Sarah leaned over, pressing her lips to mine. I let her kiss me, but when she lost her gloves and went for my pants, I swatted her away. She backed down, seemingly content to make out instead. When she reached for my dick again, it was harder to push her away. No pun intended.
“This doesn’t make me your boyfriend,” I said right as she palmed me through my jeans.
“Who asked you to be my boyfriend? It’s practice.”
I had mixed feelings. On one hand, it felt different with Sarah. Wrong. “Sarah, no,” I said, trying to let her down easily, knowing how sensitive she could be.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the voice I knew to be Luke’s growled from a few feet behind us.
“What are you doing here?” Sarah squealed, her hand jerking from my lap, looking like she wanted to disappear.
“What am I doing here?” he asked, incredulous. “I’m looking for you. The school called Mom. She and dad are both out looking for you right now. Saw your car and thought something happened to you. What the hell were you thinking?”
“She skipped school. She didn’t rob a bank. Give the girl a break,” I said as I stood to face him. His eyes zeroed in on my crotch and I looked down, noticing for the first time that Sarah had managed to get my fly down.
Shit.
I pulled my zipper up, and Luke’s face turned bright red right before he charged me. Before I could react, my back was hitting the frozen lake. My head hit the ice a second before his meaty fist connected with my face, and Sarah screamed for him to stop.
“What the fuck!” I yelled as Luke straddled my torso, gripping the front of my jacket.
“Are you fucking my sister?” he bellowed, landing another punch. Pain radiated through my face.
“Luke! Stop!”
He ignored his sister’s pleas, and we scuffled, rolling around, each of us fighting for the upper hand. I pinned him down, giving him one good hit before I stood to walk away. Luke swung his arm out and grabbed my foot. Reflexively, my arms flew out behind me to catch my fall. I heard rather than felt the snap. I knew before I looked that it was bad, and I was right. My forearm was bent in the opposite direction.
The sight of my arm bent at an unnatural angle, combined with the blinding pain that followed, had me gagging, but I don’t think Luke noticed any of it, because he was on his feet, coming back for more.
“I didn’t fucking touch her!” I shouted through the pain, using my good arm to scramble away, choking back the vomit in my throat. “My fucking arm!” I tried to tell him, but Luke wasn’t listening. He bent down, reaching for me again, but this time I pulled my knees back and kicked both feet into his stomach, sending him flying backward.
That’s when I first felt it. The ice wasn’t thick enough, and it splintered beneath us. It felt like it happened in slow motion, but in reality, we’d only been fighting for seconds. I tried to drag myself toward the edge, but my arm was fucking useless.
Luke yelled as the ice finally gave, and he gripped the edge. His eyes were wild as they locked onto mine. He started to hyperventilate, frantically trying to pull himself over the edge.
Sarah was sobbing now, running toward us, screaming her brother’s name.
“Sarah! Do not walk onto the ice. Call nine-one-one,” I instructed, and she halted where the snow-covered shore met ice, fumbling for her phone. “Luke, try to stay calm.” I kept my voice steady in spite of the excruciating pain that radiated through my entire arm. I remembered hearing somewhere that more often than not, it’s the cold shock that causes sudden death. Not drowning.
I knew I didn’t have long to act. I flipped onto my stomach, one-armed army crawling toward a thrashing Luke. Each time he tried to pull himself up, the ice broke off, submerging him even more. Once I was finally within reach, I extended my good arm—the right one—and told him to grab it.
His hand gripped mine, just like we did when we arm wrestled many times before, and I gritted my teeth, eyes squeezing shut as I mustered all my strength to pull him out.
“Get me out, get me out, get me out!” Luke chanted, completely panicked as I got his top half above water. He lifted a knee onto the ice, and before I could so much as blink, it cracked, giving way under his weight, sending us both under.
The cold was something I never could’ve prepared myself for. It took my breath away, and my heart sped up so fast I thought it would burst out of my chest. I paddled my way toward the surface, using the top half of my broken arm like a wing, as I kicked my feet. As soon as I broke through, I gasped for air, looking around for Luke.
“Where is he?!” I didn’t get an answer. Sarah was wailing, so full of fear and despair that I knew I’d never forget the sound if I lived to see another day. I tried to calm my erratic breathing, knowing that staying calm was crucial, while also knowing it was futile.
Sarah dropped to her knees, digging around in the snow-covered ground, looking for something. I could feel time slipping away, and I did the worst thing I could’ve done in that situation. Taking a deep breath, I dove back in. I opened my eyes underneath the water, searching for any sign of Luke. I moved under the ice, hardly seeing a thing, but finally, I made out a large blurry form.
I went back up for one more deep breath before going back under, moving to Luke as fast as I could. My body felt heavy, but my adrenaline kept me going. Before I could reach him, he started to sink.
No. No, no, no.
Summoning the strength and speed I didn’t know I had, I jetted toward him, managing to clench the hood of his jacket with my fist before he slipped out of reach. I was slow, so fucking slow, pulling him to the surface. His weight threatened to pull us both down and my lungs felt like they were going to burst, but somehow, I managed to get back to the hole we fell through.
“Dare!”
I heard Sarah’s muffled screams as I got closer to the surface, and when I finally broke through, she was lying flat on her stomach with a long branch extended toward us.
I heard the sirens, and I knew I just had to hold on a little bit longer. I tried to push Luke’s limp body onto the ice, but I only succeeded in tiring myself out. I felt like I was fading. Shutting down. Like my life was slipping away. In a last-ditch effort, I clutched Luke’s head to my chest and hooked my broken arm over the branch. I struggled to keep us both above water, my eyes closing, my muscles giving out.
“Just a few more seconds,” I told Luke.
And those were the last words I’d ever say to him, though he never heard them.
Lo’s sniffling brings me back to the present. I can’t meet her eyes, afraid of what I’ll find. “What happened after?” she asks, her voice a broken whisper.
“I don’t remember,” I say truthfully. “I passed out right as we were being rescued. They tried to revive Luke, but…” I clench my eyes shut, shaking the images of his lifeless body out of my mind. “They took me to the hospital, fixed my arm, and treated me for hypothermia for a few days.”
“Dare, you have to know—”
“Here’s what I know, Logan,” I interrupt, the harshness in my tone causing her to flinch. “I know that I delivered the kick that sent my brother, for all intents and purposes, into that water. I killed him. It’s a fact. There is no gray area here, so stop looking for one.” There’s no other way around it. I killed him. I took another life. I stopped a heart from beating.