CHAPTER 10
Octavia
My legs move before the rest of me catches up.
Water drags at my clothes as I force myself toward the edge of the pool, my limbs suddenly heavy and clumsy, like the cold has turned them to something untrustworthy. Someone reaches out to help me up, maybe Kadin, maybe someone else, but I barely feel it. All I can hear is the blood rushing in my ears as the jagged edge of panic scrapes up my throat.
The boy on the patio floor is on his side at first, body jerking violently, shoes scraping uselessly against wet concrete. His cup has spilled beside him, red plastic tipped over in a puddle of diluted liquor. A ring of partygoers has formed around him, but no one is doing anything except staring.
Kadin is the first voice that cuts through clearly.
“Call 911,” he shouts, spinning toward the crowd. “Now. Stop fucking looking at him and call.”
His voice is louder than I have ever heard it, stripped of all that easy warmth from earlier. One of his friends fumbles for his phone with shaking hands. Another girl is crying already, handsover her mouth, backing away like distance might make this less real.
In the pool, Cheyenne and Maria are frozen.
They haven’t climbed out yet. They just stare from the water, shoulders slick, shining under the blue lights, both of them wide-eyed in a way I have never seen before. Cheyenne’s mouth is open, but no sound comes out. Maria looks pale beneath the flush the alcohol had given her only minutes ago.
The whole world starts to stutter.
Noise surges, then fades. The music is still playing somewhere, absurdly loud, but it sounds far away now. The party lights keep flashing. Someone is swearing. Someone else keeps saying oh my God over and over again until the words lose meaning.
My feet hit the patio.
A sharp breath tears into my lungs, and for one awful second the night folds in on itself. I’m not here anymore. I’m back in that motel room. Back on stained carpet. Back with my mother’s body beneath my hands, the operator’s voice crackling through a phone I almost dropped.
No.
Not now.
The panic claws upward harder, threatening to split me open… then I see him.
Silas is already on his knees beside the boy.
Not hesitating. Not watching. Moving.
He has the boy flat on his back now, one hand braced at the jaw, the other checking for breath with quick, practiced efficiency. There is nothing chaotic about him. No trace of the drunken possessiveness from a minute ago. No sharp edge meant only for me.
He looks terrifyingly calm.
Like he has been here before.
Like his body knows exactly what to do even if the rest of the yard is crumbling into noise.
He starts compressions.
The heel of his hand presses down hard in the center of the boy’s chest, his other palm stacked over it, elbows locked. The movement is brutal, each compression measured, deep enough to make the boy’s whole torso jolt. Water drips from Silas’s soaked sleeves onto the boy’s shirt. His wet hair hangs into his face, but he doesn’t stop to push it back.
Something in me clicks into place at the sight.
The panic doesn’t vanish, it focuses.
Dropping to my knees beside him, the concrete stings through my skin. My breathing is still too fast, my heart still trying to break out of my chest, but the question comes anyway.
“What did he take?”
My voice sounds rough, thinner than I want it to, but it lands between us.
