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Something was wrong.
I could feel it in my bones. It irked me and it woke me up at five in the morning. I threw the covers back and felt the hairs on the back of my neck stand. Something was really wrong and whatever it was, I had a feeling he wouldn't like it one bit.
I opened my door, looking into the dark hallway. I instantly went for Odessa's room, knowing she'd be up at this hour. "Dessa," I muttered in a low voice, not wanting to wake anyone.
"Dessa," I knocked lightly. "Dessa," I said sharply, panic nudging its way into his voice. I put my ear to the door. Nothing except the sound of the air conditioning.
Wrong. Wrong. This was all wrong.
Odessa never took this long to answer and she always woke up around five - five thirty.
Panic rose in my chest as I hustled downstairs and looked in the kitchen. Nothing. She wasn't outside either. I walked down the hallway. The indoor gym was empty and the indoor pool was.....open. The door was open.
I pushed it open harder than intended. Instantly noticing the towel on the ground. It was the same one Odessa had earlier that day. I looked around at the chairs, the door that led into the garden in the back, then finally, he swallowed and looked in the pool.
My heart gave me one sharp beat against my chest. In the rippling water was the silhouette of a body.
I didn't hesitate to jump in and open his eyes. Odessa's glazed over eyes looked right back at me. Another sharp beat to my chest made me wince. I swam until I reached her, grabbed her arm and heaved her up and held her to my chest.
Her lifeless eyes stared at me as I swam up.
"Fuck, fuck, fuck," I cursed and set her down on the tile floor. I pushed back my wet hair from my face and started to pump her chest because at this point, I'd take her having a broken rib over being dead.
My skin burned even though the water had been lukewarm. It felt like needles were pricking his arms when he noticed the bruise around her neck and ankle which means this had been an attempted murder.
"Please," I begged quietly.
Fear wasn't an emotion I possessed. Fear had left the equation when I was a young boy. Fear made you irrational and it made you do stupid things and that was the opposite of how I operated. I was rational and I thought things through down to the last variable.
But now, looking down at her blank eyes, fear ran through me. It hit me straight in the heart. The impact felt like getting hit by a fucking train and I didn't like it. I hated that I felt fear. I hated that I didn't sense she was in there sooner and would murder whoever did this in cold blood.
