Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,182

anxious energy and the drive to run away must have fueled the force of my pulls. Out here, it takes me more than a dozen tries.

When it finally catches, motor sputtering to life, everything happens too fast.

I realize too late that I’d cut the motor wrong. The throttle was never taken off, which means that the boat jerks instantly to life, hitching up as it races away. I fall forward, hip crashing against the side as I struggle to find my bearings.

I never do.

Stupidly, my first thought as I tumble over the edge is that I haven’t lit the fire yet. It’s a strange sense of inward-pointed annoyance—so inconsequential in the grand scheme—that it’s almost a relief to have it wiped away by my crash into the water.

The lake, I find, is nothing like the pool at Preston.

This water seeps through my layers of clothing in a shock of icy blades that I’m not prepared for. It makes my muscles lock up tight, and the weight of my clothes is just as unhelpful as I flail, trying to rise to the surface. I still remember that day in the pool when I sank to the bottom. The odd, ethereal way it felt to be suspended in its weightlessness. The glow of the blue. The quiet and calm. At the time, I hadn’t let myself find a foothold on the notion, but now I understand what was so fascinating about it.

It’s exactly how I’d wished death would be.

That day in my dorm, freshman year, when I’d put that rope around my neck and planned to end it all, it hadn’t been anything like that moment in the pool. It’d been full of panic and grief, a hopelessness so thick that I’d been desperate to break free, even at the cost of succumbing to it. It’d been, in the end, horrifyingly simple. But there was no serenity in it. No solace. No sense of peace.

There’s no peace here, either.

This murky, frigid water clutches me like an icy fist and I thrash against it, kicking violently. It takes me too long to see it for the useless, ineffectual sort of reflex that is. Somewhere through the blinding fog of panic, I try to call up Heston’s voice.

Get to the surface, Haynes. Head back, tits up.

I reach above my head and wrestle against the water, forcing myself to the surface. The air is almost as cold as the water and it feels sharp when I suck in a gasp, sputtering out a wet, hacking cough.

You want to know what wearing wet clothes does? It weighs you down. It tangles you up. For someone who can’t swim, it wants to see you fucking dead.

I sink three times while I struggle out of my jacket, my sweater, my shirt. With each layer lost, the cold bites into me with stinging teeth. By the time I’ve shed them, barely managing a frantic tread above water, my body is screaming with exhaustion.

If you’re ever in trouble in the water, you’ll need to be able to float on your back. It saves a lot of energy.

My body feels frozen solid, tense and shivering, but I try. I never really mastered the float, but I know I can do it for a while, if I just…

Get on your back. Relax your shoulders. Head all the way back. Take a deep breath and relax.

My chest hitches with painful, shuddered breaths as I float, teeth chattering. I just need to get my energy back, and then I can try swimming. The sky is a sheet of black, and the longer I stare at it, cutting my arms through the water, the less relaxed I feel. I wait, floating there in the dark, cold water, and nothing happens. I keep waiting and I never feel more capable of doing what needs to be done. This isn’t renewing my energy, I realize. It’s just saving the scant amount I have left.

There’s no way I’ll be able to swim all the way back to shore.

After what feels like hours, my skin feels numb from the cold, but everything else aches agonizingly with it. It’s hard to relax when you’re vibrating with shivers and slowly giving in to the panic that you can’t save yourself.

Doesn’t mean I don’t try.

Finally, I let my ass sink and clumsily spin, trying to find the effigy. I can cling to the pole and hope that someone notices I haven’t returned. Right?

But the Viking isn’t as close as I’d hoped, jutting