Fatal Flashback. Kellie VanHorn

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       ONE

      Cold water roared through her clothes, swirling over her head and through her hair, dragging her back into consciousness. Instinctively she struggled for the surface and as soon as her head cleared the water, she coughed and gasped in a few precious breaths, wiping at her stinging eyes.

      In the fading daylight the banks of the narrow river filled the horizon, impossibly high to her right but leveling out on the left. Sparse brush and skinny cottonwood trees lined the sandy river’s edge.

      Not a soul in sight.

      Something sharp—a submerged log, maybe—jammed into her ribs. She cried out in pain but was rewarded with a mouthful of dark river water. Coughing it out, she turned against the current and kicked for the bank.

      She crawled out onto the sand, tiny rocks biting into her palms, and pushed through the reeds growing at the water’s edge. Collapsing onto a clear patch of ground, she struggled to catch her breath. What on earth had happened? Where was she?

      The back of her head throbbed like she’d smashed it into a rock. Worse, though, was the way her brain felt like cotton fluff, disoriented and unfocused.

      She squinted into the last fading rays of light, one cheek pressed down on the cool sand. As the initial blackness receded, her senses clicked slowly into place. The tall reeds stood like sentinels СКАЧАТЬ