Page 172 of Death is Familiar

I clung to the walls to avoid being swept into the writhing mass of bodies, all pulsing against one another to an obscure slowing beat. Sweat dripped down my bodice. The heat was verging on unbearable, but it would be over soon. I just needed to hold out a bit longer.

Observing the swarm from the periphery, I spotted Fawzy towards the middle of the fray, getting all sorts of vamp attention. She was a natural, and when it came to the ceremony, I was sure she’d do just fine. Everyone else would just have to play their parts.

Skirting the edge of the room, I worked my way back towards the terrace doors for a bit of fresh air. I was so close I could almost feel the breeze, when an arm draped around my waist, and tugged me against a firm form. I fought off fight mode just long enough to sense lips at my ear. The reverberations of a familiar voice. “Dance with me.”

Spinning in Jack’s arms, I placed a palm on his thrumming chest. His shirt was unbuttoned, his hair mussed, skin glistening with sweat. The music was slowing…the people around us crowded so close to one another it was hard to tell where one person ended and another began. Lenore was nowhere in sight.

I still had time.

“One song.”

No sooner were the words out of my mouth than all of me was pressed up against all of Jack. Anywhere else I would have been worried about our posture and proximity, but here, here we were blending in.

“You’ve been getting yourself into trouble.” Jack squeezed the hand I held against his chest, the pulse of the bass throbbing through us both.

Tipping my head up, my lips graced the shell of his ear. “I don’t know what you mean.”

“You’re telling me you got this by accident?” He drew a thumb over the bite mark on my neck.

I shrugged. “Carmen was hungry.”

Jack drew a languid line up my spine. “Observe and report, Delilah. That’s the job.”

“I observed…” I pressed my chest flush with Jack’s. “…a lot of attention from the apothecary staff after Carmen had her snack.”

“If you’ve been observing, as you say, then you wouldn’t mind pointing these staff out, now, would you?”

Crap. He had me there. If I’d been observing, and only observing, I would have each of the suspects marked, and I’d have been able to give Jack their coordinates relative to landmarks in the room. Something he knew quite well.

I took my time, slithering my hand up Jack’s chest, rising on my toes, pressing my cheek into the stubble at the side of his face, ready to⁠—

Strobe lights flashed.

The world slowed down, broken apart by the bright pulsing beams. Whatever I’d planned on saying evaporated on my tongue as Jack and I reared away from one another, scanning the crowd. Only catching glimpses between light and darkness, then⁠—

SPLASH!

My stomach dropped. Shit. Shit. Shit.

Both Jack and I knew exactly one person who was prescribed anti-seizure medication, and he routinely failed to take it.

The strobing lights, the accompanying splash, could only mean one thing: Todd was having a seizure. And had fallen in the pool.

Jack and I exchanged one fleeting look before charging our way through the stop-motion crowd and onto the patio.

My heart stopped.

In the center of the blood-red pool was Todd. His body thrashing, rocking waves that crashed over the edges. People were shouting, staring, just fucking watching, as Jack and I pushed past.

Todd was seizing. In water. And no one was doing anything.

I saw red. I saw Todd. And the rest of the world fell away.

It didn’t matter that I was wearing a dress. It didn’t matter that I was carrying a passenger. It didn’t matter that Part Two of Operation Divide and Conquer was not going to plan. There was only Todd. And he needed me.

Somehow, I found myself in the water, chest-deep, fighting the buoyancy of my stomach and the resistance of my dress, as I waded to Todd and wrapped my arms around his convulsing form. Keeping Todd’s head above the water, I did what I could, tugging him with me to the edge, and into Jack’s waiting arms. Once Jack secured his grip beneath Todd’s shoulders, he hoisted Todd out of the pool like he weighed nothing, water splattering over the cobbled stones.

“Lie him on his side!” I shouted, trying to find my own way out of the pool. Without seeing any steps or ladders, I settled on the beached whale technique, pushing myself up and over onto my side to avoid letting the base of my dress drag me back down.