She swung the gun back toward the bloodied ice upon which Bea had lain only a moment ago. She was gone. Had someone collected her, or had she gotten up and sped away?
Grumbling, Camilla rammed the barrel of her gun into my neck. “Come the fuck out, Liam, or the next bullet’s for Nikki!”
The ice shifted beneath my feet. I tried to look down, but Camilla’s gun was keeping my head tipped back.
“You win, Camilla. I’m coming out.”
He was bluffing. He had to be bluffing.
A tall, broad figure materialized in the darkness of the forest, stark naked. Camilla snapped the gun off my chin and pointed it at the body.
“NO!” I screamed.
Now!
She fired.
The bullet hit its mark.
Blood spurted.
The body listed.
Toppled.
I screamed.
The ice webbed beneath my feet.
Split.
I fell backward, splashing into the frigid water, and sank like an anchor.
Chapter 61
Isnapped my mouth shut, trapping the measly amount of oxygen nestled inside my lungs.
The image of the blood spraying from the naked male coupled with the shriek of the bullet made me convulse.
The chain around my waist jangled.
The cuffs too.
The surface glittered with sunlight and shifting sheets of ice as we drifted downward.
How deep was this lake?
Camilla twisted behind me, her helmet biting into the back of my skull. Tiny air bubbles fled my nostrils as something brushed against my legs—a fish, pondweed? Metal clicked, and then the weight digging into my waist slipped off when Camilla untied us. I imagined it wasn’t to save me.
Sure enough, the second we hit the sandy bottom, she propelled herself away from me, tossing off her helmet, which fell like a bowling ball next to my leg and raised tongues of gray particles. She tried to grab the shotgun strapped to her back, but her movements were clumsy and slow, made even more so by her heavy jacket and Kevlar vest.
My lungs squeezed. Soon, they’d start burning, and the countdown to their emptiness would begin.
I set my teeth and stared upward, past my hair which floated like dark seaweed around my face. I estimated the depth was thirty-something feet. All in all, not insurmountable. If I pushed off the sand and wriggled like a worm on Speed, I could probably surface in under a minute, but I’d have to get going now.
Something landed beside me—the shotgun. Camilla saw me peer at it. Probably thinking I was going to seize it, she flipped around and swam for it, fingers already outstretched. Perhaps I should’ve gone for the gun, but bullets didn’t travel as accurately or speedily in water as they did on land. Not to mention, I could hardly rack a shotgun with bound hands.
I stared at my cuffs and then stared at the girl within my reach.
