Free Reunion by Meg Cabot Page B

sooner had he come up than he was pulled down again, and not by any undertow or riptide.
    No, this I saw quite clearly: Michael was pulled down by a rope of seaweed that had somehow twined itself around his neck….
    And then I saw there was no “somehow” about it. The seaweed was being held there by a pair of hands.
    A pair of hands belonging to someone in the water beneath him.
    Someone who had no need to surface for air. Because that someone was already dead.
    Now, I’m not going to tell you that I did what I did next with any sort of conscious thought. If I’d been thinking at all, I’d have stayed exactly where I was and hoped for the best. All I can say in defense of my actions is that, after years and years of dealing with the undead, I acted purely on instinct, without thinking anything through.
    Which was why, as the lifeguard was charging through the surf toward Michael, his little orange flotation device in hand, I leaped up and followed.
    Now, maybe I’ve seen the movie
Jaws
one too many times, but I have always made it a point never to wade farther than waist-deep into the ocean — any ocean. So when I found myself surging toward the spot where I’d last seen Michael, and felt the sand shelf I’d been running on give out beneath me, I tried to tell myself that the lurch my heart gave was one of adrenaline, not fear.
    I tried to tell myself that, of course. But I didn’t believe myself. When I realized I was going to have to start swimming, I completely freaked. I swam, all right — I know how to do that, at least. But the whole time I was thinking,
Oh my God, please don’t let anything gross, like an eel, touch me on any part of my body. Please don’t let a jellyfish sting me. Please don’t let a shark swim up from underneath me and bite me in half.
    But as it turned out, I had way worse things to worry about than eels, jellyfish, or sharks.
    Behind me, I could dimly hear voices shouting. Gina and CeeCee and Adam, I figured, in the part of my brain that wasn’t paralyzed with fear. Yelling at me to get out of the water. What did I think I was doing, anyway? The lifeguard had the situation well in hand.
    But the lifeguard couldn’t see — or fight — the hands that were pulling Michael down.
    I saw the lifeguard — who had no idea, I’m sure, that some crazy girl had dived in after him — let the enormous wave approaching us gently lift his body and propel him that much closer to where Michael had disappeared. I tried his technique, only to end up sputtering, with a mouthful of saltwater. My eyes were stinging, and my teeth were starting to chatter. It was really, really cold in the water without a wetsuit.
    And then, a few yards away from me, Michael suddenly resurfaced, gasping for breath and clawing at the rope of seaweed around his neck. The lifeguard, in two easy strokes, was beside him, shoving the orange flotation device at him, and telling him to relax, that everything was going to be all right.
    But everything was not going to be all right. Even as the lifeguard was speaking, I saw a head bob up beside Michael. Though his wet hair was plastered to his face, I still recognized Josh, the ringleader of the RLS Angels — a ghostly little group hell-bent on mischief making…and evidently worse.
    I couldn’t speak, of course — my lips, I was sure, were turning blue. But I could still punch. I pulled my arm back and let go of a good one, packed with all the panic I felt at finding myself with nothing but water beneath my feet.
    Josh either didn’t remember me from Jimmy’s or the mall, or didn’t recognize me with my hair all wet. In any case, he’d been paying no attention to me at all.
    Until my fist connected solidly with his nasal cartilage, that is.
    Bone crunched quite satisfyingly under my knuckles, and Josh let out a pain-filled shriek that only I could hear.
    Or so I thought. I’d forgotten about the other Angels.
    At least until I was abruptly pulled under the waves by