Chapter 3 - The Chameleon’s Tears
*Break.*
Maya’s head punctured the surface of the pool, gasping for air that felt like pure fire in her throat. She hauled Clara upward, clamping her arm beneath Clara’s jaw to keep her blue-tinted face out of the water.
"Help! Somebody help! She’s drowning!" Maya screamed, her voice cutting through the ambient chatter and the string quartet.
The rooftop erupted into madness. Flutes shattered on stone; women shrieked in horror. Men in tailored suits rushed to the water’s edge. But before anyone else could react, Victoria dropped her glass, letting it shatter against the coping, and threw herself to her knees at the edge of the pool.
"Clara! Oh dear God, Clara!" Victoria wailed, her voice a theatrical crescendo of agony. "Someone call 911! Julian! Julian, help her!"
Julian Montgomery tore through the crowd, his face drained of all color, his tuxedo jacket discarded as he dove straight into the water without thinking. Within moments, Julian and two other men hoisted Clara’s limp, waterlogged body out onto the pool deck, followed immediately by Maya.
Clara was not breathing. Her lips were a terrifying shade of slate blue, her skin icy cold.
"Clara! Look at me! Breathe, baby, please breathe!" Julian choked out, falling to his knees and initiating chest compressions, his hands trembling violently. "Call an ambulance! Now!"
Maya coughed up water, crawling frantically across the wet stone toward Clara. "Let me do it—I’m CPR certified! Keep her head tilted, clear the airway!" Maya shoved her hands over Clara’s sternum, avoiding the swollen abdomen, and began rhythmic, forceful compressions. *One, two, three, four...* She pinched Clara’s nose, sealing her mouth, and delivered two rescue breaths.
"How did this happen?!" Julian roared through his tears, looking wildly around the circle of horrified elites. "She was locked in place! How did she get near the water?!"
Victoria collapsed onto the wet travertine, burying her face in her hands, her shoulders heaving with violent, rhythmic sobs. "It was the wheels, Julian! She... she asked me to adjust her blanket, and I turned around to grab her shawl from the lounger, and... and the brake must have slipped on the wet tile! I heard a roll, I lunged to grab her, but it was too fast! I couldn't reach her! Oh God, Julian, it’s all my fault! It’s all my fault!"
She looked so utterly broken, so devastated, that several guests immediately placed comforting hands on Victoria’s shaking back. "It was an accident, Victoria, you couldn't have known," someone whispered.
Maya, delivering another cycle of compressions, paused for half a second. She looked up, her piercing gaze locking directly onto Victoria. Maya had seen it clearly. There had been no dropped shawl. There had been no reaching out to save her. Victoria had stood like a stone sentinel, leaning her full weight into the push.
Victoria met Maya’s eyes through her parted, tear-soaked fingers. For a fraction of a millisecond, the hysterical grief vanished from Victoria’s face, replaced by a gaze so cold, so lethal, that a shiver ran down Maya’s wet spine. It was a silent, unmistakable warning: *Keep your mouth shut, or you are next.*
*Cough!*
A violent spasm racked Clara’s frame. She heaved, vomiting gallons of water and bile onto the pool deck. Her chest rose in a ragged, agonizing gasp.
"Clara!" Julian wept, cradling her head against his soaked chest. "Clara, stay with me! The baby—somebody tell me if the baby is alive!"
Clara’s eyelids fluttered. She saw the night sky. She felt Julian’s tears burning against her cheek. But as her blurred vision sharpened, she saw Victoria hovering directly behind her husband, dabbing a fake tear with a silk handkerchief.
May you like
Clara tried to speak, to scream the truth, but her vocal cords were paralyzed by water and trauma. Darkness dragged her down once more as the wail of emergency sirens echoed from the streets below.
***
