The Darkest Hour (KGI #1)(92)

After an agonizing, interminable amount of time, she stretched her legs, uncurling herself with extreme care. Her arm was stiff and swollen, and she could barely move it.

No way did she want to go back into the woods. They were waiting for her. They had the advantage.

The creek. All she had to do was go into the water and follow it to the lake. Hopefully she wasn’t too far. The water was shallow here, but she knew there were deeper pools in places.

She crawled from beneath the protective overhang and carefully made her way back to the water’s edge. Her instincts screamed at her to run, to barge into the water and wade as fast as she could downstream.

Instead she mustered all her strength and quietly slipped into the water. She waded to the middle, where it was deeper, and sank down, knowing it would be easier if she could let the current carry her. She was bone tired and in so much pain, she couldn’t walk much farther.

Rocks slapped her and cut into her knees and feet. She bounced along the bottom and it took everything she had not to scream every time her arm was jostled.

In places, it shallowed so much that the water was only ankle deep, and she walked over the gravel bottom, too afraid of leaving prints if she got onto the muddy bank.

How long had she been gone? It seemed like hours, but the sky was still pitch-black, no sign of dawn to the east. The water got deeper again and she sank tiredly down, only too willing to float for a while.

She rounded a sharp corner and sucked in her breath when she saw the inky black expanse of the lake spread out before her.

It freaked her out, the idea of going into the lake in the dead of night. The river channel ran quite deep, more than thirty feet in the coves, and out in the middle of the main drag, it reached depths of more than fifty feet.

Still, it beat the alternative. Anything beat being shot because Castle wanted her dead. A man who nagged at her memory but remained cloaked in shadows.

Tiredly she pushed on, rolling to her back and kicking her feet to propel her farther into the lake.

She was fast coming off the adrenaline rush, and shock was setting in. She needed to get to a safe place fast before she passed out.

Turning over, she struck out with one arm, holding the other close to her body. She kicked strongly, but she knew she looked like a crippled tadpole moving erratically through the water.

She focused single-mindedly on the main stretch of lake, determined to make it, to put as much distance between her and her pursuers as possible.

Numb to her toes, staggered by exhaustion, she made her way out of the cove to where she could finally see down the lake. In the distance, the lights on the bridge twinkled at her, mocking her. She had to laugh. That damn bridge, the one that had nearly killed her, now marked an impossible distance for her to travel.

Sam’s house was before that bridge. His property backed to the water’s edge. Would she recognize his dock in the dark? How far from the bridge was his house? The bridge seemed an interminable distance.

Two inlets? Three? For that matter, which was she in now?

Water lapped up over her face, and she struggled to keep her head above water. She was holding on by a whisper-thin thread. It would be so much easier to just roll over and let the water take her.

Insidious voices whispered in her ear. Some of them mocked her, told her to give up like a wimp. Others told her to buck up. Her family had gone through much worse. Ethan and all his brothers had been shot, injured, defied impossible odds, and here she couldn’t even manage a swim with a broken arm.

Ethan’s SEAL brothers would laugh their asses off at her.

She needed a SEAL—or three—right now. Or at least she needed to channel one. This would be a walk in the park to them.

Oh God, she was getting delirious.

It bolstered her spirits to realize that while she’d been carrying on a ridiculous dialogue with herself she’d made good progress. At least one thing was working in her favor. She was moving with the current.

Her first plan of action would be to find Sam’s house. Or any house. If that failed, she’d go for the bridge and pray she’d make it that far.

Too tired to attempt the motions of swimming, she turned on her back again and let the current take her along.

She kept her face turned toward the bank and scanned the shore, looking for anything that looked familiar. Lights beckoned in the distance. A house? Houses?

Clumsily she struck out toward the shore. As she got closer, the shape of a dock loomed in the darkness. Excitement took a little of her pain away. There weren’t many docks because of TVA regulations on new construction. Sam had owned his house for years and had purchased it from someone who had been on the lake for two decades.

Her toes dragged along the bottom and she dug them in, straining to get closer to shore.

Two docks. Did Sam live next to someone who also had a dock?

She shook her head. It didn’t matter if it was Sam’s place or not. She only hoped whoever lived here was home.

She slipped below the surface when she tripped over a rock. Every single movement sent tears of agony coursing down her cheeks. Finally she gave up on standing and crawled through the shallower water toward the dock. With her good hand, she reached up to circle her arm around one of the wooden posts supporting the dock.

For several minutes, she leaned her forehead against the wood and sucked in painful, sharp breaths. Her broken arm sagged against her. It hurt with each movement, and she wanted to scream in pain and frustration.