Page 2 of Twisted Truths

The sea pulls me under, and I give in to her demands. As I sink down to the depths of the unknown, peace surrounds me for the first time in my life. I smile as the light from above grows dimmer and dimmer while I fade into darkness.

Chapter

Two

ARIANA

My board is tucked under my arm, my feet in the sandy ocean bottom, when I spot a man who has no business surfing in this weather. He flips off his board, getting bashed in the head with it, then the wave topples over him. My stomach plummets, and I wait for him to surface, but seconds tick by, and his head doesn’t pop up to the surface.

Shit.

Fellow surfers shout to each other, but they’ll never reach him in time. I’m the closest, so I ditch my surfboard, quickly tug off the ankle strap, and swim in a sprint to the spot where I saw him go down.

If I find him, it will be a small miracle. The current most likely dragged his body. When I think I’m close to the right spot, I dive. The saltwater stings my eyes, but only a bit. My eyes have grown used to it from years in the ocean. Out of all the places I’ve lived, the ocean is the only place I can clear my head.

I frantically circle, not finding any sign of his body, until my lungs burn, and I have no choice but to resurface. I take a quick breath and dive back under. It’s dark, and the current tugs my body in different directions, but a flash of white catches my eye.

There.

I use all my strength, kicking and pulling my body down farther. Catching his hand, I tug him, swimming with the last of my strength to the surface, pulling his head above water and dragging his back to my front. I band one arm around him and swim toward shore.

He’s unconscious, which honestly is probably better. In my years as a lifeguard, I’ve experienced near-drowning victims firsthand, and they often panic and fight against the person saving them. This man is large and muscled. If he were to fight me off—or worse, use me as leverage to keep him above the water—there’s a good chance I’d drown.

I’m panting when we reach the shore, but I take his wrists and drag him up onto the sand, just far enough that the waves don’t fall over him. My chest heaves as I check for a pulse, not finding one.

“Damn it.”

I straddle his waist and begin chest compressions, using all my might to push on his chest before I breathe air into his lungs. I hum the Bee Gees’ song, “Staying Alive,” which some might find ridiculous, but it’s what I was taught because it has 103 beats per minute—the correct rate for doing chest compressions.

My voice grows labored as I sing when he doesn’t come to after the first couple rounds.

I’m vaguely aware of people gathering around me, and I hear someone on the phone with 911, but my concentration doesn’t break.

I alternate between compressions and mouth-to-mouth until I’m so exhausted I’m not sure how much longer I can continue. As if someone granted this man a miracle, he finally sputters and chokes up water.

I slide off of him, falling to my back, sucking air into my lungs. “Roll him on his side,” I manage to say to one of the gawkers.

Coughing sounds next to me, which is a good sign. He’s expelling his lungs, though he’ll definitely need to make a trip to the hospital to be sure he doesn’t succumb to secondary drowning.

Once my breathing stabilizes, the realization of what I just did sets in, as does the panic. I sit up and stagger onto my hands and knees, getting my bearings before I stand. I walk over to my bag I dropped down the beach, leaving my surfboard behind being beaten up in the ripples of waves at the shore.

“Hey!” someone calls after me, but I ignore them.

There’s no way I’m going to be here when the ambulance and police show up. Even if I was a good Samaritan, I can’t be on their radar—even for saving someone’s life. My dad and brother would kill me.

And so, I leave the man behind, hoping I did enough to save him.

A couple of days later, Bastion barges into my room without knocking.

My brother’s not actually my brother by blood. My father took him in when he found Bastion as a runaway on the streets when he was eleven because Bastion was pickpocketing, and my dad thought he could be useful, which has proved right over the years.

I whip around from packing my change of clothes for my shift at the local bar. I’m scheduled to work tonight after I’m done with my regular job at the law office today.

“What the hell, Bast?” I narrow my blue eyes on his green ones.

“I should say the same to you.” He tosses a folded newspaper onto the bed in front of me.

My forehead scrunches, and I pick up the paper, reading the headline of the article — “Mystery Woman Saves Billionaire from Drowning.” Billionaire? Schooling my features, I drop the newspaper next to my bag.

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