Four more came in—one dropping really close to them, three others entering far off on the other side.
“Am I too heavy for you?” she asked.
“Oh, please.”
As he switched his grip, her body moved in the water, her backside pressing against the front of his pelvis. She didn’t feel anything there … but she wouldn’t have known what to be worried about even if he had been aroused.
Another person hit the pool.
And then …
… for a long period of time there were no more additions. In reality, it was probably just a couple of minutes, but it felt like hours … days.
Her fear kept humming along, but with nothing to immediately feed off of, the anxiety began to cannibalize her rational side, all kinds of craziness running through her mind. What if this wasn’t a training program? What if this was some kind of … social experiment? A body-snatcher routine … or an attempt to … jeez, she didn’t know.
A wave of terror shot through her. She couldn’t see anything, and the roar inside her head was drowning out the sounds in the pool, and her body was too tired to process the shaking that racked her.
“What comes next?” she moaned.
“I—”
Before Peyton could answer, she became aware that something had changed around them. The others noticed, too, the bodies in the water stilling as if they were trying to assess what was different.
The water level was dropping.
The choppy surface had been at her shoulders—but was only now to her upper arms, then her elbows.
Her heart rate ramped up once more, a buzzy, trippy dizziness making her head spin.
“What are they going to do to us now?” she gasped.
Lower … and lower still … until her feet hit the bottom like Peyton’s could. She stayed in the circle of his arm, though—at least with his big body behind her, she knew that her back was covered.
I just want to see, she thought into the black void. God … please, let me see something—
Over in the corner, a brilliant, blinding light appeared.
It was so overwhelming that she lifted an arm up against the glare, and in its lee, she saw that yes, they were in a pool, one that was very clean and had a nice tile border that was pale blue and green. And then there was Peyton, looking wrung out behind her. And other candidates in the water.
Pushing her dripping hair out of the way, she winced and tried to focus—
What the …
“—fuck is that?” Peyton finished for her.
On the far side of the still-emptying pool, a huge male with blond-and-black hair had entered the space—and at first, she thought he had brought the light with him. In fact, his body was the light. He was glowing as if he were a living, breathing incandescent lightbulb.
But the crazy thing was … that wasn’t actually the biggest shock.
He was wearing a scuba mask and snorkel set pushed off his handsome face … a set of flippers that slapped over the slick floor as he approached the pool’s edge … a slingshot bathing suit that was hot pink … and a children’s yellow-and-blue floaty around his waist.
Every single one of the soaking-wet half-deads in the pool stared at him like he was the second coming in a SpongeBob–meets–Magic Mike parallel universe.
Slapping, flapping his way down to the diving board, he stepped up, took great pains to arrange a flesh-covered nose plug on his snoz, and cleared his throat.
After a couple of “me-me-me-mes”—like he was warming up to do a solo—he took a great breath and—
“Cowwww-a-bunga!” he hollered, and ran down to the end.
Springing high off the tip, he held the kiddie floater in place as he executed a perfect tuck-and-roll and nailed the dwindling water with a cannonball that kicked up spray to the ceiling.
As Paradise ducked so she didn’t get hit in the face with the tsunami, she thought … points to the Brothers.
Whatever she might have expected?
That was so not it.
Chapter Nine
Craeg’s running shoes found the bottom of the pool just as the … well, it was a male, that was for sure … hit the water with an impact like a sedan had been tossed in there. After the deluge settled, the environment became evenly illuminated, the light emanating from that big, ridiculously outfitted body creating a glow that turned the Olympic-sized bathtub into its own lamp.
The guy was like part pro wrestler, part Toys “R” Us.
But Craeg wasn’t going to waste any time figuring that combo out.
Wiping his face, he identified the possible escape routes first—there were four or five doors, including the one that thing with the floaty corset had come through, but he was willing to bet they were all locked. Nothing on the ceiling. On the walls. On the bottom of the pool.
Second check-in was to see if there were any other third parties in the mix. Yup. Over on the periphery, there were two huge males dressed in black with hoods over their heads and night-vision goggles on their eyes. They were armed heavily, but their weapons were holstered—and they appeared to be monitoring everyone in the pool as if searching for signs of weakness or danger.
Third assessment was of who else had made it to this stage. Ten—no, twelve … wait, thirteen people were in the pool with him, including the female he’d fallen from that great height with.
And the blond receptionist, Paradise.
Although she was not alone.
Nope, she was up against one of the males, her hand resting on the protective arm that was around her waist.