PROLOGUE
“Help . . .” A gurgling cry whispered faintly on the wind, and three teenagers walking by turned and listened.
“Did you hear that?” Spence asked.
“I think so. It sounded like someone yelling, but I’m not sure,” Camden replied.
“Please h-help . . .” This time there was no mistaking the cry. It was faint, but the three boys turned toward the lake.
“Someone’s in trouble,” Jackson said, and he took off sprinting in the direction of the sound. Spence and Camden were in hot pursuit behind him. They ran the short distance to the shore and spotted a body thrashing around in the water. As they neared the water’s edge, they saw the kid’s head disappear below the surface.
The three teenage boys stripped down to their underwear in seconds, then dived into the freezing water without hesitation. All of them strong swimmers, they quickly reached the part of the lake where they’d seen the boy and plunged beneath the surface, frantically searching for him.
Spence was the first to reappear from the deep water, the boy in his arms. Camden and Jackson flanked him on either side and the three of them towed the boy to shore. Jackson pulled the wet clothes from him, then grabbed his own clothing and used it to cover the boy, hoping it would bring him some warmth.
Meanwhile, Spence began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, with Camden doing chest compressions. The three of them worked relentlessly, and after what seemed like hours, but in reality was only a couple of minutes, the boy began coughing. Spence quickly turned him on his side as water spewed from his mouth.
After struggling for several moments to cough up the remaining fluid in his lungs, he looked at his three rescuers with large green eyes. His confusion quickly abated, and he remembered what had happened and how close he’d come to losing his life.
“Y-you . . . s-saved me,” he gasped, then started choking again. Spence patted him gently on the back. The kid couldn’t have been more than ten or eleven years old.
“What were you doing in the water?” Camden asked as he glanced back out at the lake. He was looking for a boat or something.
“I w-was s-skipping . . . rocks on th-the . . . d-dock and s-slipped.” His teeth were chattering so hard that Spence, Camden, and Jackson worried he’d break them. The three teens were also starting to shake as their adrenaline subsided and their wet bodies began to feel the chill in the air.
“Michael! Michael! Where are you?” a man was heard calling out only seconds before he walked over the small hill with several people trailing behind him. He spotted the four boys and came running toward them. “Michael, what happened? Are you okay?” The man dropped to his knees.
The people standing around him looked at the boy, whose clothing was half off, and then at the three nearly naked teenagers.
“What is going on here?” one man demanded, sending the teenagers a suspicious glare.
Before Spence could say anything, another person stepped in. “Aren’t you three living in the Taters’ house?”
Camden hung his head in shame. They despised living in the filthy foster home, but because they were together, they didn’t complain. Each of them had been tossed from home to home practically since birth. During their two years together at this latest home, they had developed a bond rarely found in such circumstances.
It made the bad food, threadbare clothes, and their housemother’s screaming fits all worth it. The three of them could face the world as long as they had each other. But if they complained, they would get separated and probably never see each other again.
“Yes, sir, in the Taters’ house,” Spence replied through chattering teeth as he tried to puff up his chest. As the oldest, he had to protect Camden and Jackson, even if that meant that he took all the heat upon himself.
“What are you doing with Michael?” another man asked, and his tone implied it certainly couldn’t be anything good.
“They saved me,” Michael said. His eyes gleamed with hero worship as he looked over at the trio.
“What happened, Michael?” the boy’s father, Martin, asked as he embraced his son.
“I was skipping rocks and fell. I couldn’t stay above the water. They pulled me out.” Michael’s eyes shone with unshed tears.
Martin looked from his son to the three boys, who were beginning to turn blue, and then at the crowd gathered around. The men’s expressions changed from suspicion to awe in a few heartbeats.
“You’re heroes,” one man said as the rest of the group murmured their surprise and agreement. Spence, Camden, and Jackson looked at each other before Spence spoke to the crowd.
“No we’re not. We were just the first people here,” he said with a shrug. Although relieved they weren’t suspected of foul play, they still weren’t good enough to be called heroes—at least not in their minds.
The men rushed into action: someone made a phone call, another person draped warm jackets over the boys’ shoulders, while still another gathered their discarded clothes and handed them over. The normally unseen boys stared wide-eyed as everyone moved around in a blur, all the attention focused on them. None of them knew what to do or think. This was completely new for all of them.
They watched as an ambulance arrived and pulled up to the edge of the grass, then all four of them were carefully led to the vehicle. Spence, Camden, and Jackson were in such shock that they weren’t able to speak—no one had ever worried about them before, and they couldn’t quite process what was happening. So they sat in silence while the paramedics examined them.
They were taken to the emergency room, and then transferred to a private room in the back, where medical staff came in and out asking questions and checking their temperatures. After about an hour the man who’d been calling for Michael entered the room. Wrapped in heated blankets, the three boys were sipping hot chocolate and eating sandwiches. The man looked at them with tear-filled eyes.
“I don’t know how I could ever possibly repay you for what you’ve done. I don’t think you even comprehend what heroes you truly are. My son is going to be fine thanks to you. He’s in the room next door sleeping,” he said before pausing for a moment. “My name is Martin Whitman, and the boy you risked your lives to save is my only son, Michael. He’s my entire world. We lost his mother two years ago and now all we have is each other.” Martin’s voice was choked.
The boys looked at him in surprise. They’d done what any other human being would do, hadn’t they? But this man seemed to think they’d performed a great service.