“Am not.” Despite the denial, his expression was dubious as he eyed the reservoir.
“Thendo it.” Even as she spoke, Zoe’s stomach started to feel like she’d eaten something rotten. “Not just on the edge, though. If you’re really not scared, you have to walk…thirty steps across the ice.”
When Maya sucked in a breath behind her, Zoe almost lost her nerve and told Chase to forget about it. Before she could, he tossed down his stick.
“Fine. But I’m only going to do ten steps.”
“Bock, bock!” she mocked.
“I’m not a chicken!” he almost yelled. They both paused and looked around to see if they’d attracted any attention, but the main group had pulled in more closely around the dive van. Zoe, Maya, and Chase were a good distance from anyone else.
“Twenty-five steps.” As Zoe waited for his response, she made quiet clucking sounds under her breath.
“Okay. Twenty-five.” Flushing darkly, Chase checked the teachers again, but all the others were focused on Derek and the woman presenter. Chase made a wide circle around the crowd, heading toward the edge of the ice.
“You shouldn’t have dared him,” Maya whispered, grabbing Zoe’s gloved hand with both of hers.
“I know.” She thought she’d enjoy watching Chase fall into the water, but now she just felt sick. Swallowing the sour remains of her lunch, she kept her gaze locked on the boy moving closer and closer to the ice.
Chase turned and glanced at them, and Zoe’s nerve broke. She waved toward Chase, gesturing for him to return to safety. As if that had made up his mind, he shook his head and took a step onto the ice.
“One,” Zoe counted under her breath. His other foot left the rocky security of the beach and he took another step. “Two.”
Maya joined her in counting under their breath, each step feeling like it took an eternity. When they reached twenty-two, the band of fear around Zoe’s chest loosened slightly.
“Almost there,” she said quietly. “Twenty-three. Oh!” Her breath sucked harshly into her throat as she saw Chase drop to his knees. He turned his head to look at them, eyes huge in his pale face. For once, his constant smirk was gone.
“What happened?” Maya demanded. “Why’d he fall down like that?”
“I don’t know.” Her voice sounded strange—not like hers at all. She had to do something, had to help him. All at once he looked so pale and scared—not at all like the boy who constantly teased her.
But as she took a step closer to the reservoir, Chase dropped through the ice and disappeared.
* * *
It was completely unfair. Even in a ridiculous-looking neoprene onesie, Derek still managed to look hot. With the hood covering his short brown hair, only his face showed, but that was enough. His wicked smile and those eyes that couldn’t decide if they were blue or green still had the ability to reduce her to a pile of mush. The universe obviously enjoyed rubbing Artie’s long ago mistakes in her face.
When she’d noticed Derek standing by the reservoir with Callum Cook and a blond woman she didn’t know, Artie couldn’t react as she usually did to a Derek spotting—forget how to breathe and then run in the opposite direction. As badly as she’d wanted to scurry back to the bus and hide, she had to act like an adult. Derek didn’t make it easy, though, as he started the presentation, so tall and beautiful and adorably flustered. She’d forgotten how hopeless he was at public speaking.
After that rough start, Derek appeared to have found a rhythm and was actually out of the running for worst presenter of the year. He explained the steps of an ice rescue as he hooked a rope harness around his body.
“Once I’m in the water, I get behind the victim”—he stepped behind the blond woman who’d shakily introduced herself to the kids as Lou at the beginning of the presentation—“and loop this around her like so.”
Lou glanced at the half circle of students, looking nervous—and gorgeous. Artie wondered if she and Derek were dating and then immediately clamped down on that line of thought. Things had ended between them four years ago. As much as she wished it had been otherwise, Artie had no right to be jealous. None.
A child screamed.
In her job, she heard kids yelling a lot—while they were playing or arguing or pretending to be scared. This, though,thisscream was so truly terrified, life-in-danger, rip-her-heart-out scream that it made all the hair rise on Artie’s arms as her stomach contracted into a hard ball. Artie started running toward Zoe Springfield almost before she realized who had made that horrified—and horrifying—sound.
“Zoe!” She dropped to her knees in front of the girl, gaze darting over her, scanning for any visible injuries. “What’s wrong, sweetie? Are you hurt?”
“Not me!” Her skin was so pale it almost had a blue tint as she pointed over Artie’s shoulder. “Chase!”
Twisting around, Artie stared at the reservoir and a dark jagged hole about forty feet from shore. It took her a second to understand what that opening in the ice meant. When realization struck, her breathing stuttered, ragged and painful. Marnie ran toward them, her face white with fright. Artie’s gaze darted toward the panting teacher, breaking her stare that had been locked on that horrible, yawning hole in the reservoir.
“Zoe!” Artie whipped back to the girl again. “Did Chase fall through the ice?”
Zoe’s eyes were huge as she nodded. As soon as she had confirmation, Artie was stumbling to her feet and running again, this time toward the shore. Before she reached the ice, something hit her from the right with the force of a freight train. She staggered sideways and would’ve fallen if two arms hadn’t wrapped around her. Her eyes fixed on that dark hole, she struggled against the iron hold.
