Undertow (32 page)
Authors: K Conway
“We finally convinced him to put you down so I could start CPR and Raines got you airlifted here, to Boston. It took nearly 20 minutes to restart your heart. No one knew if you would ever regain consciousness. Raef thought . . . we thought, we had lost you,” said MJ, his voice shaking. I squeezed his hand, trying to reassure him.
He shook his head, “Eila, what were you thinking? You could have died!” MJ’s face was lined with fear.
“We . . . needed a Hail Mary,” I rasped.
He shook his head in frustration; “Promise me, right now, that you will never,
ever
do that again!”
The pain medications were starting to really kick in, and I was feeling warm and very sleepy, “I promise.” MJ smiled at me. “Where’s Raef?” I asked, longing to see him.
MJ’s smile faded. “He is keeping a distance. He’s watching over you, guarding the area, but Eila . . . he was destroyed over what happened. He killed you.
Killed you.”
I was about to argue, but MJ held up his hand, already knowing what I was about to say. “I know. I know – you thought you had no choice. You never knew he would be the one to do it. But he’s having trouble coming to terms with what he did to you. He’s going to need time. Can you give him time?”
I nodded, a tear falling down my face. “Tell him I need to see him. Please,” I whispered.
MJ nodded, “Okay, but you need to stop talking. And rest,” he said, placing the oxygen mask back on my face gently.
The pain meds were making my brain fuzzy. “Please,” I whispered again groggily through the mask.
“I will,” said MJ as I dozed off.
When I woke again, my hospital room was dark, except for the city skyline outside my window. A soft stream of light filtered in through the large glass wall that faced the corridor. Privacy, it seemed, was a distant second to being able to see the patients.
Out near the nurses’ station, I could see a man and a woman talking, though their backs were to me. The shoulders of the woman started to shake, as though she was crying. She lowered her head and the broad-shouldered man reached out and pulled her close, hugging her.
As he turned his head, I could see that it was Raines. And he was hugging . . . Mae! She turned her head to look up at him and he was saying something to her, but not releasing her from his hold.
“You’ve GOT to be kidding me,” I muttered to myself. So much for keeping Mae away from my world.
I heard something move in the far corner of my room and I turned my head toward the sound, suddenly alarmed.
“It’s okay. It’s just me.” Raef’s smooth voice floated from the shadows, preceding his beautiful face as he slipped into the slanted light.
I tried to sit up so I didn’t look like such a weakling, but a bullet of pain sliced through my back. I froze automatically in reaction to the pain and couldn’t help sucking in a sharp breath.
Raef was instantly beside me, cradling his arm behind my back. My fingers wrapped into the
softness of his sweatshirt and I buried my face in the warmth of his chest.
“Eila. Please don’t try to move,” he said, his voice husky beside my face as he lowered me gently back to the bed. I felt entirely safe and at home in his powerful arms that so cautiously held onto me. His sea-storm blue eyes were tracing over my damaged body as he released me and lowered himself carefully to the edge of my bed.
He sat there, silently, studying me. His face spoke volumes of the tormented emotions he was battling inside. I reached out my hand and laced my fingers with his. He looked down at our hands and his tightened gently, possessively, over my own.
“I thought I was going to go with you,” he said, in a quiet, near whisper. “But when I realized t
hat I had survived and you weren’t. . .” He closed his eyes tightly and his voice revealed the smallest crack.
I squeezed his hand tightly, “I’m here. Right here, and I’m okay.”
His eyes flashed open. “YOU are not okay. You are in the ICU!” he said, in a near gasp. “I killed you! You died, in my arms. I felt your heart stop. I did that!”
“This isn’t your fault. I chose what I chose because the alternative was a bullet in the head or death by injection, and either of those options left you all unprotected,” I said, conviction ringing in my dry voice.
Raef started to shake his head, about to argue, but I kept going, “I was dead no matter what. Me, being here and talking to you, holding your hand and seeing your face again, is a gift. I survived because our friends cared enough to fight for me after I fought for them. You fought for me. For my life and my heart.” I pulled his hand to my chest and tucked it under my chin. “You are my guardian and so much more.”
He looked at me, his eyes trailing over my face and then down to my hand. He leaned forward and pressed his forehead to mine and sighed.
“I want to kiss you, I do,” he whispered. “But I am afraid that in doing so, in allowing myself those pleasures of kissing you and touching you and . . .” he drew a shaky breath and leaned back so he could look in my eyes. I knew what was coming.
“I will always be here for you. I’ll always do whatever you ask of me, but until you know how to defend yourself without such extreme measures as dying. Without me having to . . .” he shook his head at what I was sure was the memory of my body crumpling in his arms.
I raised my other hand to his face and touched his lips to keep him from speaking. “I know. Until I can control my power, and you feel that I can defend myself, you are taking a step back from us, in that way.” I watched his eyes and he looked away for a moment, giving a quick nod of agreement.
We sat for a moment, in silence. I glanced out the window to where Mae and Christian were still speaking, though he was now leaning against the desk. Mae was going to need protection as well. Thinking I could keep her out of this was irrational.
