Page 6 of Beneath the Surface (Tendrils of Love #1)

C an’t fuckin’ believe he didn’t drown.” Brad unlaced his boots, yanked them off, then peeled away his socks. He dumped his drenched jacket on the ground and took off his two layers of shirts.

“Maybe he did,” Jake countered as he glanced at the lake with clear aversion to taking a swim. “Bodies float.”

“I heard him cough,” Brad muttered, removed his trousers, and stood on the shoreline in just his briefs.

His dick was already shriveling at the thought of entering the cold water.

He hadn’t noticed it so much while they were beating the faggot, his adrenaline pumping and his focus elsewhere.

But now, with the water lapping his feet, he realized just how fucking cold it actually was.

“We’ll freeze our dicks off if we go out there,” Jake said, taking his time shedding his clothes. Yet, Brad was the dominant in their friendship, and Jake would do whatever the fuck Brad told him to do.

Brad huffed. “If we don’t go out there and finish the job, and he makes it out alive, we’ll be up shit creek. You wanna spend the rest of your life in prison for attempted murder? Getting your ass reamed by every inmate cock in there?”

Jake looked a bit horrified at the notion.

“Yeah,” Brad scoffed. “Me either. So, suck it up and let’s finish this.”

The two men waded carefully into the water, both taking deep, quick breaths. Jake swore and shook his head. “How the fuck did he not drown from hypothermia?”

“Beats the fuck outta me,” Brad muttered, his jaw tightening as the icy water rose above his knees, licking at his thighs.

“Holy fuck,” he gasped when his package dipped below the surface.

“Fucking hell.” A slight worry crept in that they might drown trying to swim farther out.

His limbs were already starting to lock up from the cold.

We can’t just leave that faggot out there, alive.

“I don’t know if I can swim in this.” Jake’s teeth chattered a little with each word.

“Man, there’s no way he’ll make it out. Beaten to rat shit like he is.

He was practically dead when we threw him out there.

” His face pinched as he cupped his privates.

“How the fuck did he get so far out anyway? There’s no current really.

How’d he get all the way the fuck out there? ”

Brad shook his head; he wondered the same thing. “I don’t know. Maybe there’s an underwater current.”

“Has to be,” Jake mumbled. “He sure as fuck didn’t swim. Not tied up like that.”

“Let’s just get this over with.” Brad took a deep breath and dove in. For a brief moment, his body jerked from the cold, his chest tightening as if a thick band was squeezing around him. He floated, letting his system adjust to the icy water.

“Fuck!” Jake gasped as he submerged himself in the lake. He took quick, ragged breaths, nearly hyperventilating. “Brad... I can’t... it’s too fucking... cold...”

“Calm the fuck down,” Brad snapped. “Just give it a second, you’ll be fine. I’m not doing this alone. We’re both in it.” He swam forward, a tightness still in his body but not debilitating. “Come on!”

Behind him, Jake paddled unevenly, breath catching.

Fucking faggot, Brad cursed at their victim in his head. Why couldn’t you just die like a good little queer? You have to make us swim all the way out here after you? Maybe I will fuck you for this.

Jake gasped sharply—then nothing.

Brad paused, floating neck-deep in the lake, and looked back.

Jake was gone. “Jake?” he called. “Jake!” He scanned the shore, but there was no sign of the other man.

What the fuck? Had he swum back to land and taken off?

“Jake, you pussy!” Brad shouted. “When I find you— I’m gonna kick your fucking ass—”

The lake's surface surged in a circular motion around him, the water swelling ominously as if some colossal creature were awakening beneath its depths.

“What the shit—” Brad kicked frantically away from the rising tumult in sheer panic.

The lake seemed to come alive, its waters churning violently from all sides, as though possessed by a ferocious energy.

“Jesus!” Brad cried out, spinning toward the distant shore as his arms thrashed through the water in a frantic freestyle, driven by a primal instinct to survive, unaware of the biting cold that pierced his muscles like icy needles.

Fuck-fuck-fuck! His heart pounded in his chest, each powerful beat forcing ragged gasps from his lips.

Every desperate breath brought a rush of icy water flooding into his mouth and throat.

Suddenly, something that felt like a slick, slimy tendril of rope coiled tightly around his left ankle.

It’s just weeds! It’s just fucking weeds— But then the “weed” constricted with a brutal tightness, so intense that Brad felt the excruciating snap of his ankle bone and his foot twisted at a grotesque angle.

Then it yanked with a force that defied belief.

Before Brad could even cry out in agony, he was dragged beneath the surface, the murky lake water invading his nose and gushing down his throat.

His screams were reduced to garbled, muffled cries, barely audible through his congested ears as a torrent of bubbles erupted toward the surface, each one a tiny capsule of precious air escaping from his lungs.

Then he suddenly surfaced, his head breaking through the water as he coughed and gasped, retching up lake water.

Still, the weed clung to his broken ankle, pulling him across the lake's surface like a speedboat.

A powerful wave crashed into his face, forcing water up his nostrils and blinding his eyes.

He barely saw the log in the shallows before smashing into it, his ribs cracking.

The thing gripping his ankle pulled him back and slammed him again, this time cracking his head against the log.

Blood gushed from his nose and ears, and he managed one more ragged breath before being pulled below the surface again, dragged along the lakebed, and rolled like an alligator's prey as tendrils wrapped around him, spinning him into a cocoon of tentacles.

He opened his mouth to scream out of pure reflex, and the lake water rushed in, followed by a thick tentacle, invading his throat, gagging him, pushing deeper, entering his lungs.

The organs swelled, and suddenly he could breathe again, eyes bulging as he saw Jake—and witnessed what the lake creature was doing to him through the murky, greenish water.

A guttural scream built in Brad’s chest, torn between the desperate urge to fight and the terror of his fraying sanity, but it had nowhere to go except up into his head, cracking his mind and shaking his grip on reality.