Dark and Shallow Lies(88)

I stumble again when I hit water, but I don’t go down. Li’l Pass isn’t so little any more. There’s no jumping it now. The water is up to my knees, and I fight the current to stay on my feet.

I see the bounce of his flashlight beam, and I hear Hart yelling my name again. Over the wind and the rain and the rushing water. And I’m not completely sure if I’m hearing him outside my head.

Or inside.

“Greycie,” he pleads. “Where are you? It’s me. Please.” His voice is broken, hoarse and bleeding. Like his throat is ripped open. Like all of him is ripped open. And I can tell he’s crying. But I don’t call back. I can’t let him find me.

Because if I do, he’ll kill me.

Just like he killed Elora.

Hart’s flashlight beam cuts through the dark again, and I drop down to my hands and knees in the middle of the storm. In the middle of Li’l Pass. My mouth is barely above the water, and I dig my fingers and toes into the mud to keep from being swept away.

The feeling is familiar, and I remember, too late, what happens next.

How I drowned the first time.

On my bathroom floor.

The bayou is flooding out. Water runs over my back and swirls around my ears. Deeper and deeper. I try not to breathe it in. But I have to breathe. I gasp for air and water rushes in instead. I’m coughing and gagging, and every time my body cries out for oxygen, all I get is water.

Panic stabs at my insides. It slices me up and leaves me in ribbons. I can’t see. I can’t think. I can’t breathe. I can’t – My throat is on fire. The water burns my lungs like I’m sucking in gasoline.

I lose my grip on the mud, and I feel myself being pulled along with the torrent. Tumbling. Spinning. Arms over head over knees or elbows. Mud in my nose. My mouth. My eyes. There’s nothing to grab on to. Nothing solid in the whole world.

And then it all goes black.

Peaceful.

No more fear.

Until –

Hart hauls me up by my arm – like I’m a catfish he’s pulling out of a pond – and I come roaring back to myself. I fight against him. I kick and I claw and I bite. I spit rain and mud and curse words. But he’s too strong, and there’s not enough life left in me. I’m choking. Fighting to breathe. Out of the water but still drowning.

“Goddammit, Grey.” He gathers me up in his arms. “Just stop.”

My head is pounding, and it bounces against his shoulder as he carries me through the storm. I vomit bucketfuls of water on to his chest. And I stop fighting then. I turn my face up toward the sky and wait for the rain to drown me.

Death in the water.

Just like Mackey said about Elora.

What does it matter if the water swirls and bubbles up from below or if it falls from the sky?

Water is water.

And dead is dead.

And when I’m dead, then what?

Will Hart leave me here for the gators?

Toss me in the river like trash?

Will they find me floating facedown in the drowning pool?

Like Ember and Orli?

Or maybe he has something even worse in mind.

Maybe, right here at the very end, I’ll finally find out exactly what he did with Elora.





Hart carries me all the way back to La Cachette. Then he sets me down gently. On the edge of the boardwalk. Right above the gator pond.

In the middle of a hurricane.

“Hang on!” he yells at me. And I wrap my arms tight around the piling. He squats down next to me. And I know exactly what he’s going to say. “Don’t run, Greycie!” he shouts. “There’s no point!”

He ducks and sprints for the front porch. And all I can do is watch him. I squint against the rain as he messes with the gas generator. It takes him a few minutes to get it going, but eventually the huge floodlight on the side of the house comes on. I blink and hide my eyes. It’s like the sun coming up in the middle of the night.

Hart races back in my direction. “What did you do with her?” I shout. “Just tell me where she is!” I think I’m crying again. And maybe he is, too. The rain makes it impossible to say. “That’s all I want to know!”

But he doesn’t answer.

He just kicks off his boots. Then he rips off his soaked T-shirt. And his jeans. The wind picks up his discarded clothes like they’re made of tissue paper. It whisks them away into the dark. And Hart stands there for a second. Almost naked. With the rain coming down in solid sheets and the wind tearing at his bare skin.

Then he starts to climb down into the gator pond. The water is already high. Over the bottom few rungs of the ladder. Water hyacinth clogs the surface. But Hart ignores the weeds and the muck and dives into that muddy pit. I try to scream his name, but the wind snatches the word and shoves it back into my mouth so I choke on it.

This is all new. I never saw this part. So I have no idea what’s going on.

Or what happens next.

I watch Hart’s head disappear beneath the surface of the water, and I imagine Willie Nelson’s jaws clamping down on his chest.

Teeth.

Nothing but teeth.

Teeth piercing skin. Then muscle. Then bone.

Hart comes up to take a breath and dives back down again. He’s down there a really long time. And I figure Willie Nelson really did get him. But then his head breaks the surface, and this time he’s pulling something toward the edge of the pond.