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I shook and had no strength but I dragged Neri up and rolled her onto her back, keeping her face pointing toward the sky as I brushed aside her sodden hair.
“Breathe, Nerida. Take a breath!”
Nothing.
No cough.
No spasm.
“FUCK!” I coughed and swam for the staircase. Keeping my arm wrapped around her upper chest and beneath her arm, I did my best to keep her head out of the water.
It took absolutely everything to climb the four steps into the boat.
Every muscle screamed.
Every bone fractured.
I grunted as I turned and hoisted Neri out of the water, dragging her onto the boat, not caring that her one-piece was torn around her hip where I’d hacked with the knife. Not caring that her legs got caught on the railing on either side of the stairs.
The moment she was on her back, I shot to my knees, brushed away her hair again, and did what Jack had taught me to do. The first-aid course he’d made me sit through a year ago. The dummy he’d made me practice on when he’d taken me down to the local school for safety training—just him and me.
I let instinct take over as I pinched her tiny nose, tipped her chin up, and planted my mouth over hers.
I exhaled as much as I could, filling her chest before rocking on my heels and taking my own much-needed breath.
I pressed my lips to hers again, exhaling every part of my life into her.
Fisting my hands, I found the right placement on her fragile chest and sank all my weight above her heart.
One, two, three, four, five—
Fuck!
I had to give her more air. Her lips were an awful shade of blue. Her cheeks sallow and cold.
Pinching her nose again, I forced air down her throat.
Another one.
Sweat burned my eyes as I returned to compressions, hard and cruel, not caring about bruising or breaking. The heart was too well protected. You had to use force to reach it.
“Come on, Nerida!”
Pinching her nose again, I bent over her.
Her lips were ice cold as I fed her air.
I reared back to breathe.
I bowed over to feed it to her—
Her body jolted upright, her shoulders launching off the deck, her ribcage flying upward.
She choked.
I rolled her immediately onto her side, swiping away her seaweed clinging hair and thudding her back.
Seawater spewed out of her mouth.
