I felt it again.
The pull of the lake. It was like a magnet, a song that only I could hear. The urge to go to the shore, to allow the icy lances of the waves grab at my flesh and chill me to the bone, was massive.
I don’t know why, but I had a connection with Lake Loch. Almost as if the body of water and I were friends. Or maybe enemies.
Either way, we were close. The lake played a large role in my life, as if it were a person, a character I knew. It spoke to me, took from me, gave back to me.
All I knew was when it wanted something, no matter what it was, I was powerless to fight it.
I was hard pressed to carefully slip out from beneath Amnesia. Her bare, silky skin directly upon mine was almost more powerful than the summoning of the shore. I could roll over, press her body into the mattress, and bury myself in her liquid heat just as I had the minute we stepped into this room just a few hours before.
But I was intrigued. Intensely so. There was always a connection with the water, but nothing like it had been the night I found Amnesia.
The night the lake gave me back my heart.
A hollow pit formed in my belly, a feeling I remembered well. Back when my heart still belonged to the sea and the hollowness owned my chest, how it echoed with the sound of emptiness, reminding me day in and day out of what was missing.
The feeling scared me. Scared me more than almost anything, because it was the feeling of loneliness. The feeling that perhaps the lake changed its mind and wanted to take back what it had gifted me.
Friend or enemy?
After tugging on a pair of sweats, I stood at the side of the mattress and stared down at my heart. My gift from Lake Loch.
Please don’t take her away from me.
Moonlight shone through a small gap in the curtains, a slice of silver streaking over her, illuminating her short hair, making it glow. Her skin was creamy and pale in the dark, her body still curled toward where I’d been, her cheek resting against the pillow.
Cross my heart.
Hope to die.
You will be forever mine.
I turned away, left the bedroom silently, and moved through the familiar darkness. I would abide the pull of the lake tonight if for no other reason than to deny whatever it thought to take back.
Even though the temperature outside was cold, I went bare-chested. My feet were also bare. I felt the first slap of wintry air as I stepped off the porch into the grass, more like tiny ice daggers than the green, friendly carpet.
After the initial shock of my skin meeting the air, I forgot about it. Tightened nipples, contracted muscles, and blowing hair—I ignored it all and stalked across my yard down toward the black, ominous water.
The whistling of the wind flew past my ears. My hair tugged fiercely away from my face and forehead as if it were trying to pull me back into the comfort of my house.
Go back, it warned.
I kept moving forward.
The moon hung low tonight, partially blocked by dark clouds but visible enough to shine a spotlight that stretched out over the water, highlighting the way it churned rather portentously. The trees all rustled, leaves scattering the ground pushed and pulled in various directions.
A few stars shone overhead, but not enough to make an impact. Not enough to draw the eye.
The sound of the shore grew louder, seemed more violent as I approached. Stuffing my hands in the pockets of my sweats, I carried on. My shoulder blades drew together with tension. I didn’t bother to try and fight.
I had a feeling the lake wanted a fight tonight.
So a fight was what it would have.
The toes of my right foot hit the water first. The skin began tingling immediately. The inclination to recoil from the frigid temp was natural, but I held firm. Both feet sloshed into the dark waves. I walked forward just enough that the water was able to swallow both up to my ankles.
I spread my arms wide, staring out at the unforgiving body of water. Marveling at the secrets it held and the way it so casually homed an island of a madman.
“I’m here!” I yelled. “I know you want me. Here I am!”
I sounded like a lunatic, appearing to yell at no one. But I knew to whom I spoke. My words might have fallen on deaf ears, but the lake heard regardless.
“I don’t understand why you took Sadie. Or why you gave me Amnesia.” I went on, hurling the words into the wind. “You can’t have her back!”
A wave crashed close, splashing up my legs and saturating the lower portion of my pants. Maybe I was dreaming. Perhaps I was going insane, but my words seemed to evoke a reaction. A great gale blew off the water, and the waves became defiant.
“What do you want?” I flung the words. I was angry and confused. I was also slightly embarrassed.
I was standing in a freezing cold lake in the middle of the night, with barely any clothes on, challenging it as if it were suggesting war.
The violent reply from the wind and water was all I got. I stood there until my feet were numb and the numbness began moving up my legs and teasing the tips of my fingers.
I didn’t know what I expected, but it was more than I got.
Suddenly, a sick feeling plunged into me, coming up so quick my stomach revolted and the urge to vomit tickled the back of my throat. My body flung around. Turning my back on the water, I stared at my house. Scanning its outline, the yard, and everything around it, I searched for something. Anything. My eyes ultimately landed on the bedroom window, where Amnesia lay sleeping in my bed.
Knowing I left her in there alone gave me a creepy feeling. Maybe that’s what the lake wanted. Maybe it wanted to tear me away so I couldn’t fight.
A large wave crashed into me, hitting me just behind the knees. My legs buckled, but I didn’t go down. The drenched material of my sweats clung to my legs, the weight shackles around my ankles.
A sound ripped from my throat, and I lifted one foot to trudge back home. Something bumped against the other leg. The one still anchored in water. I paused. It collided into me again, briefly tugged away, then clashed against me once more.
Whirling around, I stomped down, and the water splashed around me.
It took a moment for the sight to register. For the actuality of what I was seeing to seep into my mind.
The boat appeared out of nowhere. A small wooden craft not much larger than a canoe. The front end was pointed. The point was what bumped me, the surface rough even though it was wet. The edge caught my pants, snagging the material as if to yank me out to sea.
