A choking cough escapes him, panicked until he recognizes that laugh and the red hair draped over his shoulder. Then he's laughing, too, a bright snort of sound as he kicks to keep them above water. At any rate, that creepy-crawly anxious feeling is gone, shunted out from the shock of it. Replaced now with the sharp electric tingle of human contact. Liam tenses in that practiced and careful way he does - that Liam, don't be so weird about it way.

"Oh my God, Zinnia. You gave me a heart attack." Beneath the grousing, the relief in his voice is palpable, like - what? He thought he was being attacked by a Shadow? Ridiculous. "Unless that was your goal. Assassin."

He dunks the both of them for good measure, then surfaces, again.