Something slithers around my wrist.
A familiar, eel-like tentacle.
A demon squid from the deep.
It tightens and pulls.
I scratch and claw, my scream escaping in bubbles, my coat tangling around me as I scramble desperately for the surface.
A hand plunges into the water.
I reach for it.
With everything I have, knowing it’s my only hope. My only chance at survival. I’m running out of oxygen. I’m running out of time. My brain screams for air. Our fingertips touch as instinct takes over and I inhale. Ice floods into my lungs and the world fades to black.
37
THE ANTI HERO
Iwake up under a mound of heavy warmth, feeling disembodied and profoundly exhausted. The simple act of opening my eyes feels like an impossibility, so I don’t even try. I just lay very still, basking in the softness. But then, I must breathe which makes me cough.
Coughing hurts.
With a groan, I pry one eye open. I make out vague lines and shapes in the glow of a crackling fire. I try to clear a path through my foggy brain, to remember where I am and how I got here, when all at once, the memory slams into me.
Caleb fell through the ice at the quarry.
I bolt upright.
My head throbs.
The room spins.
My hair is wet and I’m hardly dressed.
Horrified, I clutch the comforter to my chest. I’m wearing only my camisole and my boy short underwear.
“Good evening,” a familiar voice drawls.
I turn to see Rafe sitting in a leather armchair, its high back casting a long shadow across the room. He holds a glass of bourbon in his hand.
I clutch the comforter tighter.
I’m in Rafe’s bed.
In nothing but my undergarments.
Altogether, the ensemble reveals no more than an outfit in the throes of a summer heatwave. Still, the thought of Rafe peeling off my clothes has a tsunami of heat flooding into my cheeks.
“Don’t worry. I didn’t see anything new.”
“Where are my clothes?” I demand, or try to demand. My voice is hoarse. My throat, raw. I sound like someone recovering from a nasty case of laryngitis.
He gestures to a dressing screen near the fireplace, over which my clothes have been draped.
My attention darts around his room. I’ve been in it before. With Jude, in fact. At the time, I was so focused on finding the stolen page from Mistress Bramble’s codex, I didn’t pay it much attention.
Now, however?
