Remember Me

Chapter 16

Ava

A huge wave of water from Lupa's impact sprays all of us who are standing about fifteen feet away. I hear the dull thud of her hitting the bottom of the pool. Bubbles rise, but still she doesn't. Everyone is silent.

I take off towards the pool, shedding my hat and necklace as I go. I hear Moira following me as I leap into the pool and swim down to the bottom, grabbing Lupa under her armpits. She is like a deadweight in my arms. It takes me a long time to surface with her.

"Bring her here," Moira instructs briskly, reaching out her arms to help me get her up sooner. Both Nathan and Alec jump in the water as well and help me drag her very still body to Moira. She rolls like a rag doll from my arms to Moira's.

Moira sets her down on the ground and checks her pulse and breathing.

"Ava, she's not breathing and she's got no pulse!" She calls back to me. I drag myself out of the pool and crouch beside Lupa, on the other side of her from Moira. The crowd starts to press in to see how she's doing.

"Get back," I snarl. Moira glances up at me and back at the still advancing crowd.

"Guys, stay back! She's going to need medical attention. Someone call the hospital please. The rest of you stand back."

Nathan and Alec pull themselves out of the water and begin to act as crowd control. Moira crouches overtop of Lupa and starts to administer CPR. After four beats, she tries to do mouth to mouth. Lupa doesn't respond. I'm getting anxious. I get up and start pacing. After a moment or two, I hear Moira call me.

"Ava, come here," she calls in a steady, calm voice. "The paramedics are on their way, but they won't be here very quickly. I need to you take over for me. Can you do that?"

"W-what do I do?" I ask nervously, crouching back beside Moira. She shows me how to hold my hands for CPR.

"Every four beats, give her mouth to mouth. Can you do that?"

I nod and she demonstrates how. Then I'm left on my own. I ram my hand into her chest four times, wait for a second for a breath, and then apply mouth to mouth on her. I'm not sure how long I'm at this for when I hear sirens close by. As they approach the house, people scatter everywhere. The underage drunks probably think that the ambulance is a police car.

"Come on, Lupa," I whisper as I pound on her chest. "Come back to me. Please." I give her the kiss of life once again, wait to hear a breath, and continue to manually get her heart to beat. "You can't die. The curse isn't broken yet. You've gotta come back. For me. For Red. C'mon, c'mon!"

I lean down once more to breath for her, when her eyes snap open and she starts to vomit. Silently thanking God, I roll her onto her side as mouthful after mouthful of alcohol and pool water reemerges. Finally, with a last dry retch, she is done. I roll her over to face me. Her topaz blue eyes are blurry and unfocused, and her breath still reeks of alcohol.

"Hi," she says, "How are you?"

My relief quickly turns to anger. I slap her as hard as I can.

"You idiot!" I yell, shaking her shoulders. "You could've died!"

"Well it was worth it," she mutters. "That was an awesome jump."

I slap her again. "What would've I done if you did die?"

She looks mutely up at me. I shake my head and wrap my arms around her soaking wet body in a tight hug. After a moment, she hugs me back.

"You're soaking wet. Go get into something warmer. And lay off the drinks! You're still the most drunk one here!" I help her stand up, and people clear a path to the house for her to stumble into.