“Okay,” I finally agreed. Raef turned to me, slightly surprised, no doubt, that I wasn’t a bawling mess.
“You’re right. There are other people relying on me to be the best I can be. I get that. And I can rise to the occasion despite my raging desire to kiss the life out of you in some darkened corner of the world.” A small smile crept up my face.
Raef’s own lips twisted into a sly grin, “So,
now
I am supposed to be just a friend and a bodyguard, knowing your little fantasy about a liplock? Miss Walker, I do believe you intend to torture me.”
“Think of it as endurance training,” I said, still smiling. He raised my hand to his mouth and kissed my wrist softly, a wide smile gracing his perfect lips. Electricity tingled through my palm.
Who were we kidding? There was no way we were going to be able to keep our hands off each other. Talk about epic fail.
In the distance of the city, I could see the sky beginning to awaken as a warm glow chased away the darkness. Dawn was climb
ing the horizon and a new day, a new life, awaited me.
Awaited us all.
Catch up with the characters, author, and world of UNDERTOW at
CAPECODSCRIBE.COM
and on
Facebook at K.R. Conway
.
The story is just beginning.
R U Brave?
EARLY SUMMER 2014:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
If it takes a village to raise a child, then it takes an army to build a story.
I was lucky enough to have a fierce battalion behind UNDERTOW.
I MUST thank all my warriors.
Many thanks to my late grandfather, Joseph Blackburn, without whom this story would have never even sparked in my head. At only 17, he landed as a Marine on Iwo Jima during WWII. He saw fighting and sacrifice but also humanity, compassion, forgiveness, and humor. He told us of the friendships and craziness of so many young men thrown together against the backdrop of desperation. I took his portrait of war and set it into a tale of a genetic hatred between two races, mixing brutality with friendship, fear with humor.
I also can never thank enough my team of Beta readers. They would re-read, over and over, scenes from UNDERTOW and even get into arguments about what a character should or shouldn’t do. Layla, Bethany, Carrie, Kim, Katherine, Meghan, Mara and Clare – I could never have done it without you.
A huge round of applause for Charlotte, my mad-skills editor / Beta, who tirelessly read through UNDERTOW checking for issues. I would have lost my mind without her. And she did it all with a newborn. Talk about Wonderwoman!
Many thanks to my parents, brother, hubby and kids who I would bounce ideas off of and who listened to me talk endlessly as I tried to work through a scene. They didn’t strangle me, which is really impressive.
A shout out to Agent Query Connect, an online community of writers who were always there to help hone a query letter or find leads. And another high-five to the Cape Cod Fiction Fanatics writing critique group that meets at Starbucks. Between the intense coffee and great conversation, I always had a reason to get back to my desk and write while staying up for hours thanks to the java jolt.
Thank you to my numerous editors at The Cape Cod Times who hired me as a freelancer right out of college. Their faith in me lead to other journalistic pursuits for the past 15 years. To this day I am amazed they took a chance on me, especially since I was a Forensic Psych major in college. Writing? What the heck is that?
Thank you to my blog followers, Facebook fans and the nearly 500 people that swarmed the first few chapters of UNDERTOW in under five days on FICTIONPRESS. While I did pull it down on the advice of an agent, the cheers and praise of those readers helped me plow through the novel.
Many thanks to the real BHSers (past and present) that became cover models for UNDERTOW: Leslie (Eila), Colby (Raef), Christa (Ana), Justin (Kian), Sean (MJ), Megan (Nikki),
Chris (Rilin), Sara (Eve), and Jeremy (Christian). They were insane enough to do it. Hooray for the wild bunch! Huge thanks to photographer Alex Daunais and graphic guru John Sullivan of Quahog Corner for their endless skills, and Carole Corcoran’s stunning landscape shots of Cape Cod.
Endless thanks to the musical muses that overrun my iPod: Band of Skulls, The Black Ghosts, Creed, Evanescence, The Faders, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tristan Pettyman, Three Dog Night, Stateless, The Black Keys, Muse, Imagine Dragons, Little Big Town, Imogen Heap, Halestrom, Finger Eleven, and so many more. Long live the Rock N Roll Muse!
And lastly, a massive hug of gratitude to all of Cape Cod. The quirky people who live here, the shops and homes that inspire the imagination, and the stunning landscape that calls to the siren in us all.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
K.R. Conway has been a journalist for fifteen years and serves on the Board of Directors for the Cape Cod Writers Center. She teaches Fiction Craft classes for teens at local libraries and drives a 16-ton school bus because she is ENTIRELY NUTS.
In addition to working jobs that should come with a warning label, Conway holds a BA in Psychos (Forensic Psych), torments the tourists about Jaws, and occasionally jumps from Eila’s Town Neck bridge in an attempt to reclaim her youth.
She lives on Cape Cod with two smallish humans who apparently are her kids, a fishing-obsessed husband, two canines (adept at both flatulence and snoring), and a cage-defiant lovebird that sleeps in a miniature tent.
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