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He instinctively reacted, and he had 0.5 seconds to be very proud of that before the bottom slid under his feet as the canoe tipped the other way. He didn’t have time to recover. He’d jumped backward, and so when his feet slid, he also tumbled backward, flipping the entire canoe with him.
CHAPTER EIGHT
DAPHNE
Daphne hit the water. Her first thought was no thought at all. The shock of the cold slammed everything from her brain. That lasted only a moment. Then water closed over her head, and she was five again, shoved into the deep end, the water closing over her head.
I can’t swim!
That was what she’d screamed then, water filling her mouth and lungs. It was what her brain screamed now.
I can’t swim.
No, it was okay. She was wearing a life vest. She always wore one, even in this calm lake, because she couldn’t swim.
Then a memory flashed. Climbing onto the canoe without a vest, too embarrassed to say anything. It was just the lake. She’d be fine.
She was not fine.
She told Chris that she’d steer near the shore for a better view. That was a lie. She’d wanted to stick to the edge because it was shallow. Yet she hadn’t reached that yet, and her kicking feet touched nothing below.
Go up.
That was what the swim instructor taught her, the private one her mom hired trying to at least teach her water safety, but Daphne had been so terrified she hadn’t made it past the second lesson. Still she remembered this much: get her head up and tread water. She could tread water.
Chris was there, somewhere, and the film crew was watching. She wasn’t going to drown. Just get her head up—
Her head struck something hard. Panic flared. She must have gotten turned around, gone down instead of up—
No, she had gone up. She knew that. Something was over her head, pinning her down. She reached up and her hands whacked into something smooth and curved.
The canoe. She was under the canoe.
She smacked her fists up. The canoe was fiberglass. It wouldn’t sink. She should be able to breathe under it. But if there was a gap of air, she couldn’t find it and her lungs burned, her brain screaming that she needed oxygen, needed it now.
She punched again, as if she could propel the canoe up, but her hands only smacked against the fiberglass. If she couldn’t touch down, then she couldn’t get the leverage to push the canoe up.
Swim out from under it.
How?
She tried to corral her thoughts, but they ran wild, her lungs ready to explode. She was five again, under the water, screaming, the world going black—
Something grabbed her. The current, weeds, something pulled her under. She screamed then for real, water filling her mouth and then—
Light. It was suddenly light, and she could breathe, gasping in mouthfuls of air.
“I’ve got you,” a voice said.
Warm arms tightened around her.
“I’ve got you.”
Chris.
I’ve got you. Her eyes filled, tears scorching hot against her freezing skin.
“You’re okay,” he said. “We’re almost there.”
