“Stop!” Alex yelled. “Don’t leave!” He couldn’t see her expression anymore. “Please!” he shouted. But she didn’t react.
Alex couldn’t stand it. She was going away. She didn’t even say good-bye. And she wouldn’t be coming back—she’d never make it. He couldn’t hesitate any longer. “Sky!” he yelled one last time. And then, despite his pain, despite his weakness, he kicked off his shoes and started running recklessly into the waves. When the water reached his chest he dove in, swimming like his life depended on it.
Onshore, he didn’t know a crowd had gathered until they began cheering. Simber and Florence had followed him outside, and now Simber growled and stood up, ready to chase after Alex and pull him from the water.
Florence held him back. “Don’t,” she said. “Not just yet.”
“He’ll drrrown. We can’t rrrisk it again.”
“He won’t drown.” Florence didn’t take her eyes off the boy. “Watch. She’s looking back.”
More and more people gathered to see what was happening, and when they found out, they began cheering Alex on too. After a minute, a chant started. “Sky, come back! Sky, come back!”
Sky stopped paddling and sat up. She stared at the crowd, and then she stared at Alex and started yelling at him. “What in the world are you doing? Are you insane? Go back!”
Alex couldn’t answer. It was all he could do to breathe and focus on not drowning. He plowed forward, telling himself to let the pain roll off him.
She stared, dumbfounded. “Alex, I mean it. Go home! I have to leave. I have to save my mother. I’m sorry, but I can’t just let her stay there.”
Alex was gaining on the raft, and now he heard the cheering behind him, but he couldn’t afford to look back. “What— about—Crow?” he sputtered through each knife-stabbing breath, barely getting the words out. “You said—you’d never—leave him.”
“He’ll be safe with you. I know that. I can’t take him with me. I can’t risk his life again, now that he’s finally happy!”
Alex had to slow down to catch his breath. He flipped over onto his back and began kicking, his chest heaving, his breath coming out in gasps of air and pain. When he could speak, he said, “I can’t let you risk yours.”
“You big jerk!” she cried. “Why are you doing this to me?”
With an enormous effort, Alex flipped back onto his stomach and pushed himself forward with all he had left. “Why—are you—letting me—” He took one more gasp of air. “Drown?” he said. He fell underwater and was forced to flip to his back again. He managed a cheeky smile as he lunged through the water and reached for the corner of the raft.
The crowd on the shore cheered.
“Get off!”
Alex obeyed. He sank under the water.
The crowd gasped.
“Very funny,” she said. But her voice didn’t sound as confident as before.
Alex swam under the raft and popped up on the other side, and when Sky leaned over to see where he’d gone, he pushed up and yelled. “Bah!”
She screamed in terror and grabbed on to the edge, but the momentum was there and she fell into the water. The bag she carried plopped in after her.
That’s about when Alex remembered that people from Warbler don’t know how to swim.
A Promise
She came back above the water sputtering and coughing. “Help!” she yelled, real fear in her voice as the raft drifted out of her reach. She was flailing so much she was dousing herself.
Alex dove back under the raft in an instant and grabbed
her around the waist, pushing her up above the surface and holding her there even as she grabbed two fistfuls of his hair and yanked.
The crowd cheered.
“I hate you,” she sputtered.
“I hate you too,” he said. He watched her chest heave with panic, felt her stomach muscles clench against his chest. He directed their bodies sideways, reaching out a long arm to catch the raft again. “Here, grab on. I’m sorry. I forgot you can’t swim.”
“You’re awful.”
“I know.”
She gripped his hair and looked him in the eye, her lips a
white line. “I need to get her out of there,” she said. Alex looked up at her face, treading water and slowly, almost unnoticeably, pulling the raft toward home. “Don’t you think you should learn how to swim first?”
She glared at him. “I could find someone to teach you,” he offered. “I am the leader of Artimé, you know.”
“You are insufferable.”
“Only around you.”
“How would you know?” she spat back at him. “You never are.” She clenched her legs around his back and squeezed.
He grimaced and his hand slipped from the raft. Her weight on him forced him underwater, where he screamed out in pain. He pushed his hands upward and lunged for the raft once again, grabbing it with the tips of his fingers. He blew out a wet, staggered breath and readjusted his grip on her. His lungs burned.
She looked away. “I’m—I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t know you were still hurt. All this time I thought you were a jerk instead of merely inconsiderate.” She let go of his hair and reached out for the raft, just barely grasping it, and pulled it closer, pushing herself up on her elbow to help. “I’ll climb back on here—”