Page 136 of Scarlet Wars
I kicked hard, arms cutting through the black, lungs screaming for air. Something brushed against my leg, slick, alive, andwrong.
Thanks to the Radicals last year, I’d seen enough snakes for one lifetime, thank you very much. Eels could join that creepy little club of slippery motherflappers.
I never swam so fast in my life.
I thrashed, kicking faster, until my fingertips broke the surface and I sucked in a mouthful of river and night.
By the time I stumbled into the shallows, my limbs were shaking and my throat burned from swallowing half the river. Mud sucked at my boots as I crawled onto the bank, coughing, blinking against the dark.
The forest loomed ahead—black on black—but I ignored it. My eyes scoured the river instead.
No movement. No head breaking the surface. No Caden.
Surely, he swam faster than me.
Then a sudden dread sliced through my chest.
What if he hadn’t made it up? What if the blast had knocked him out before he even hit the water?
I didn’t even hesitate. Eels or not, I spun back toward the current, heart hammering against my ribs hard enough to bruise, plunging headfirst into the freezing dark in search of the man who…wasn’t there.
The current seized me instantly, dragging at my legs with brutal hands. The cold knifed through every layer of skin, carving straight to bone. I forced my eyes open underwater until they burned, the world dissolving into shadow and silt. River grit filled my nose, the taste of oil and rust coating my tongue until it felt like blood.
Then, a flicker.
A blur of motion downstream. A shoulder, a sleeve, a flash of familiar skin.
“Caden!” The scream tore out of me, half-breath, half-prayer, before the river swallowed it whole.
I swam harder, pushed past the burn in my lungs and the fire in my muscles with the kind of frantic strength that only comes from terror.
There was only one reason he wouldn’t be swimming, one possibility that hollowed me out as I forced myself deeper into the water, and the image of Caden—still, unconscious,gone—was the last thing my mind could bear.
I kicked harder, every stroke a silent plea. My eyes burned from the silt and cold, but I refused to blink.
Then my hand caught fabric. His jacket.
I latched on and pulled, my fingers sliding down to the solid weight beneath, but the moment my hand closed around him, a violent jolt went through me.
He wasn’t moving. Not fighting. Not even breathing. A cold, lifeless weight in my arms, his body rolling with the current like he’d already surrendered to it.
And in that instant, it wasn’t the river that froze me, it was the sick, soul-tearing thought I might’ve found him too late.
An overwhelming panic clawed at my throat.No, no, no?—
I hooked both arms around him and kicked for the surface, my lungs already screaming. His body dragged against mine, while the river pulled him back every time I gained an inch. My muscles burned, but I refused to let go.
We broke the surface in a violent gasp.
I forced myself to stop fighting the river and turned with it instead, twisting us sideways as the current surged past. I slid behind him, arm locking under his shoulder, hauling his chest against mine, tipping his chin up just enough to keep his mouth clear.
“Stay up,” I gasped, whether to him or myself I didn’t know.
The river hurled us downstream, rocks slamming into my legs as I fought to steer toward calmer water. By the time my boots hit mud, my body was numb with exhaustion. I let the current carry us the last few feet before stumbling into the shallows.
I half-dragged, half-crawled him out of the river, using the slope of the bank and what little strength I had left, collapsing beside him in a heap of water and shaking limbs. My breath came in ragged bursts, uneven in the cold night air.
His face was too pale, lips gone blue, water sliding from his hair in cruel, unhurried streams that traced the lines of a face I couldn’t lose.
