The Aura Read Online Free Page B

second now, she would cross his path. What would he do? Snatch her and run? I darted forward, aware of stabbing pains in my knees, and saw the little girl pass just a few yards in front of him. He didn’t even look at her, but kept walking, white earphone cables dangling from under his hood.
    Thunder rolled above us and a flash of lightning brightened the purple sky. Fat drops of water began to fall. Within seconds, rain cascaded through the trees, soaking my running shirt. Swollen black clouds hung so low that they seemed to be ensnared in the leafless branches. I wiped the rain from my eyes with a corner of my running shirt and then realized that the girl had disappeared from sight. Panicked, I ran in the direction where I had last seen her, my feet slipping on the wet grass. A glimpse of pink off to my right. I breathed again. Leaving the trees behind, I saw her on the other side of an expanse of lawn. In the lurid light of the storm, the grass looked black, like the surface of an angry sea.
    It took a minute for me to register the danger. Sophie was standing on the concrete rim of a boating pond, looking down into the water. On sunny days, kids brought remote-controlled boats and raced them around the pool, but today it was deserted. Green water churned under the torrential rain.
    “Sophie!” I shouted. “Get off the wall.”
    My words were drowned out by the gusty wind and crash of rain. In slow motion, the stuffed bear slipped from Sophie’s fingers into the murky water. She leaned forward, hand outstretched. She seemed to slip, tried to catch her balance and disappeared from sight over the rim of the pond. I dashed towards her. Stepping up on to the low wall, I saw a pink outline under the surface. I reached down, but the water was deeper than I’d thought. I couldn’t get hold of her. I plunged in, feeling the cold water hit my skin with a shock like an electric current. When my feet touched bottom, the algae-filled water was over my head, and my eyes burned.
    Lunging towards Sophie, I tried to grab at her arm. She had drifted a few yards away, her pink raincoat rendered grey in the muddy, opaque water. I took several strokes towards her and reached down to gather her into my arms. Twice I tried to grab her and failed, my hands slipping on the plastic macintosh. Then, desperate, I caught hold of her hair to pull her towards me. Her body was limp, her eyes were closed, and blood was leaking from her head, trailing through the water like tendrils of black smoke.
    I held her face above the water and dog-paddled back to the rim. There, I shifted my grip on her, while scrabbling at the wall with my free hand. The side of the stone basin was slick with frothy green scum and I couldn’t get a firm hold. Scraping my arms and legs against the concrete, I finally managed to grab the slippery wall and push Sophie over the top of it. Then I clambered out, my breaths short and ragged, my chest burning. I scrambled to my feet, stripped off my shirt and wadded it against the wound on Sophie’s head. She must have hit the rim when she fell in. I felt for a pulse but there was nothing. Frantic, I started gentle chest compressions, trying to remember what I had learned in girl scouts about CPR.
    I shouted for help while I did the chest compressions, wondering how it was possible that I was in the middle of one of the busiest cities on Earth and yet so alone. At last, a man’s voice sounded close by.
    “I’m calling for an ambulance,” he said, striding towards me with a cell phone at his ear. It was the young man with the hooded jacket.
    I nodded and kept working. After what felt like an infinite span of time, the wail of an ambulance siren cut through the steady drumbeat of the rain. Sophie’s eyelids fluttered and my heart lifted. Thank God.
    “Is she your daughter?” the stranger asked, holding the shirt that was now red with blood tight against her wound. I shook my head.
    Before he could ask any more questions, a