I’m almost there. The creature has raised its arm, pointed its toxic nails toward Trey’s chest. Last time, they caused only a mild reaction. We might not get lucky again.

“Hey!” I yell. “Stop!”

It doesn’t seem to hear me, so I throw a handful of coal with all my might at its back.

The coal doesn’t fly well, but a big-enough chunk hits it in the shoulder, causing it to turn.

“That’s right,” I yell. “Come and get me. Run, Trey!”

The creature ignores me, turns right back around, raises its arm to Trey again. I don’t understand. I’m yelling, throwing coal at it. Why is it so focused on Trey?

A projectile flies from the creature’s hand, almost faster than I can see, and Trey lurches back, hit in the shoulder. Another embeds itself in the breast of his life jacket. The creature continues to advance on him.

Trey bends, grabs a coal shovel, brandishes it.

The creature knocks it aside like it’s a matchstick—a gesture so fast it’s blurry in my vision—and reaches for Trey’s throat.

A tat-tat-tat rings like a snare drum in my ear, and searing heat zings past my cheek.

The creature arches its back. Bluish-green fluid stains its cloak, spreading like spilled ink. It collapses to the side, slips into the water, and disappears.

I whirl. It’s Wyatt, holding the AR-15. Blood pours from a cut on his scalp.

Wyatt drops the gun, crumples to the deck.

I run toward him, heedless of my injured ankle. Footsteps pound behind me as Trey catches up. We reach him together and crouch beside him. His legs are sprawled, his back against the edge of the trough, his head lolled to the side. His breaths are short and shallow, like he’s hyperventilating, and a sickly whistle stabs into my ear with each breath.

“Oh, god, Wyatt.” Did he break a rib? Puncture a lung? That wheezing sound . . . I don’t know what to do.

“Tell me where it hurts,” Trey orders. “Or point if you can’t talk.”

Wyatt gasps out, “Inhaler.”

His inhaler hurts?

But Trey understands right away. “Where?”

Wyatt pats the pocket of his coat, the ends of which stick out from under his life vest. “Pocket. But not there. Lost.”

“Shit,” Trey says. “Okay, buddy, I want you to breathe with me. We’re going to breathe together, long and slow and calm, while Paige looks for your inhaler. Got it?”

Wyatt nods. It seems to me the skin of his face is a little blue.

I jump up and start looking, knowing it’s likely futile. The inhaler is probably at the bottom of Lake Erie, but I have to try.

The shovel is in the trough where he dropped it, beside several half-buried propane tanks. Where, exactly, was Wyatt standing when I last saw him? There, I think, in that hollowed-out spot.