Page 376 of Eight of Swords, Part One

‘Yeah, I—’ Lachlan chokes on water, spits it and coughs. ‘I will.’ He selfishly moves towards the middle of the lake, just needs to know how it feels.

A half step pulls him under as he reaches the drop. The weight of the large stones in his pockets prevents him from bobbing up like the body of the man in the ocean. The man whose insides saw the sunrise, isn’t that funny?

Lachlan didn’t take a breath on purpose, and the darkness of the water is the most terrifying part of it all because he is so sure he’s about to see wide, gaping teeth any second now.

The opportunistic, indiscriminate hunger of a wild thing without peer.

A brief, strangling silence takes hold and there is relief, that much of his theory was correct, but no peace to be had because in the darkness he sees Roman by firelight and Mimi by sunlight and Blaire by screenlight and Savannah in the blue and Jules—

Jules is grabbing him, pulling him out.

Lachlan only hesitates for a second before kicking up and helping. They break the surface, but he’s instantly drawn down again by the weight in his pockets, clothes and boots waterlogged.

‘What the fuck are you doing?’ Jules screams.

‘Sorry,’ Lachlan chokes out, can’t even tread water. His boots make it almost impossible. ‘I’m c-coming. Go on, you swim back.’

‘No, I’m not leaving you.’

‘Jules—’

‘If you drown, so will I! I’ll drown too, do you understand?’

Oh.

Oh, he’s terrified.

God. What has Lachlan done?

‘No, no, sweetheart, I’m—I’m sorry,’ he utters, brow knitted. Lachlan kicks off his boots, lost forever to the bottom of the lake, and then with one hand he fishes out as many stones as he can, but a big one gets stuck. Once he can tread sufficiently, he kicks up into a confident swim. ‘Let’s go back.’

Jules clearly doesn’t trust him because he stays close to Lachlan the whole time until their feet hit the gritty shingle of the shore. Panting hard, Lachlan drops to his knees once they’re out.

He is intensely ashamed.

‘Sorry,’ he croaks on all fours. Jules’ hands are warm on him for a beat before they start moving aggressively, feeling Lachlan all over, no not feeling. Searching. ‘I’m sorry. I didn’t mean—’

Jules pulls out one of the bigger stones from Lachlan’s pocket.

No words follow his discovery.

They both just stare at it.

Lachlan spits lake water, furious with himself but paralysed in the moment by the weight of his indecision. Not knowing how to begin explaining, not knowing if there’s any point. He drops his head before he crawls closer to Jules, meaning to take the stone but the boy closes his hand to keep it.

Their eyes meet.

And then Jules slaps him.

It actually fucking hurts.

It’s not like Lachlan doesn’t deserve it and worse, so much worse. He’s just surprised by the power behind it. When he opens his eyes, he sees that Jules is shoving to his feet on the shore, sodden and silently betrayed, walking away to leave Lachlan there.

‘No, no, no, wait, just…’ Lachlan forces himself up, knees weak, head pounding. He grabs Jules’ hand to stop him and pulls him back. ‘Just let me explain, let me—’

Wheeling around suddenly, Jules attacks him.

There’s no other word for it. He literally jumps on Lachlan, hands flying, knocks him flat to the shore, straddling his chest. There’s emerging skill in his blows and Jules has fury on his side, but Lachlan still lets him, doesn’t stop him, doesn’t push him off even though he could. He’s hitting Lachlan open handed, just sort of mauling him, noises slipping free, grief-soaked anger and fury too damp to catch fire. He uses his hands to make Lachlan hurt, to say, look what you did, look what you fucking did!