Finally, my toes brushed the sand, scraping roughly, and I pull Rose’s terrifyingly limp body onto the shoreline, tossing the buoy away from the two of us and settling for a second.
Her lips are blue and her lashes are dark and wet against her pale cheeks.
“C’mon, baby,” I plead, performing chest compressions and willing her to open her beautiful brown eyes. “Please wake up. Please, please don’t leave me.”
I hold her nose gently with my fingers and press my mouth to hers, blowing air into her lungs and breathing life into her chilled body. I feel hot tears stream down my cheeks, and I don’t care enough to wipe them away. This woman has filled my life with her affection and her beauty, and I don’t want to live without her.
“Rosie, open your eyes, baby,” I tell her, nearly begging her as I breathe for her.
Suddenly, Rose gasps out a breath, blinking open bloodshot brown eyes and pushing away from me to vomit into the sand, spilling water from her air-starved lungs. The relief and abating heartache that I feel can't be explained.
She coughs and gasps, and I fall back against the sandy shore once I realize that she is really and truly alive and breathing next to me.
Her body convulses and twists once again, and she vomits dark water onto the sand. I hold her tangled strawberry hair in one hand and wrap an arm around her and hold her against my side, relishing in the fact that I can still. I’m so very grateful that she’s still here with me.
“Grey,” she mutters through chattering teeth with a hoarse voice. She was shaking uncontrollably, no doubt scared and cold and wet.
I search desperately for the boat and my sister, a new terror filling me, and I hope that Natalie is safe on the boat still.
What if she fell off, too, and she drowned, or the men on the shore took her?
I’ll rip them all apart, rending them into tiny pieces that no one can find.
The lake is still and almost quiet but for the storm that has fallen over the water. Soft thunder crashes somewhere overhead, and frigid rain begins to fall in earnest, spilling over the water and the powdery sand on the shore. We can’t stay on the beach, Rosie needs warmth badly. I can feel the cold settling into my bones, leaving me feeling distinctly empty and raw.
“Grey,” Rose gasps out, coughing. She holds her ribs. “It hurts.”
I turned to her at the sound of my name, and my heart aches. I wish I could take the pain from her and make it my own, but it’s impossible to help her.
“I know, baby,” I say, cupping her cheek in my hand with gentle fingers.
She’s warm beneath my touch, and I’m so glad that she is alive to be here.
“The others?” Rose asks, looking hopefully out at the water around us.
I don’t want to ruin her hope, but I don’t plan to lie to her about anything.
“I don’t know where the boat went,” I answer honestly. I look around, pointing through the storm around us. “I’m not exactly sure what happened.”
“The Goblins,” she says, coughing out a breath. “You said that we were safe here.”
“I’m sorry,” I tell her, pushing every ounce of remorse that I possess into the words coming out of my mouth. “They must have followed us and then hung back.”
“It’s okay, Grey,” Rose gasps through a coughing fit, curling up painfully against my side when she can’t seem to stop the coughing. “It’s not your fault…Their fault.”
I nod at her words, even though her eyes are squeezed shut in her pain.
“Can you walk for me, Rosie, baby?” I ask her in an even voice, keeping my voice pitch high enough to be heard over the crashing rain around us.
“I can walk,” Rose says, always independent like she often seems to be.
She stumbles only once, clutching at her ribs on her side, before I catch her tired body, scooping her up gently into my arms. She’s soaked to the bone, and she’s freezing cold.
I promised her that I could keep her safe, and I plan to do just that.
“Never mind, I guess I can’t,” Rose says as she gives a weak huff of laughter and lets her head fall against my shoulder. She’s so very tired, it seems.
“I’ve got you, Rosie,” I tell her, pressing my lips to her damp hair and closing my eyes. She’s really here. She’s really okay, and she’s in my arms.
Rose is safe and sound. My heart felt like a vice, and now it loosens.
I put her in danger once again, but she’s alright now. Rose is still breathing.
There’s a roar of an engine, and suddenly, the boat turns the corner where the trees obscure the house from view. The vessel is moving at breakneck speed, and when whoever is driving sees us, they turn the boat in our direction.