Page 9 of Switching Graves

The feminine screeches approach, and I’m caught between the primal urge to continue running—to escape the threat—and the protective instinct to hang back and make sure nothing happens to Bane.

“The current is too strong right now. We’ll lose our footing. We have to keep moving through the woods. They’re coming up on us quickly.”

As I’m saying that, the two women round a corner and come to a halt a few feet away. The blonde looks absolutely livid, so I focus my attention on the brunette, who seems like she’d be more forgiving.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Dee warns, taking slow steps toward us. I begin to back away, closer to Bane.

“We were on our way home,” I explain weakly, my voice sounding every bit as young as I am.

She scrunches her nose in a disgusted scowl, her cheeks a deep red. “Is that why you were on the ground, listening to us?”

“Dee, leave it. They’re just little boys,” Connie says from a few steps away, proving my suspicions to be true.

“They heard us. They could run and tell someone, and we’ll both be thoroughly fucked,” Dee snaps, practically barking the cuss word. She looks downright evil.

Holding my hands up in front of my chest to prove I’m not a threat, I reply, “I have no idea what you’re talking about. W-we just want to go home.”

“What’s your plan? We can’t hold them hostage,” Connie points out, ignoring me. Maybe she’s not so crazy, after all. “I don’t care if they say anything.”

Ignoring her friend, Dee takes a few careful steps in our direction, forcing us closer to the river’s edge.

“We have no idea what you’re talking about,” I try to say, keeping an eye on how close Bane’s foot is getting to the water.

With a deep scowl, Bane’s gaze bounces between the two girls and the ground as he fights against his natural instinct to avoid eye contact with them altogether. “Just let us go,” he bravely bites out. “W-we don’t want anything to do with you.”

“I find that hard to believe when you were spying on us a few minutes ago like two little pervs.”

“Dee, drop it. Seriously.” Connie grabs her friend’s shoulder and tries to pull her away from us. Dee fights against her withpure rage in her eyes until she’s free of her grip, and then she’s racing toward us again.

“Fine, you can go,” Dee concedes as she rushes our way. Bane and I freeze in place, bracing for impact as she lifts her arms in front of her and shoves them against his shoulders. “If you can swim,” she adds under her breath.

It happens at half speed. Bane flings his arms around, desperately trying to grab a hold ofanythingto slow his descent into the rushing waters. But there’s nothing there to stop his fall. I scream his name, shoving my hand toward him a millisecond too late. Our fingers brush, but he’s already too far for me to grasp.

With a heavy, deafening splash, he falls into the water on his back and the current immediately sweeps him up. His body is slammed into random rocks and branches sticking up from the river floor as he flails around, trying to get himself upright and gain purchase against the slippery bed. On any normal day, the river hardly reaches our chests at its deepest part. But today, it seems just high and powerful enough to make standing impossible and Bane has never been able to swim.

The women are screaming at each other from behind me, but I don’t care enough to listen. I’m running alongside the river as Bane is carried away, trying to find the right spot to jump in and help him.

It’s moving too fast.

As I decide to throw all caution to the wind and take my chances, a body rushes past me in a blur, and then a splash as loud as Bane’s sounds off. I’m hardly able to move my eyes fast enough to see the brunette slogging through the heavy waters. She uses the same rocks and sticks that have caused Bane to lose his sense of direction as leverage to get to him.

But his head has been underwater for a long time. Even in my immature mind, I know that can’t be good.

Once she finally reaches him and is able to lift his face above the water’s surface, his lips have turned blue and his body lies limp against her chest. I scream his name over and over. So loud, my throat burns. So piercing, birds flail around above our heads and animals scurry around us.

The woman drags my brother back to the river’s edge, her petite body fighting against the stream that appears angry to have its victim stolen away from it. It punishes her with every step, insisting she be taken in Bane’s place. She still doesn’t yield—not even once. Against all odds, she makes it to the edge and hoists Bane’s sagging body onto the ground beside me, then pulls herself up.

She says something to me, but her friend is screaming hysterically in the background and I can’t hear any of it. Instead of trying to figure it out, I crawl up to my brother and start slapping his impossibly white cheeks, screeching my pleas for him to wake up. The girl places a hand on my shoulder, then gently pushes me backward so she has space to begin pumping her palms against his chest.

I watch for what feels like hours as she continues the process. Pumping, then blowing air into his lungs, then pumping again. The other girl has gone silent as Bane’s body lies there listlessly, never once regaining color or moving on its own.

“I tried to call the emergency line but my phone barely has service and I’m not sure that they heard us. We should go back to campus to bring someone out here,” the blonde suggests, her tone much gentler than before as she holds up one of those new flip phones everyone at school talks about.

“I’m not leaving him,” her friend says breathlessly without breaking her pattern.

Bane’s head lifts off the forest floor with every shove into his chest, and I swear I heard the distinct sound of bones breaking a few minutes ago. She had to hear it, too.

“Connie, he’s gone,” the blonde mumbles in a whisper, and I feel her eyes on me. “We need someone professionally trained to help.”

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