Free Call to Arms (War of the Fae: Book 2) by Elle Casey

talking about the stuff I did during the test or the recent near-killing I did of Céline.
    “Are you talking about Céline?”
    Becky looked confused.   “What?   No.   What about her?”
    I shook my head.   “Never mind.   I’ll tell you later.”   Dardennes stopped talking with Naida and came over.   “Looks like I’m up.”
    “Jayne, Naida and I have discussed the situation, and we both feel the first part of this ... experiment ... should be for you to try and make a connection with the water.”
    “Soooo ... you want me to go swimming or something?”
    “No.   We want you to just relax.   Let Naida take over from here.   She is the expert, not me.”  
    Dardennes stepped away from the edge of the lake, walking back until he was at the tree line.   Once there, he turned back to face the lake, clasping his hands together behind his back.  
    Becky looked at Naida and got a worried look on her face.   “Um, I’m just gonna head out for now ... ”
    “Where are you going?” I asked, hoping she’d stay.
    “I ... uh ... gotta go.”  
    And then she was gone.   Disappeared.   I really hated when Becky did that teleporting stuff.   She was always either scaring the shit out of me or abandoning me in the blink of an eye.
    I turned to look at Naida.   The bitch of the lake.   I still had a bone to pick with her.
    “You nearly killed my friend.”
    She nodded her head at me.  
    “That pissed me off.”
    She just looked at me, saying nothing, no expression on her face.
    “I think you and I need to come to some sort of understanding.”   I’m not sure what I meant by this show of false bravado, but it seemed like the right thing to do at the time.
    Next thing I knew, lake lady was standing right in front of me, two inches away from my face.   Before I had time to react, she seized me with both arms in a gruesome bear hug.   Gruesome because, well, she’d practically killed my friend and now she was trying to kill me too; but also because she smelled like the lake.   Muddy.   Fishy.   Not very pleasant.   Exactly how I imagined a murderous sea monster would smell.
    I struggled to get away.   “ What .   The fuck .   Is your problem ?”
    She was pulling me backwards.   Well, backwards for her – forward for me.   She was going to try and drown me.   And I was totally not thrilled with this kind of test.
    “Get. Off!”   I tried to shove her away, but she was too close for me to get any leverage.   My hands were trapped at my sides.   I was desperately searching for a solution to my total body lockdown problem when I remembered the famous head butt move from the movies.   Head butts always surprised the bad guys.   Might as well ...
    I head butted her.   Hard.   I saw stars and was instantly rewarded with a headache.   She just looked at me, totally unfazed.   Note to self: never use head butts on sirens.
    We were at the edge of the water now.   I could feel it at my ankles, filling up my moccasins.   The water was cold.   This must be what Becky went through.
    I remembered The Green and how it had helped my friends before.   I sent out a call to The Green.   Save me!   By now the water was up to my knees.  
    I saw Naida’s eyes widen, looking off over my shoulder.   I turned my head as far as I could and saw the vines nearly upon us.   Yes!
    Naida quickly jerked me backwards and under the water.   I felt a rushing, as if I was being pulled through the water by a speedboat, farther and farther away from the edge of the lake.   She still had me in a total body lock.   All I could do was struggle meekly and eventually surrender.   I had quickly run out of breath.   I blinked my eyes underwater, watching as the last bubbles from my lungs danced up above my head, in a rush to get to the surface – the place where I wished I could be right now.
    The sounds I was used to hearing above the ground were gone.   The murmur of the wind through the trees and the