He carried on walking, Belle following behind. When they reached the river, Belle sat down on the bank, feeling like she was going to hurl. Down in the dip, the water rushed on by, powerful and merciless.

Black water.

The monstrous things, old as the mouth of hell, ancient predators, slipping in, coming to get her . . .

‘Don’t think about it,’ Jack reminded her, somehow reading her mind. He was shrugging off his shirt and dropping it onto the grass.

Belle drew in a shuddering breath and flicked up a glance at him. Instantly she was sorry she had. That was the other thing that flummoxed her, his so-casual attitude to his own body. She looked at his chest, furred lightly with black hair, and his arms, so muscular, so whipcord strong. Then he unbuckled his belt and unzipped, and she quickly looked away.

Her heart hammering in her chest now, sweaty from the heat of the day and so glad of the shady cool of the trees overhead, she heard him move away from her, down the bank. She heard him wade out into the water. She turned and looked.

He was swimming over to the opposite bank. Reaching it, he turned and ploughed back through the water and looked up at her.

‘Coming in, then?’ he said.

God, she was so sick of this. She didn’t feel like herself, not any more. She’d had the shit kicked out of her. And that made her mad. She’d lost her nerve; she was broken. Broken by Harlan fucking Stone.

No. That won’t happen. I can’t let it.

She looked down at Jack, grinning a challenge at her. And him. So bloody confident. Strutting around in the altogether like it didn’t matter a damn. She felt fury building in her. At Harlan, at Jack, at the whole damned world.

‘All right,’ she said. She stood up and quickly threw off the faded chambray shirt and his mother’s old jeans. Then naked, defiant, she walked down to the water’s edge and, steeling herself, she waded in.

128

The minute she was up to her chest in the water, it grabbed her: the terror.

‘Oh Christ,’ she said, shivering. The water was icy, and her mind was full of those monsters, tearing at her flesh, trying to eat her whole. She felt her breath catching in her throat, felt her lungs close, felt a scream building up.

Jack was suddenly right there, in front of her. Those fierce eyes were blazing into hers.

‘Don’t think about it,’ he said, grabbing her shoulders, fixing her with his gaze. ‘I’ve got you. You’re fine. The most dangerous thing in here is us.’

Something slithered past Belle’s ankle and she let out a shriek. ‘What the fuck . . . ?’ she yelled.

‘What?’ he asked.

‘Something touched me.’

‘Probably just weed or maybe a trout. I told you, there’s fish in here. And newts and stuff.’