There’s no sign of Kate.
Opal
She jumped.
Even as I pulled the trigger, I saw her leap over the side.
The next instant my bullet hit true, toppling Kendrick off the other side of the boat, which seems to veer slightly off course, straight for land.
She jumped.
Unless she managed to get out of her bindings, she is virtually helpless in the water.
The moment my brain processes the information, I drop my rifle from my hands, strip off my vest, and without a second thought, dive into the lake’s frigid waters.
I gasp at the cold when my head breaks the surface, but force my limbs to move anyway. I’m not a great swimmer by any means, but I’m no slouch and fueled by determination, although I regret not kicking off my shoes first.
Keeping my eyes on the tip of land the boat had been aiming for I don’t see the impact, but I hear the sound of an explosion and feel the vibrations in the water around me.
My focus is on Sawyer, and while making sure I stay on course, I also keep an eye out for any sign of her in the water.
I hope to God she is able to at least tread water and keep her head elevated, because no matter how hard I swim, that piece of land doesn’t seem to get any closer. My arms and legs burn with the effort, and my strokes get sloppier as my water-soaked clothes pull me down.
Under any other circumstance I might’ve given up, but this is Mitch’s daughter. If anything happens to her, he’ll never forgive me.
Hell, I’ll never forgive myself.
There.
Up ahead, maybe a hundred yards from me, I see movement in the water. Just a slight splashing.
“Sawyer!”
A head pops up and I can see her pale face against the dark water.
Clever girl. She’d been floating on her back, the splashing I saw probably the kicking of her legs.
Ignoring the cold creeping into my bones, I attack the water with renewed energy. It still takes me a couple of minutes to get close.
A quick glance at the shore shows we’ve still got a ways to go.
“Sawyer, I need you to roll on your back again. Use your lungs for buoyancy,” I tell her.
I’m having a hard enough time keeping myself afloat, the last thing I need is the girl desperately grabbing on to me, potentially drowning us both in the process.
When I see her do what I asked, I approach and tread water beside her. Even in the moonlight I can see her skin is pale and she’s having a hard time focusing her eyes. I can’t expect her to be too much help in her own rescue.
Underwater, my numb hands are fumbling with the buckle on my belt.
“Hey, Sawyer? I’m going to need you to hook your arm through my belt so I can pull you to shore.”
Dammit, hypothermia is getting to me as well. I’m starting to slur my words.
“Opal?”
I smile at her despite my chattering teeth.
“You’ve got it.”
Finally I’m able to pull my belt free and quickly help her stick her arm through the loop I created by slipping the end through the buckle.
“All you have to do is breathe, do you hear me?” I ask the girl.
Her faint, “Yeah,” will have to do.
Grabbing on to the end of the belt, I aim for shore. Long strokes with one arm and a kick of my legs, while I hold on to Mitch’s daughter for dear life, dragging her behind me.
Somewhere along the way my mind goes blank and my body functions on instinct alone, the drag in the water behind me like dead weight. I have no idea how long I’ve been in the water when I feel hands hook under my arms, dragging me ashore, but I don’t let go of the belt.
“Oh fuck, Sawyer…”
The agonized voice is the last thing I hear before I lose my battle with consciousness.
Mitch
“Air Evac chopper will meet us just outside of town. ETA is five minutes.”
I glance up at the EMT, who is hooking another bag of warm fluids on the IV pole.
Sawyer’s skin is almost translucent and her lips are blue against the mylar blankets she’s covered with.
If not for her slow heart rate showing on the portable monitor, I’d think she was already gone.
Kate’s condition had been only fractionally better as she was loaded onto the second ambulance.
It had been second nature to jump in the back of the ambulance with my daughter, but my heart ached not being able to be two places at once.
That had been the longest forty minutes of my life, waiting for the ambulances Matt had called to arrive.
We’d done what we could, stripping both of them down to their underwear and wrapping them in layers of our clothing. Two SUVs with Lexington agents had arrived, and we were able to get the women into the back of one of the vehicles, blasting the heat as high as it would go.
“Where is the other ambulance going?” I ask as I glance out the small window in the back.
The second rig is transporting Kate, with Pearl by her side. It’s been behind us all the way to Salt Lick and just turned right where we went left.
“Morehead. The other patient is more stable and she’ll be at the urgent care center in fifteen minutes or so,” the young man clarifies. “Your daughter’s flight to Lexington should take about the same time.”
But it’ll take me a fuckofalot longer, since I’ve already been told there’s no room for me on the chopper. One of the Lexington agents should be behind us to drive me to town since Matt has to stay and manage the scene.
I haven’t even asked who was shooting or what was found inside the house. The only thing important to me right now are the two people I care about most in this world.
The ambulance stops at the edge of a sports field, and I can already hear the sound of the helicopter rotors.
When the stretcher is pulled from the ambulance, I barely have a chance to kiss her cold forehead and tell her I love her, before she’s rushed toward the waiting chopper.
I watch it take off with a heavy heart, hoping like fuck I didn’t just kiss my girl for the last time. When I turn around the Bureau’s Ford Expedition is already waiting.
After a mumbled thanks and a nod for the agent, whose name I already can’t remember, I aim my eyes out the window as I replay the longest hour or so of my life.
When Matt caught up with me, I’d just tracked down Kate in the water. She was swimming away from the dock and I started running in that direction when his hand grabbed my shoulder.
“Easier to keep up with her if you run along the shore,” he’d pointed out.
A better idea than jumping in the water after her, which is what I’d been about to do. Chances would’ve been all three of us ending up hypothermic and in need of assistance, and not enough people to do the rescuing.
One look at Sawyer and I knew she was in trouble.
Kate was a powerhouse, having been in the water about as long as my daughter, she’d still found the strength to drag her almost all the way to shore before passing out.
My emotions are all over the fucking place. Anger still rushes through my veins when I think about the risk Kate took when she shot at that sick bastard—the bullet might’ve hit Sawyer—but at the same time I’m overwhelmed with gratitude she saved my daughter’s life.
Then there’s the guilt. Christ, so much guilt.