NO FREAKING WAY.
It’s him.
It’s Marchant Radcliffe, I think.
I know.
The shock of it is almost enough to send me racing for the surface. But I can see him laughing at my panic. I thread my arms under his, kick off the bottom of the pool, and scissor my legs as hard and fast as I ever have.
Don’t be dead.
Please, you freaking ass**le, don’t be dead.
Oh God, what if he’s dead?
I can barely get my face above the water; he’s so heavy. When I do, I take a deep breath and begin to sob.
“Marchant… Oh, Marchant. Shit. Oh shit.” I’m babbling as I kick, reaching for the pool’s side. I grab onto a metal ladder and I let myself sink a little, swimming beneath him to turn him over, face up. His hair is in his eyes and his face is limp and lifeless as I scream, “HELP! HELP, HELP! HELP ME, PLEASE!”
I can’t get him out of the pool, so I wrap my legs around the ladder and clutch his torso. His face is so pale. Is he breathing? I can’t see his chest move. I grab his chin. Isn’t that part of CPR? It is. It definitely is. Except there’s water in his lungs! Surely there’s water in his lungs and how do you do CPR if there’s water in the lungs?!
“HELP ME! HELP!”
Why won’t anybody come?
I try to tilt his head back but he starts to sink. Shit! I don’t have a good enough grip on him. I hear footsteps and clutch him closer to me, kicking hard to keep my head above water, craning my head so I can see, over my shoulder, two figures moving fast with clomping footsteps.
“HELP ME! PLEASE!”
With difficulty, I turn a little more and see two EMTs—a man and a woman—reach for us.
“Oh my God! Oh my God! I think he might have drowned!”
Faster than I can get the words out, they haul him up out of the water and dump him face down on the deck. I scramble up the ladder. I stand there dripping, shaking violently, while one of them pounds on his back and the other one messes with his head.
Please let him live. Please God, let him live.
They roll him onto his side. While the man holds his head, the woman does something to his mouth. They push him onto his back. One of them shouts something, and then the woman begins CPR.
“Marchant, please! You’ve got to breathe!” I’m sobbing, now on my knees. I reach out, because I feel like I should touch him, but one of the EMTs knocks my hand away.
The next second, Marchant’s body heaves, the woman rolls him on his side, and I can see his back heave as he gets sick.
The paramedics hold his shoulders, and the night is filled with retching sounds and the splash of water on cement. I scoot away to give them space, but I can’t take my eyes off him. It’s impossible to reconcile: this image with the one from the bathroom at the Wynn. The charming rogue who held my hand, and later, at the hospital, the drunken ass**le. His shoulders are shaking now. He’s groaning and gasping, almost sobbing. I can’t see him from the front, but suddenly I wish I could. I wish I was holding him.
I take a few steps closer, and the woman barks, “Stay back!”
I take a step back, then turn because I hear an ambulance cutting through the grass. It parks close and two people jump out, one with oxygen and the other with a neck brace and a board.
They all converge over Marchant as he’s rolled onto his back. They’re speaking quickly, but I hear, “found him in the pool…”
“…administered CPR…”
“…pulse is weak…”
All too soon, they’re lifting him onto a stretcher and strapping down his legs.
He makes a terrible groaning noise and tries to pull the oxygen mask off his face, and they strap down his arms and someone holds the oxygen on. He starts shaking, violent shaking, and they turn his head sideways so he can be sick again.
More water.
When he’s finished, he’s moaning and gripping the sides of his stretcher.
They take off toward the ambulance, and I dash after them. It’s not my place. I know that, but I can’t help myself. I put my hand on the door of the ambulance as they set him down inside. When one of them gives me an inquiring look, I blurt, “I feel like I should come with him.”
“Well, come on.”
The doors slam shut behind me, and I scramble to a little seat by his head.
The ambulance jolts into motion, and all I can think is this was a mistake. I don’t belong here. The EMTs are pulling his jeans down and I can see his hips, and they’re beautiful—underwear model hips—but I have no right to them. He keeps opening and closing his mouth under the mask, and his eyes peek open and drift shut, and his hands still clench the stretcher.
I can’t do anything but sit here while he shivers and clenches his jaw and opens and closes his mouth like a fish. He takes a few deep, raspy-sounding breaths, and the EMTs fly into motion again.
I pick a spot on his side to stare at, but I don’t like the frenzied way his chest is moving, so I train my attention on his arm. It’s well-shaped, well-muscled, like he works out a lot. I take a deep breath and wonder if I should take his hand or something. I climbed into the ambulance. Shouldn’t I at least, I don’t know, put my hand on his arm?
Maybe I shouldn’t.
Maybe he wouldn’t even want that.
I don’t know what he would want.
I don’t think he’s awake, or aware at all, but when they start to jab a needle into the crook of his arm, his eyes flip open. He blinks twice in quick succession, taking in his surroundings, and then he fixes his eyes on the woman sticking him.
“STOP!” he roars. “NO NEEDLES!”
My heart thunders as he strains against the restraints. Then he pops through the restraints, jetting up into a sitting up position, and looks dazedly around the inside of the ambulance. His eyes land on me and they widen. “Suri Dalton.”
I nod, reaching for him. “It’s okay,” I murmur. “Just lie down. You’ll be okay.”
He shakes his head at me and turns back to the EMTs. “No more IVs,” he says sternly, even though his voice is breathy and cracked. “I don’t…do needles.”
He gives me a brief look, one that’s helpless, infuriated, and confused at once, and then he passes out.
10
SURI
When we arrive at the ER, I rip a page out of Lizzy’s book and tell the intake nurse that I’m Marchant’s kin: his cousin, as I have no fake ID.
When I’m allowed into the sick bay, I find Marchant in a half-seated position, under a thick, gray blanket, shivering slightly, looking perturbed.