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Erik grabbed her by the collar and a fist full of hair snd dragged her to the edge of the lake. He tripped her so she fell hard into the icy water at the shallows.
“Be damned! Drown! Rot there!” he howled at the creature he could not tame.
Tears of so many types of anguish ran down the caved cheeks it was as if he had been submerged himself. Deaf and blind, he’d thought to make her his own creature, but her stubborn will nearly eclipsed his own.
So taken was he in his own hell of emotion that he would not have heard the sound she made if not for holding his breath against sobs tearing at his chest.
“Wa’er?”
He blinked, his eyes stinging in the damp air, and heard it again.
“ ‘ater.”
He stormed back to the drenched and bedraggled figure, hauling her up and crushing her painfully against him.
“What did you say?” He growled deeply so that the vibration of his voice, which could not penetrate deafness, would pass straight into her bones
She pulled her hands forward and rubbed her slick palms together.
“Wat…er” she said clearly, her head thrown back, unseeing eyes focused on some inner world.
And then, so shocking him that he nearly flung her away, she made the simple sign for water with her cold, blue tipped fingers.
“Yes!” he sobbed, crushing her closer, the icy lake water soaking into his own clothes now. If that all wasn’t enough, he felt her hand hesitantly touch his good cheek and clumsily, slowly spell out
E R I K.