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I looked down at the lifeless body of my brother, already going cold. I could do this. I'd seen it on TV often enough.
I pulled him to the wall, where I could brace him up as I treaded water. I cleared my nose and mouth as best I could--my nose was running from the chilly water and I couldn't smell much, which was probably good because when I lowered my mouth toward Bryce's, I could smell the water, and it stunk like rotting fish.
My lips touched down on ice-cold skin. Ice-cold and spongy with teeth jutting through and--
I let out a shriek and yanked up. Fingers trembling, I cast a light ball. It took two tries, but finally, a penlight-sized ball of illumination appeared, just enough for me to see that I was holding the bloated and eyeless corpse of a middle-aged man.
I shrieked again.
I dropped the corpse and swung the light ball, searching for Bryce, but the water was so murky, I couldn't see my own hands a few inches below the surface. I dove.
I swam straight to the bottom and started feeling around. It only took a moment to find another body . . . and a cursory touch to its skin to know I'd located another corpse.
As I pushed away, my foot kicked a third body. I twisted around, reached out, and found an arm--with a warm hand and fingers.
I grabbed it and had started up when I had a mental flash of myself saving Anita, and leaving my brother lying on the bottom, dying. I touched the body's hair. Fine, short hair. Bryce? God, I hoped so.
I dragged him to the surface. My light ball was still there, waiting, and when I looked down, I saw Bryce's face. His pale and still face, no pulse of life.
I was bringing my mouth down to his when I heard Paige's distant voice. "Make sure the airway is clear first."
I pried open Bryce's mouth . . . and he convulsed suddenly, and his teeth chomped down on my fingers.
I yanked my hand away and held him steady as he came to, coughing and gasping.
"Where--?" he began. "Who--?"
"It's me," I said. "Savannah."
"Sav . . . What are you doing?"
"Trying to give you mouth-to-mouth resuscitation in a waterfilled pit. And sadly, it's not just a nightmare. You were sick and for whatever reason--probably delirium--I was the one you called."
He started treading water on his own, nodding as he remembered. Then he stopped and shook his head. "I called you on purpose. I wanted you and the council to see what they were . . ." He trailed off and looked up at the hatch, twenty feet overhead, then around at the black pit, then at me, treading water beside him. "Shit."
"Kind of."
"I'm sorry. I never would have gotten you involved if I'd known . . ."
"Well, you didn't like me that much anyway."
I said it lightly, joking, but the look on his face made me wish I hadn't.
"I don't know you enough to like you or not," he said finally. "That's my fault. Doesn't matter much right now. If I get out of this . . ." He coughed.
"We'll get out. Just don't try to bite me again."
"Bite?"
I lifted my fingers. "That's what I get for attempting CPR when I don't have a clue how to do it."
"I bit you? Did I break the skin?"
"Nah."
"Good." He exhaled, eyes closing.
"Unless you're a werewolf, I'm not worried about a nip. Though I have had a fight-bite before, and they are nasty, especially when you're swimming around in toxic soup like this. So, next step, get out of the toxic soup."
