Off the Deep End
Lucinda Berry
PROLOGUE
My eyes snapped open.
Pitch black surrounded me.
I can’t see. I can’t breathe. I can’t move.
Dark water pummeled me, violently shoving its way up my nose, into my mouth, down my throat—everywhere. So cold. Piercing pain shot through my body like a thousand needles stabbing every cell. Bleeding my insides.
Twisted metal shards.
Loud, angry cracks shattered and multiplied around me. Filling my ears like the rushing water. The blaring car horn.
Panic triggered a scream—Gabe!—forcing more water down my throat. I gasped and choked as I flailed and kicked, desperately trying to find him, but it was impossible. The dark water swirled and spun around me like an angry monster, pushing its way up to my chin and shoving me under before I had a chance to breathe. My chest seized.
I couldn’t see anything, the murky water thick with weeds. Dark shadows. The horn. Make it stop.
I frantically swiped at the water. He had to be here. He had to be. Don’t panic, I mentally shouted at myself, trying to conserve the energy I’d need to get us to the surface. I twisted left, right, back again. And then I felt something.
Fingers.
Reaching. Clawing. Scratching wildly at my arm.
Gabe! An inaudible scream so loud it blurred the edge of my vision. I reached for his hand and grabbed his wrist. He clung to me, digging his fingernails into my forearm. I jerked him and tried to swim up. Our heads cracked against the top of the SUV within seconds.
Gabe’s panicked grip tightened on my arm. I flipped the other direction and kicked at the window as hard as I could. Nothing. I kicked again. Then, again and again, using both feet, until it finally burst. Water rushed in like a just-released fire hydrant, and I clung to Gabe’s wrist until the torrent passed.
My lungs screamed at me to breathe, but I ignored them and pressed forward, desperately trying to swim. It was like swimming through sand, and I couldn’t see more than a few inches in front of me. The water was so hard to push through.
Which way was up? I frantically scanned left to right, up, down, but I couldn’t tell which way to go. There was no time. I kicked and swam blind. My clothes clung to me, weighing me down. My pulse throbbed in my temples. Yellow spots danced in front of my eyes. A kick and another scissor kick. One more. Two. Then, a final push and we were almost there. I could see the night sky.
I crashed through the surface of the water. Coughing. Choking. Gasping for breath. I pulled Gabe to freedom next to me with the last bit of strength I had left. He inched his way onto the ice and flopped on his side. I turned to look at him. My hair already frozen to my head.
It took a second for my brain to register what I was seeing.
Oh my God.
Gabe’s friend Isaac stared back at me with wide terror-filled eyes as he took huge gulping breaths. I pulled out Isaac. Oh my God. I pulled out Isaac. That was his hand. His body thrashing behind me. Gabe was still down there!
I shoved Isaac off me and hurtled headfirst back into the freezing lake water. Within seconds, the darkness covered me again. I plunged down, trying to make my way back to the SUV, but my muscles were mush. None of my body worked right. Marshmallow arms. Heavy legs. Insides on fire, but I wouldn’t stop until I found him. I pressed on, following the sound of the horn still coming from the vehicle. A few more seconds and I was there, feeling my way along the SUV, frantically searching for a door handle, but all I felt was slick metal. I tried to punch through one of the windows, but it didn’t budge. I banged on it with both fists, but it was like it was made of plexiglass.
Where is he? I pounded on the car again. And again. Why wouldn’t it break this time? I heaved myself against it. Still nothing.
Uncontrollable shivering seized my body. Teeth chattered so hard they bit the inside of my cheeks. The metallic taste of blood filled my mouth and dripped down my throat. My chest throbbed with the need to breathe, but I’d lost sight of the surface again. That was okay. Was that Gabe? Over there? Under that star?
Oh, look—there were fireworks. Now those were nice. Really nice. I liked the purple.
“I’m here, Gabe. Mama’s right here,” I called out, taking the water into my lungs and reaching for him.
Then, floating.
CASE #72946
PATIENT: JULIET (JULES) HART
What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That’s the happy horseshit he’s spent the last ten minutes trying to feed me as he sits on the other side of the small table in his tweed blazer with his carefully crossed legs. It’s the stupidest saying ever. Sometimes, what doesn’t kill you simply doesn’t kill you, and you spend all your time wishing it had. Escaping death isn’t any kind of a prize when you’d rather not be on the planet. But he’s trying to bond with me the way all shrinks do when they meet you for the first time. They can’t help themselves. It’s called building rapport, and it’s the first thing they teach students in graduate school. I should know—I used to be one, but that was another lifetime ago.
He pushes his clear-framed glasses up his nose and gives me an encouraging smile, about to ask me another question, but I jump in before he has a chance to do so. “What’d you say your name was again?”
“Dr. Stephens,” he says, not skipping a beat, “but you can call me Ryan.”