Deep Betrayal

You know she’ll end up dead in the end.”
    “Good!” he said, spit flying past my face. “If I can’t bewith her, no one can. Besides, we don’t belong with their kind. You don’t know how they mess with our minds. Not yet anyway. I’m doing you a favor. I’m putting you out of your misery.” He dragged me a few feet to the right and grabbed the length of chain from the ground.
    “No, Jack. Don’t! Pavati. She’s there.” I was gasping. Tears distorted my vision.
    “She wants to be with you,” Sophie said, pulling at Jack’s fingers around my arm. “She came. She just can’t get close to you when you’re like this. Calm down.”
    “Shut up! Shut up! You’ve learned to lie too well.” He yanked my body, tossing me off balance. “I suppose he taught you how to do that.” The chain looped around my neck and shoulder. Sophie closed her eyes and pulled at his elbows, but he kicked her aside.
    Jack shoved the cinder block into my arms and pushed me closer to the edge of the rock. I planted my feet and refused to move. I tried to sit down, but he was too strong.
    “I never meant to kill anyone,” Jack said. “Connor was an accident. I kept him down too long. But then … at least that got people’s attention. For a while. Brady and Chief Eaton—they were easier. People can’t keep thinking it’s an accident forever ! But no. You wouldn’t even side with me when I grabbed one of your own friends.”
    “Your mind is clouded, Jack. Open your eyes. Open your eyes! Pavati’s there. Do you see her?”
    “Shut up!” he yelled. “There’s no one down there.” I bent my knees, trying to anchor myself to the ground, but he grabbed me under the arms, lifting me off my feet.
    For the first time I focused on the water, so clear I could see the bottom despite its great depth. Pavati stared up at me from the sand, through the rippling water, her eyes red with grief, her mouth open in silent disbelief at Jack’s confession.
    “Pavati, do something,” Sophie yelled. “Now! It’s your only chance!”
    But Pavati was frozen, an icy pillar beside the underwater cliff face. If Sophie’s invocation registered in Jack’s mind, he didn’t show it. If he saw the object of his desire in the water below, the damage was already done. My feet slipped, and I slid closer to the edge. There was no hope now. Had there ever been?
    I squeezed my eyes tight and two large tears rolled down my cheeks. When I opened my eyes, it was just in time to see a blue angel burst from the waves, sailing through the air, arms outstretched. The most amazing sight, equal in both beauty and terror: Pavati arcing against the sky. She threw her arms around Jack as she rose over us, then turned, returning to the water with him, Jack’s face glowing with fervent obsession.
    Somehow, in that balletic maneuver, I was knocked off balance. One second I was mesmerized by beauty; the next, the world tilted on its axis. It was just one
staggering
        step, but
                    now
         I
         was
         falling.
    Adrenaline raced to my brain, setting it abuzz—the chain still wrapped around my neck, the cinder block heavy in my arms. Stupidly, I clung to it like a life preserver. Above me, Sophie was watching. She was always watching.
    I counted the seconds until Calder would save me: One Mississippi. Two Mississippi. Three Mississippi …
    Jack, finally appreciating he was in the arms of his beloved, burst open with an enraptured light even I could see. I heard Pavati’s mental gasp and then, overcome by starvation, she spiraled him to the bottom of the lake, crushing him to her until he was no more.
    Eight Mississippi .
    Nine Mississippi .
    Ten …
    I cried out, and a torrent of icy water rushed my lungs, drowning out any oxygen I might have been able to preserve. The seconds stretched out between my heartbeats, which slowed, then stuttered.
    Twenty Mississippi …
    Sophie screamed, her voice piercing the water.
    Twenty-three …
    Twenty-four …
    Twenty-five …
    The voices of all my family, some merely imagined butothers real and very close, called my name: Mom from the porch steps. Calder and Dad and Maris in the water. Pavati’s sated sigh. Sophie from the rocks.
    A high keening burrowed like a dentist’s drill through my brain and out the top of my head. I called for someone—anyone—though no words escaped my lips. Instead, from my open mouth