Suzanne Mcminn - Deep Blue

Fear and survival warred in her eyes.

No two ways about it, she was scared of anyone who would have leaped off that bridge after her.

He grabbed the handle, yanked hard. The pressure of water inside and outside the car held it firm. He felt his muscles bunching as he heaved on the handle again.

The water completely covered the car now and it was sinking at accelerated speed. He could see her holding one last breath of air, anxiously pushing outward against the door even as he pulled. The lagoon wasn’t deep, twenty or thirty feet, he estimated, and the car tumbled heavily now to the bottom, sand clouding upward from the disturbed bottom. He didn’t need more air, but she did, and soon.

One more heaving pull, and the car door suddenly thrust outward. Reaching blindly through the muddied water, he felt her soft, drenched body.

He pushed hard with his feet against the sand of the lagoon floor and streamed upward toward the clear surface and the light of the storm. She felt like nothing in his arms. He gave a last powerful kick, popping up to the surface. He shifted to grip her tightly against his heat with one arm as he swam.

Pulling her up on the damp, sandy shore, he felt her react, coughing and gagging as she had in the car. He set her down and she rolled over, retching.

Rain lashed down. He was stunned for a second by how glad he was that she was alive. The helpless panic in her eyes when the car filled with water…The memory of it streaked into him. In the dim light he watched her shoulders tremble, and she turned, lifting her pale, shocked gaze to his.

For a long moment the storm seemed to almost recede around them, and then she pushed herself up on her elbows. In spite of himself, he felt something strange and unallowable. Sympathy.

He shoved it back. She didn’t deserve it.

He’d been tricked by her once, and he wouldn’t be tricked again.

He stood over her, water streaming down his sides. “You’re coming with me.”

“No,” she gasped, barely audible over the pounding rain. “No.”

She scrambled away. He tore up the bank, twisting her and pinning her on her back where she fell against the soggy ground.

“Stop!” he ordered.

“No!” she screamed. “Let me go!”

Her eyes were huge, shocked, radiating cold fear. He could feel the trembling of her body, see the confusion in her wild eyes. He held on, even as she struggled. She felt different than he expected.

Lighter, softer somehow.

Raindrops slid down his face and onto hers. Her breaths came in panting gasps. The storm blew around them.

“Not this time,” he grated, his voice whipped away in the wind. He jerked her to her feet. “You’re not getting away this time.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about!”

“You know exactly what I’m talking about, Tabitha.”

“I’m not Tabitha!” she shouted at him. “I’m Sienna!” Inches away, her eyes were lost and scared, and her words knocked him off balance enough that she was able to tear free again and run, slipping and sliding, up the bank.

He made chase, and she didn’t have a chance. Together they slammed into the drenched, sandy bank.

A shocked breath escaped her, then she was fighting him again, shoving against him with her hands. He grabbed both arms and pinned them to her sides, covering her body with his.

“My name is Sienna!” she cried. “Whoever you want, I’m not her! That was my sister’s apartment. My twin sister. Sabrina. I don’t know who Tabitha is!”

He felt something icy prick at the back of his neck. He sensed the shaking desperation of her body, knew the piercing confusion of her gaze.

She was a liar. She had lied to him before. She’d lie to him again. It was all he could do not to shake the truth out of her right there and then on the bank of the storm-tossed lagoon, but—

“Nobody said anything about a sister.” He gripped her arms tighter when she tried to get away. She contorted her body as she struggled to free herself. He could feel her heart pounding against him as she turned her wild gaze back to him.

“Well, I’m saying something about it! I’m not Sabrina,” she cried. “Or Tabitha! I don’t know who those men were at the apartment. I don’t know who you are! I’m telling you the truth.”

“You wouldn’t know the truth if it bit you in the ass,” he ground back at her. “Sabrina. Tabitha. Whatever you’re calling yourself today.” Fury rose up again.

“Sienna. My name is Sienna!”

A sound pricked his hearing through the wind and the rain. He lifted his head. Someone was coming up the road. Headlights swayed through the storm above them on the bridge. A car door slammed.

She pushed against him again. “Police—”

He cut his gaze back to the woman beneath him, let go of one of her arms and wrapped his hand over her mouth. Before she could try anything else, with his other arm, he forcibly rolled her over him, down the bank, his body thunking against the ground, against her, once, twice, till they were up against the foot of the bridge.

Voices sounded above them, the words carried away by the wind. Then a gunshot exploded, and seconds later a body flew darkly past them, over the bridge and into the water.

Whoever the hell was up on that bridge, it wasn’t the police. Whoever it was had just executed the man from the van and dumped his body right in front of them.

Close against his chest, the woman’s gaze spun, locked with his. She was so close, he could feel every panicked beat of her heart.

Then, more voices, shouts, and they were coming closer, down off the bridge.

They were coming to see if there was anyone left alive down here. He could see the understanding streak across the woman’s shocked eyes. He could see the battle as she decided who was more dangerous—them or him.

“I’m going to take my hand off your mouth,” he said quietly, quickly. “And you’re going to get back in the water.”

“I can’t.” Her voice was thin, begging. She wasn’t fighting him now. She wasn’t moving, period. He yanked her to her feet.

“You can.” He slipped to the bank, pulled her with him. They had no more than seconds before they’d be seen. “Or they’ll kill you.”

“And you won’t?”

Vengeance twisted, sharp in his gut. Kill her? God, he’d like to. “No.”

“I can’t swim!” she shrieked, and in the same second he shoved her in, he realized he had no idea who the hell she was.

Because she wasn’t lying. She couldn’t swim. She wasn’t Tabitha Donovan.

The water was dark, swirling with shadows and one big, fearsomely powerful man. Sienna felt light and heavy, panic and shock so familiar now. A nightmare that would never end, that’s what she was living.

Crazy strangers with guns above.

Crazy stranger holding her captive below.

Below water.

She was going to die. She was going to drown. He was drowning her. And she was going to have a full-blown panic attack. No way could she think straight. She felt sick, afraid of dying, out of control. She burst to the surface, clawing wildly at the water.

Her feet couldn’t touch bottom. She flung her arms desperately, fighting hysteria. Then something pulled her back down, under the surface, and her mind screamed even as she held onto the gulp of air she’d gotten in that second above the water, and for a sickening moment, she didn’t know what had gotten hold of her.

All she knew was that she was going to drown because whatever had her, it was pulling her down, deeper, and she couldn’t stop it.

Something hit her feet, and she realized with a shock that it was sand. It was the bottom of the lagoon. She contorted her body, fighting frantically, and something pulled her tighter, held down her flailing arms. She was slammed against a hard wall.