees my legs, his body goes rigid, as if life is draining from him the same way blood is draining from me. I turn, trying to look, but he blocks me.
“No, Loredana. Fuck. Please—keep your eyes on me.”
Jack shouts over him. “Get her in! Ed, get her in now!”
Edmund shifts his hold to my waist and lifts me toward the hoverboat. Jack leans out, grabs my arms, and pulls. My body scrapes over the gunwale—splinters, paint, blood—but the pain feels distant, like I’m watching from the yacht’s deck above with the others instead of living it.
Inside the hoverboat, Edmund is no longer there to prevent me from seeing the damage the piranhas caused. My head drops, and when I see what’s left of me, I clamp up, paralyzed. My right leg is flayed open, like a half-peeled fruit. And my left leg… my left is nearly gone. It’s torn to the upper thigh, a tangle of raw muscle, shredded nerves, and green blood jetting in hard, arterial spurts. The white glint of bone shows through pink flesh.
The pain should kill me. Instead, my mouth opens in a scream that never escapes. My body convulses, then curls into shock so deep I can’t move.
“Loredana?” Jack’s voice is thin, terrified. “Loredana—?”
His head snaps toward Dickie, who lies blue-lippedand unbreathing. He drops to his knees and starts chest compressions. Tears blur his eyes as he mutters, “Come on, brother—breathe.”
The hoverboat rocks hard as Edmund vaults inside. Water streams from his clothes as he drops to his knees beside me, panting raggedly. He grabs my cover-up and rips off a strip in a single, savage tear. His hands, white-knuckled and slick with my blood, shake so violently he nearly drops the fabric.
When he wraps the cover-up around my thigh and yanks it tight, a shrill scream finally tears free, ripping out of me like a wound bursting open.
“I’m sorry,” Edmund chokes. “I’m sorry.”
He keeps twisting the knot tighter and higher until the bleeding slows.
Behind him, Jack is still counting, breathless and rasping. “Twenty-seven, twenty-eight, twenty-nine. Breathe!”
The hoverboat slams onto the side deck of the yacht with a scraping sound of wood. String lights spin above me in a dizzying whirl. Two Pinkies rush forward and seize the vessel, gripping the gunwales to keep it from pitching.
Edmund lays me flat on my back and elevates my legs, holding the incline steady. My blood is everywhere, on his arms, in his hair, across his face.
“Ed—” Jack’s voice breaks. “He’s not—he’s not breathing!”
Edmund whips around. A single look at Dickie’s still body folds his face. For one terrible second, he doesn’t move.
Then: “Switch!”
Jack scrambles toward me and grabs my legs, holding them elevated.
Edmund drops to Dickie’s side, plants his hands on his chest, locks his elbows, and starts compressions, counting in a low, cracked whisper. “One, two, three…”
He leans in, tilts Dickie’s head back, pinches his nose, and seals his mouth over Dickie’s. One breath, then another.
