text: People talk about how strong a current can be, all the time. The problem is you never quite believe them unless you've experienced being dragged down by one. Sure, water is dangerous. Everyone knows that. Strong, experienced swimmers drown every year. But until you've felt the absolute, relentless force of angry water, there's still that secret, childish delusion that if your life depended on it, you yourself could swim really, really hard and be okay.
  
  Cooper had grown up on Chesapeake Bay. He'd already experienced firsthand just how little currents cared about your secret, childish delusions. He knew he was fucked as soon as his head went under the water. And he knew it for sure when he felt the raft crash over him, pushing him down deep as it passed. There was no way they'd be able to paddle back for him. He'd have to try to catch up.
  
  It wasn't that the river was terribly deep. If he stood, Cooper could probably breach the surface. But with the relentless power of the current, there was as little chance of him getting his footing and standing as there was of growing gills.
  
  He immediately let his body go lax, trying to float to the surface. It worked enough to get occasional gasps of air, but the water kept tumbling over his face, filling his mouth and eyes. If he could just get oriented, maybe he could get close enough to the raft that someone could help him... But all he saw was water. Water splashing and leaping.
  
  Suddenly he felt something grab onto his arm. A hand from above, clenched around his elbow. Tugging him in a direction. A direction he would have sworn was wrong, moments ago. Cooper tried to grab back, but the hand slipped down his cold, wet skin. First to the wrist, then over his palm, and finally lost. A mere memory against his fingertips.
  
  Cooper continued to move downstream. No matter which direction he reached, he could not find the hand again.
  
  Stay calm. It's okay. Park was there. Lots of people were. He wasn't alone. Even if he couldn't see them, they could see him. What he really needed to do was twist his body around so he wasn't traveling downstream, headfirst and in danger of bashing his skull in before they could get to him.
  
  But even this was a challenge. The water wasn't moving in a straight line. There were obstacles at every depth level that scraped and battered his body and, most dangerously, little eddies that spun and dragged him down, away from the precious, intermittent air. Frustratingly, he couldn't get the water out of his eyes long enough to see the raft, the bank or what he was heading toward.
  
  What if the falls are nearby...
  
  Cooper couldn't help but picture the huge, gorgeous drop of water into the dark lake across from their cabin. The unforgiving cliffs that lurked just behind the mist. He reached out, desperately now, for something, anything to grab on to, eyes burning as the cold water slapped and dragged across them. The more he panicked and his muscles tensed, the harder it was to stay floating. Relax, relax, relax...
  
  That's when he felt the bite.
  
  Okay, perhaps not a bite-bite. It wasn't hard enough. But he did feel teeth, big teeth, and a big jaw closing around his leg. This wasn't a fish or a crab or whatever else normally nips at you in a river. This thing had gotten its mouth all the way around his calf.
  
  Cooper panicked, kicking blindly, and felt the teeth latch down harder. Sharp, shards of pain shooting through his flesh. Part of his brain understood it had to be a wolf. That part of his brain even understood the wolf was helping him, locking onto him the way a slippery hand could not.
  
  But all that was secondary to the fact that his leg was in someone's mouth and teeth were digging into his skin. He could feel the weight, the power of the jaw. He could feel the way it could rip his foot off as surely as if it were happening right in that very moment.
  
  Cooper stopped fighting. Not because he wasn't scared. But because he wasn't in the river anymore. Well, he was. He could still taste the muddy water as he swallowed it. Still feel the rocks and branches scrape at his skin as he was dragged over them...
  
  But he was also in the alley. Standing in front of Jacob Symer, who had only been an unknown suspect then. The unknown suspect who had just been a human when wolves didn't exist yet. Not to Cooper. He felt the water, the teeth, and he watched Symer's claws scoop, almost lovingly, deep into Cooper's belly. Felt the shock. The agony. Stared down at his own body and saw pink, shiny gut, open and exposed. Like roadkill. A dead animal. And he knew it was him. He was the dead animal.
  
  Suddenly, hands were all over Cooper. Pulling him up. Arms lifting him, laying him down on solid ground. He saw the faces hovering around him. Expressions of fear, shock, relief, concern, fury. Lisa was sobbing, "He saved me. He saved my life."
  
  To the side of everyone else was a white wolf, its fur puffy and wet. It watched him with dark, wary eyes. Cooper registered this as he had everything else, without feeling. Like he was logging data that meant nothing to him.
  
  Then the middle-aged Filipina woman was leaning over him, blocking his view, running her hands gently over his body, tugging at his clothes. He didn't care about that, either. What was her name? Mutya, that's it. She told him she was a doctor and asked if he could hear her and Cooper said yes. When prompted he told her his name, the year, where he was, no problem. He even remembered to say his undercover name, Kyle Davis. He wasn't foggy or confused. In fact, he felt remarkably clear and very, very calm. Very...still inside.
  
  He could hear Park's voice and he sounded upset. Something within him felt unhappy at that. But it was like an echo in a deep cave. Cooper sat up, and Park and Mutya helped him to his feet.
  
  "I'm fine. I'm seriously fine," he said.
  
  Weirdly, he was fine. Absolutely fine. Nothing felt wrong. Not much felt at all. Which didn't explain why his whole body was shaking, his heart was pounding, and his face muscles were tensed and aching as if he was holding back tears even as he kept smiling as hard as he could to reassure all the people staring at him.
  
  "He's okay!" Paul Claymont called out, as if they weren't all gathered close enough to see that for themselves.
  
  "You saved my life!" Lisa repeated.
  
  "And he's a hero!" Paul added with extra enthusiasm. He started clapping and other people hesitantly joined in.
  
  Lisa hugged him, and as soon as her arms squeezed around him, Cooper felt a bolt of rage. Why won't they stop touching me?
  
  But it was gone as quick as it had come, leaving him feeling nothing, again. Over her shoulder he saw Park's worried eyes, Jimmy loudly saying it was Lisa's "fucking fault the idiot went over in the first place," and the white wolf walking into the woods, unnoticed by everyone except Nielsen, who watched it go, his pretty face twisted with pure hatred.