I'll kill him for ditching us like this.
Brant grabs Nikki by the wrists, moving warily as he drags her to the edge of the swamp. When he gets near it, his eyes scan the ice, looking for a safe foothold.
"The ice won't hold you, you giant oaf." I warn him. "Just shove her out here."
He doesn't have to be told twice. I watch him heft her rigid body in his arms, grimacing as he brings her to his chest, trying to get the right leverage. And then he pushes her forward, launching her toward me. I can't move to catch her, which I suppose doesn't matter. She falls face first before me, the crunch of something breaking on impact. I don't stop to assess what it was.
Instead, I manipulate her, shoving her head into the water and watching as her hair spreads around the surface.
I can see her pale face through the water and chunks of frozen ice, so delicate, so beautiful. Her death is such a waste.
I heft her around the middle, lifting her so that I can feed her into the water, little by little.
Once I've got a grip on her legs, I drop her entirely and step back to more solid ground, watching as her body slips quietly below the surface.
The chunks of ice I broke stop bobbing on the surface, coming back together to close the hole I created. The temperature is supposed to drop another ten degrees by sunrise. Soon the ice will close back over her, and she'll be gone.
As far as the rest of the world knows, Nicolette Anderson walked out of the church on her own and disappeared.
No one will ever see her again.
Chapter 7
Nikki
"Hey,baby,"
The voice is soft and sweet, gentle and somehow musical. It's also warm... so much warmer than anything I can remember.
I'm comfortable for the first time in a long time, wrapped in a gauzy sort of peace that makes me never want to move for fear of losing it. But that voice isn't stopping, and when I think I've forgotten it's there, it speaks again.
"Come on, Nikki. Let me see those eyes."
Nikki.
Is that me?
I'm not so sure, at the moment. I'm not so sure I'm anything at all, at the moment. I'm weightless, buoyant... I could be floating.
"Come home to me, baby. It's time."
I don't know how I know that name, but I do. I know it in a place that is intrinsic— my soul recognizes it.
Everything here is white— not the starched, sterile and cold white of a hospital or sanitarium, but the gauzy, fluffy white of clouds and daylight breaking through them. But I don't see anyone.
"Hello?"
My voice sounds weird and echoey as I look around the vast, unending emptiness, searching for anything I recognize.
"Come on, baby. I've missed you."
The voice from nowhere teases at the edges of my being, a seduction of sorts. I don't recognize it, but I want to listen to it... to do what it says. I just don't know how.
"Where are you?"
He appears all at once, but it doesn't startle me. One moment I am alone in this prison of light and clouds, and the next, he's there standing before me... a man with the softest shade of brown hair and full lips tipped into a small smile. I don't flinch or move away from him when he reaches a hand between us and rests it on my cheek, his thumb stroking over the apple of it as he stares at me, his eyes searching mine for something. I don't know what it is, but he's easily the most beautiful man I've ever seen, so I stare back until memories slip through me of falling asleep with my head on his chest, twirling under his arm, kissing his lips, tasting him with my tongue.
"Noah?"
