Before I could reply, he lunged, grabbing me in a headlock. As my weight went backwards my feet came off the pool floor, and I felt myself dropping again like a stone beneath the water - there, an airless moment of thrashing limbs and white noise. Just as the panic began to rise, Bryn took me under the armpits and hauled me up through the surface, both of us spluttering and shouting, flailing wildly, our laughter eventually dissolving into even, exhausted breaths. Water lapping our chests, we faced one another in the shivering dark. God, I felt so awake. Bryn's mouth fell slightly open, and I thought he might speak - but he only stared silently at me, his gleeful expression softening into something like seriousness. I became very aware of our exposed skin, waxen beneath the distant electric glow, of our breath, steaming in the chlorinated cold. The way the light rippled off him, he didn't look himself - his face, his eyes, unfamiliar. He stepped towards me. Thinking I was in his way, I moved back - but he took another step, and another, making waves that wrapped around my trembling body like searching hands. When he was very close, close enough that he might whisper in my ear, I thought I felt the heat coming from him, like an aura, as if - even in this freezing pool - he couldn't ever be cold. Beneath the water, his hand moved so close to mine. There, alone with him in the frigid water's surge and swell, what I felt was abject terror. Excerpted from And He Shall Appear by Kate van der Borgh All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.
