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She trailed her fingers through the waves licking at her waist. “I think I’m getting hypothermia,” she said. “I’m not cold anymore.”
“Yeah, it takes me a while.”
Infuriating and cryptic. She glared up at him. “Why don’t you tell me what’s really going on with you, Chris?”
That derailed his amusement. His expression went dark.
She shoved him with the hand he was holding. “Come on!” she whisper-shouted. “I’m standing in water up to my ass because of you.”
He looked away, out across the water, then inhaled to speak.
But a gunshot split the air.
Her body reacted before her brain could. She’d dropped to her knees in the water, her breath shaking in the wind. The water swelled around her neck now, but she didn’t care. Her fingers were crushing his and she couldn’t convince her body to stop shaking.
That shot was the loudest thing she’d ever heard.
Then she heard it again. A bullet hit the water three feet to her left. She’d never seen a gun fired; she’d never touched a bullet. But the sound of the lead round entering the water was unmistakable.
As was the sight of Tyler, his feet in the surf now, firing in their direction.
“A gun. Tyler has a gun,” she babbled. “He has a gun. Chris. He—he has—he has—”
The fire drums exploded.
It was nothing like the grill. This was a full burst of flame, as if someone had poured gasoline on the drums. Wind grabbed fistfuls of fire, sending it dancing down the beach. The entire stretch of sand burned. She lost sight of Tyler and Seth.
“Hey.” Chris squeezed her hand so hard it hurt.
She was hyperventilating, choking on her own oxygen. Smoke, thick and sudden, clogged the air. She couldn’t look away from the flames. Had any kids been left on the beach?
“Hey!” Chris jerked her around. She stared up into his eyes, seeing the reflection of the inferno behind her.
He still had a death grip on her hand. “Take a deep breath.”
She inhaled and tasted fire. The water pulled back, sucking away from them the way it did on the beach at high tide, the kind of undertow that led to the big waves.
Wicked danger sparked in his eyes. “Now hold it.”
Water crashed around them, pulling her under, dragging her body beneath the waves. Chris still had her hand, but she spun in the darkness, losing sense of time, of location, of which direction was up.
Her lungs weren’t burning, but it felt like they’d been underwater for hours. Chris was pulling at her hand, dragging her deeper, towing her through the murky water.
How long could she hold her breath?
Everything was so black.
Did he still have her hand?
Her body felt foreign, heavy, a dead weight in a weightless atmosphere. How long since that last breath? Hours. Days.
Her body took over and she fought him, struggling for the surface, for oxygen, for freedom. She struck wildly, her limbs moving slowly underwater. She made contact and dug with her nails, flailing at him until he finally let her go.
She inhaled. Her lungs filled with water.
And the world went flat.
Chris Merrick was kissing her. His hands were buried in her hair, his palms burning against her cheeks. Sand shifted below her body and the stars danced above, bright like his eyes when he drew back to look at her.