I kicked it back, sending the boat sideways. It was long, enough for a few people to fit inside. On the edge was a long wooden oar anchored by a clamp.
On the back of the boat, I could make out what appeared to be a tall metal rod sticking straight up into the night. There was a hook on the end, and I knew it was for a lantern that wasn’t there.
I didn’t know the boat; it wasn’t one I’d seen before. The idea of using a lantern seemed archaic but also served as a precursor to other thoughts.
Visions of blinking, bobbing light out on Rumor Island replayed in my head. The glow of what we always thought was Sadie’s lantern. Sadie roaming the island at night, waiting for her… master to return.
To bring back her sister, her replacement. What was his.
I gasped, the sound more like a yell of enlightenment.
Holy shit.
The boat rammed into my shins, forced close again by the ferocious water. I might have thought the lake was working against me, trying to stop me from rushing back to Amnesia’s side.
I have to get back to Am.
But it wasn’t.
The lake was warning me.
Friend or enemy, I still didn’t know. Maybe it was ever changing like the tide. But tonight? Tonight, Lake Loch appeared to be a friend.
As I shoved away the wooden vessel, just beyond it, something rose from the water. A paper-white arm shot up from the inky depths. From finger to elbow, the arm reached up as if it were trying to grab hold of some invisible rope to tow itself up.
I watched as the figure emerged from the water, inch by inch at first, then surged up the rest of the way, water droplets spraying out around the body like Jaws coming up for a bite.
The man was tall and stocky, not built, but not thin. His hair was dark, of undeterminable length, and plastered to his head. Dark brows slashed thickly over his eyes, harsh and garish against his deathly pale face.
The white button-up shirt he wore was see-through from the water. It too was plastered against his body, showing off soft areas, for example, around the middle.
The shirt was buttoned up all the way, appearing like a noose around his neck and wrists. He moved stiff and slow, and I wondered why the fuck he was in the water and not inside his boat.
Dark dress pants covered his lower half, at least at the hips where he wasn’t under the water. He was wearing a belt, his shirt tucked in, as if he were on his way to a business meeting and not literally birthing out of a dark, cruel lake in the middle of the night.
All the muscles in my body coiled, preparing for a fight it instantly knew was coming. Water swelled around me, giving me a buoyant feeling as though it were trying to build me up.
Yes, the lake was definitely friend tonight, for it summoned me down here not to take something away, but to help me keep it.
“So you’re the one.” The man’s voice overpowered the wind.
“The one what?” I spat. I wasn’t sure what the fuck was going on, but I knew whatever it was didn’t call for pleasantries and happy greetings.
“The one who thinks he can claim what’s mine.”
Realization hit me so hard I would have fallen backward, but as I mentioned before, the lake tonight was like heavy shackles keeping me in place.
“You,” I growled, my eyes going over his shoulder to the looming presence of Rumor Island.
He glared, measured me in a single sweep, then disregarded what he saw. “You might have been strong enough to thwart past attempts to gain back what is and always will be mine,” he intoned, cutting through the water toward me. “But you aren’t any match for me.”
I laughed. The sound actually caused my own hair to stand up on my neck. “You’re him,” I spat. “The man who chains up women and keeps them in a hole. The man who robbed two girls of their lives and made one so desperate to get away she tried to die.”
There were no words, not even thoughts that could come close to how much I hated this man.
“I’ve come for her.” He didn’t deny what I said. He didn’t have to. I might never have seen his face before, but I knew him. Daniel. He reeked of havoc and mental illness.
The final step he took brought us face to face. Wind whipped around us; water churned beneath us. Inside me, so much anger burned I felt like a flint ready to ignite into a flame that could never burn out, even in a body of water.
I leaned in so close I knew he could feel my hot breath on his face. His eyes were dark, empty, and cold. There was no man here. No feeling. He was a shell, the mere house for the devil.
“The only thing you’re getting here is a one-way trip back to hell.”
The second the words left my lips, I reared back and launched my fist at him. All the force I had went into that blow. The momentum spurred me forward. The sound of cracking bone crunched around us the second my fist collided with his face.
His head snapped back, his body jerking as though it took a bullet. Then, just like rubber, he snapped back. I reared back to hit him again, but he caught my fist midair and squeezed. The bones in my fingers screamed in pain, but I didn’t show it. Instead, I felt the water let go of me, and I kicked upward, driving my toes into his kidney. The grip on my hand slackened, and I lunged forward like a linebacker, catching him around the waist, and shoved. We both fell, him going backward and me on top. The water sliced into my arms and waist as I scrambled up, straddling him. He pushed up, but I buried my fist in his face again, knocking him back.
I stomped down, right in his midsection, making him curl in on himself a little. I watched his body disappear beneath the water, only to jackknife back up. Teeth bared, water dripped from his features, making him look rabid. He lunged at me. This time I fell backward and he was the one on top. He punched me, then wrapped his hands around my neck and squeezed.
I brought my leg up between his, going straight for his balls. His thighs slammed shut, trapping my ankle and protecting his junk. Frustrated, I tried to pull back, but he lifted me with one hand, by the neck, out of the water. Beneath me, I heard the waves scramble about, but my eyes never left his face.
“She’s mine,” he intoned. “I’m not leaving without her. Without both of them.”
He body-slammed me back into the water, shoving me down until my bare back scraped against the rocky floor. Dark water washed over my face, clouding my vision, as his hands tightened around my neck until it felt as though my windpipe might collapse.
I squirmed and kicked, prying at his hand with mine.
I could have sworn, as I struggled beneath the surface and my lungs started to plead for oxygen, that above me, I heard him laugh.