Devil Incarnate (Boys of Preston Prep #4) - Angel Lawson Page 0,183

out of the water far enough away that my stomach plummets at the thought of clearing the distance.

I’m losing to the black hole of hopelessness when I hear it.

A voice.

Frantically, I spin, keeping my head above water just long enough to howl out, “Help!” I sink back into the water, but force myself to fight against the stinging and exhaustion, breaking the surface again. “Help!”

The voice that answers isn’t just a barely comprehensible garble of sound anymore.

It’s him. “Georgia!”

“Heston!” I get so excited that I forget to reserve any of my energy, flapping wildly in the direction of his voice.

Take a deep breath and relax.

Heston will come to me. He will. But he can’t do that if I end up sinking to the bottom, too wrung out and tired to fight anymore.

It takes everything I have to make myself go still, tipping up to float on my back again. I can’t hear him anymore when I’m like this, the world cut off to me once the water covers my ears. But I still call for him.

“I’m over here!” I yell, hoping like hell he can hear me.

At some point, my chattering lip wobbles. All of this is so fucking stupid. I hate this goddamn lake. I regret not forcing Bass to come with me. The effigy was dumb. I could have just burned the memory card in the bonfire. Now I’m facing a watery grave because of some idiotic sense of theater.

The tears have just begun warming my cheeks when I feel a surge of water nearby. I jerk up to look, paddling frantically at the sight of Heston swimming toward me. “Heston!”

“Hold on!” His long arms chop through the water, bringing him closer and closer, until we finally collide. The first thing I do is latch desperately onto his neck, and I’m surprised to find the water rise over our heads. I feel his grunt, legs bringing us to the surface with a strong, powerful kick. “Let go,” he gasps, prying my arms away. “You’re panicking, you’ll take us both under. Let go and relax.”

It hurts to slip away from him, back into the icy water, but it hurts more to hear the breathlessness in his voice, to know that he’s probably almost as exhausted as I am. So I do it, peeling my arms from his neck and sinking.

He’s there in a flash, grabbing me around the chest and dragging me with his kicks toward the shore. I reach up to grab his arm, but otherwise let myself go limp, lost to the chilled embrace of the lake.

For a second, it doesn’t even feel cold anymore. It just feels like nothing, only Heston’s jostles and grunts serving to remind me I’m not suspended in space. I only rise to awareness when he stops suddenly, panting silver plumes of breath above my head.

“The boat’s coming.” He sounds relieved, adjusting his grip on me. “Just hold on, okay? Georgia?” The only response I can give is a weak nod, my jaw completely locked. He spits a curse and starts moving us toward the distant sound of a motor.

The motor moves closer though—that godforsaken fucking motor—and then a light is shining on us and Bass is calling out, “We’ve got you!”

“Take her,” Heston tells him, arm hooked over the side of the boat. It’s only then that I notice how hard he’s shaking, struggling to keep me clutched to his chest.

Sebastian reaches for me, pulling me out of the water and over the lip of the boat. It should be a relief—a moment of victory—but I don’t allow myself to feel anything but worried until Heston heaves himself into the boat with me. I watch as Bass grabs his leg, helping him over, and then Heston collapses, panting.

“Get us back to that fire.”

But Sebastian takes his coat off first, throwing it around my shoulders, and it’s only then that I notice Caroline is with him, staring at me with enormous eyes.

“Are you okay?” she asks, looking stunned and frightened.

I’d answer, but the motor roars to life, and then we’re zooming across the surface of the lake toward the fiery glow in the distance. I reach out to clumsily tug on the sleeve of her coat instead, hoping that she understands what I’m asking.

She sort of does.

Caroline hurries out of her coat and sweeps it in the air, tucking it over my shoulders. Jerkily, I pluck it away, trying to turn to cover Heston with it. “Oh!” she says, bounding forward to