The blocks settle into the mud as Violet becomes free, lifeless in my arms.
I hook an arm across her chest, locking her against me, and kick for the surface with everything I have left.
It’s a mile. An eternity.
My vision tunnels to a pinpoint of distant, faded orange. Like a lantern light in the woods, guiding hikers home.
My lungs are collapsing, and my legs feel like lead. But I have her. I have my girl, and I’m not stopping now.
We burst into the air with a gasp that is more like a death rattle. I haul her backward, one arm under her chin, my other scrambling on the slick, wooden edge of the dock.
Ollie is there on her stomach, reaching with a mask of terror across her face.
“Grab her!” I roar, the sound tearing my burning throat.
Ollie’s hands close around Violet’s shoulders. Together, we haul her dead weight up and out of the water, onto the splintered planks. She lands with a sickening thud.
I scramble up after her, water pouring off me as my body shakes violently from cold and adrenaline.
Violet lies perfectly still. Her skin is a horrifying shade of blue, her lips are parted, and her eyes are closed.
She’s not breathing.
“No, baby, no,” Ollie chants, her hands fluttering over Violet’s face, afraid to touch her.
There is no time for gentleness. No time for fear.
I shove Ollie aside. “Where is the God damned ambulance?” My voice is a guttural command that leaves no room for argument.
Dropping to my knees, I tilt Violet’s head back, pinch her nose, and seal my mouth over hers. I breathe into her, forcing my own air and life into her lungs.
Her chest rises and falls.
Nothing.
I shift, lacing my hands over her sternum, and begin compressions. The rhythm drilled into me from a hundred team first-aid courses.
Thirty compressions. Two breaths.
The count is a metronome in my skull, the only thing keeping me focused on anything but the possibility that Violet hasn’t made it. That I’m too late.
Come on. Come ON!
Her body is so cold. So limp. I feel a rib give a faint, terriblecreak.I don’t stop.
Ollie is on the phone, screaming at someone in Italian as her voice cracks.
Thirty. Two breaths.
I breathe for her again, watching for any flicker. Any sign. But there’s nothing.
Just the pale, drowned doll on the dock.
You do not get to leave me. Not like this.
I start another set of compressions, bearing down with all my weight, my own breathing comes in ragged sobs that mix with the rhythm of my pounding hands.
“We are not some sappy romance book,” I hiss at Violet in between compressions. My eyes burn as I stare down at the one person I thought had cracked through my shell. The one person who had me opening up and becoming someone I always thought I could be.
