Smoke Screen

Chapter 23

"What did you do that for?" Tony yelled at Rafaela.
"Relax, she's fine. She's just going for a little swim." She said with a laugh.
"She said no. You had no right to push her." He said, sending her a glare. His fists were clenched and he could not control the anger that coursed through him.
"It's no big deal. She just got a little wet, so what?"
Tony tore his eyes away from Rafaela to look down at Layla. But when he scanned the surface of the water, he did not see her. Panic surged through him as he desperately searched for her. "Layla?!"
Rafaela stopped laughing as she slowly stepped beside Tony, looking down at the water as well. "Umm, she can swim, right?"
Tony thought about it but did not know the answer to that question. He would have assumed that she did know, but now he was not so sure. He had never seen her swim before and she did seem reluctant to be around the water.
Dread flooded his senses and without another thought, he dived down into the lake. Thrashing his head from side to side, he searched for Layla until he saw her slowly sinking further down into the water. Her eyes were closed and her body looked limp.
Quickly swimming to her, Tony wrapped an arm around her waist and pulled her to the surface. Once out of the water, he laid her down on the ground. A small crowd of campers surrounded him as they watched with concern.
Putting his ear to her chest, Tony's heart dropped when he did not hear anything. Not wasting a second, he unzipped her red leather jacket and began preforming chest compressions and mouth to mouth. He did not hear or notice any of the other campers. His attention was solely on saving Layla.
After going from chest compressions to mouth to mouth several times, Layla finally woke up, coughing out water as she gasped for air. "Layla! You're alright!" Tony wrapped his arms around her, overjoyed to see her awake and breathing again.
    Layla blinked several times to adjust to the bright light of the sun and looked around, trying to figure out what was going on. She was soaking wet and now on solid ground. Next to her was Tony, gazing at her with a look of relief. Did he save her?
    Tony hugged her tightly as if afraid to let her go. The feeling of his arms wrapping around her sparked a sensation of heat in her chest. She was too tired to push him away, but even if she had the strength to do so, she knew she would not want to.
    Noticing a large crowd gathered around her, she suddenly got embarrassed. The last thing she wanted was to have everyone looking at her like this. She wanted to go under the radar and completely disappear.
    Rafaela was watching as well, her slightly nervous look replaced with an amused one now that she knew Layla was fine. Layla stood up with the help of Tony and sent Rafaela a glare before running off to find a quiet place where she could be alone.
    She found a nice spot that was far enough away that she would not be disturbed, but still close enough to the others that she could still hear their voices in the distance. But that did not mean much. They were so loud that Layla felt like she still would have been able to hear them even if she was a mile away.
Sitting down of the trunk of a fallen tree, Layla took off her leather jacket to help herself dry off more. Covering her arms were a bunch of red marks and dark bruises. It was a horrible sight that she hated every time she looked at it.
Apart from the fact that she did not know how to swim, this was the main reason she did not want to wear her bathing suit or go swimming. She did not want anyone to see these horrible marks.
The sudden wresting of bushes caught her attention. She nearly jumped as she looked up. Standing there, of course, was none other than Tony.