“Well-ll, yeah-h-h,” Nate said, his shivering growing worse.
Not a hallucination. That was David.
Stevie watched David and his kayak come closer through the water. Whether it took him five minutes or five hours, she had no idea. Everything was cold, and her hold on the rock was ever weakening. She wanted to try to belly-crawl on top of it to get out of the water, but she didn’t have that kind of strength.
As David glided up to them, Stevie was surprised to find that the first emotion to bubble back to the surface with the rest of her body was annoyance.
“What-t-t the hel-l-l-l a-r-r-re you doing-g here?”
“Getting your ass out of the lake,” he shot back. “What the hell are you doing here?”
“Oh-h my Go-d-d,” Nate said. “Shut-t up-p.”
That tiny burst of emotion drained whatever reserve of
energy Stevie had. Her body was numb and exhaustion took over. She began to slip from the rock.
“Whoa . . . whoa . . .” David swung his legs over the side of the kayak and slipped into the water, catching her in a clumsy hold. She was dead weight and he struggled to get a grip on her and keep the other hand on the kayak.
“Okay,” he said, seeming to sense the gravity of the situation, “how do we do this? Nate, do you think you can get over here and grab the kayak?”
“I think-k so,” Nate said, reaching for the kayak. He fumbled once or twice but finally got a firm enough grip on one of the ropes on the side and hauled his body over it.
“Arm-m,” Stevie mumbled. “Doesn’t-t-t work-k.”
“Okay,” David said, trying to sound calm, and failing. “It’s okay. I’ve got you.”
He reached up into the kayak and pulled out a life vest, which he put over her functioning arm. Nate was holding the back of the kayak, so David helped guide Stevie into a resting position slumped over the front.
“Okay,” he said. “It’s a short distance to the beach area there. Nate, hold on.”
David climbed up on the rock and got himself into the kayak, pushing back with the paddle and narrowly missing Nate’s head. With choppy strokes, made to avoid striking either of the people attached to the front and back of the kayak, David began to paddle. The closest stretch of dirt beach was about thirty yards away—not a great distance, but impossible in Stevie’s current state. Stevie felt herself growing
sleepy at points. She wanted to close her eyes, but her inner voice and David’s outer voice kept telling her to wake up, hold on. She needed both arms through the life vest. She tried to move her left arm again, and a white-hot pain shot behind her eyes, causing the world to scramble into black-and-white dots. No left arm. Instead, she put further demands on her right. Her right arm was going to give the performance of its life. She commanded it to ignore cold, ignore fatigue. It was the strongest, best arm in the world.
She could feel something under her—her feet were dragging on the ground.
“Almost,” David said. “Here . . . here . . .”
Nate released his grip, which caused the kayak to turn a bit. He staggered onto the beach. By this point, Stevie’s right arm was numb from overwork and she felt herself slide, but she held on until the ground hit her knees. David got out of the kayak, half falling, and got her up under his arm and moved her to the shore. The kayak, its job finished, decided to embrace the moment and float away.
David leaned over Stevie and Nate on the cold, rocky sand.
“You guys,” he said. “Are you okay? What the actual fuck . . .”
Stevie looked up at him. His face blocked out the moon and the fireworks.
“I think my-y-y arm’s broken-n-n,” she said.