Page 78 of Wicked Games

The sound of their motor fades.

In shock, I scan what I can see of the water’s surface, but there’s nothing.

There’s nothing until my foot skims against something. It could be seaweed, or a fish, but I dive, knowing the chances are slim to none I found Avery.

I force my eyes open, but there’s nothing to see but black. I reach blindly, hoping to grab on to something—her hair, her hand—but all I find is water. My lungs are burning and I have no choice but to go up for air. I don’t know what I touched with my foot.

The water laps at my face, and I rub my eyes. I’m freezing, and I could die out here. I’m not in good enough shape to tread water until the sun comes up and I can find land or the cove near our houses.

I swim in the direction of where I thought I heard their boat motor.

My foot hits something solid, and this time, I know without a doubt it’s Avery. I dive, and when I reach out, her hair tangles around my fingers. I grab her arm and pull her to the surface.

We pop up, and sucking in a deep breath, I wipe my eyes. I focus on Avery, and what was left of my heart shatters. “Oh, baby.”

Her mouth is taped shut and her skin’s pale. She’s not moving.

While trying to keep us from sinking, I tug the tape off her lips and feel for a pulse in her neck. I’ve never checked to see if someone is alive before so I don’t know how it should feel, but her skin’s cold and there isn’t any movement under my fingertips. Her arms are tied behind her back, but there’s nothing I can do about that now.

I haven’t been out here for longer than twenty minutes, and we’ll need triple that before the sun begins to lighten the sky. There’s no way I can keep us both above water for that long.

Out of ideas and hoping against hope Avery isn’t dead in my arms, I swim.

I don’t know how long I’ve been swimming with my arm wrapped around her stomach when I make out some kind of shore through the fog. My mind’s numb, blanked out, because if I want to keep my sanity and get us home, I can’t think of what my life would be like without her. All I can picture are empty days trying to find peace at the bottom of a bottle and Violet crying at my feet, begging me to snap out of it.

It won’t matter how many times I call the hotline. I won’t survive this if Avery doesn’t.

An island takes shape through the mist, and relief washes through me. I know where we are. Standing on the dock behind our houses, I’ve seen this piece of land, the grey rocks and green pine trees. Those assholes didn’t go far, counting on the fog to keep them safe from sight. And unfamiliar with the lake, they might have been afraid of getting lost.

The shore’s craggy with rock, and the sharp stones cut into the bottoms of my feet. I barely feel it, carrying Avery to an open space and gently laying her down. “Sweetheart,” I murmur, brushing her hair away from her pale face. A bruise is blossoming on her cheek, and fury pours through me all over again, that one of those fuckers hit her.

She’s not breathing, and tears fill my eyes.

“Get it together, Lockwood,” I mutter, and tip her chin back. Clear the passageway, plug her nose, and breathe into her mouth. Her lips are like ice.

I remember the infant CPR lessons Brooke and I took when we found out she was pregnant. The other parents looked at us in surprise, wondering why a billionaire and his wife would need a CPR course. Like my money protected us from terrible things.

Falling into a rhythm, I do the chest compressions and breathe into her mouth. I’m not sure if I’m doing it right, but I have to believe doing CPR incorrectly is better than doing nothing. I keep a steady pace, and only Avery beginning to cough jerks me out of my stupor.

I roll her onto her side, and with a hand to the back of her head, let her heave the water out of her lungs. How long was she without oxygen?

Her arms are secured behind her with a zip-tie, and I try to wiggle my finger between her wrists. I don’t have anything on me that can cut the plastic, and reluctantly, I get up and search for a rock that will be sharp enough. There’s plenty of shale, and I rub my thumb against a piece, testing it. It will work.

I can’t saw through the plastic without cutting her delicate skin, and blood is running down her fingers by the time I’m done. They had the tie so tight there wasn’t a centimeter of space, and hurting her will be just one more thing that I’ll regret for the rest of my life.

When her arms are loose, she cries out, and I assume it’s from the circulation coming back. She’s dressed in only her thin pajama set, and she’s shivering, her teeth chattering. I’m not doing any better, my clothing drenched with the freezing water, but I help her sit up, lift her into my lap, and wrap my arms around her. Tremors shake her body.

Time seems to stop, the fog swirling around us. She’s alive, but I don’t know how long she was without oxygen and how much, if any, damage that caused.

I blow out a deep sigh as the sky starts to lighten, a hazy light pink and orange. We’re stuck until a fisherman comes by, unless, by some miracle, the boat I paddled out here didn’t float away. I don’t want to be an asshole and think about anything other than how Avery’s doing, but she needs to get warm, or on top of whatever brain damage I might have subjected her to live with for the rest of her life, she’ll catch pneumonia.

I push that aside. She’s alive, and that’s all I want to think about right now.

“Avery,” I murmur. “Sweetheart.”

“You saved me,” she says, her voice rough.

“Winnie woke me up and led me to the dock. I saw one of the boats was missing.”