I tucked my knees into my chest. I pushed myself up. God, my head was hurting so much. The water was starting to come inside the vehicle now. The dashboard was underwater.
The windows are closed, I thought. I need to break one open. I rolled over onto my back. I was on top of Ryan Grayson now. I kicked at the window. Then again and again, but I couldn’t get enough leverage.
The tire iron. I need that tire iron.
I spun over onto my stomach. I moved my body over the rumpled-up plastic, feeling with my face for the heavy weight of that tire iron.
I have to find it. Or else I will die.
I willed my body to move, to cover every inch I could reach, no matter how much it hurt.
Find it find it find it.
There.
I grabbed the thing with my teeth, feeling the cold sting of the iron. Then I worked myself into a sitting position and dropped it into my lap.
That’s useless, Alex. You need it in your hand.
Even then, can you hit the window hard enough?
I rolled my body and caught the tire iron as it hit my hand. The water was coming higher now. Soon the air would be gone.
I gripped the tire iron and turned around so I was facing away from the window. I started swinging the iron at the glass. I felt it hit. The glass didn’t break. I swung again. Then again. Then again.
I felt the water on my legs. It was cold. I swung the iron. I fumbled with it, nearly dropping it. Then I recovered and swung again, trying to use my whole body to get more force behind the blow.
The water was rising. Shockingly cold. I was shivering already.
You are going to die, Alex. You are going to die right here with this other man. This fellow victim. They won’t find you for weeks, maybe months. Tanner Paige will go on killing while you slowly dissolve in this cold dark river.
Swing again. Like you mean it. Like you want to live. Like you want to get out of here and go find him.
I swung the iron. It hit the glass and broke through before falling from my hand. A rush of water hit me, wrapping its icy arms around my chest. I gasped for my last breath of air as it overtook me completely. Then I was under.
Get out. My only thought. The only two words in the language. Get out.
I kicked against Grayson’s body. I kicked against the seats. I felt my head knocking through the rest of the broken glass as I kicked again and again. My face out of the vehicle now, then my shoulder. Another kick. Another. My last breath dying in my lungs as I finally put my knee against the frame of the glass and pushed myself into the open water.
I didn’t know up from down at that point. I was moving, but I was in my wet clothes and it felt like I would sink to the very bottom. This way, I thought. No, this way, this way, and now my breath is gone, and the next thing that goes in will be the river itself, no, I must hold on for the air but I’m going the wrong way.
Then I saw light. I was going to the surface after all. It came closer and closer as I tried to dolphin kick, even with my hands still tied behind my back, with my lungs on fire now, until finally…
Air! I gasped for breath, my face just above the surface. I kicked and sputtered and took a breath of that beautiful air and filled my lungs with it. Then I gasped again and gagged on the river water. I spit that out and coughed and wheezed, keeping up my dolphin kick somehow, finding the strength to keep my face above water.
A second breath, a third, a fourth. It was all I could do to keep my body in a position to keep breathing, but as my breath came back to me, I knew I had other problems. I was still in the water, still unable to swim. For all I knew Paige was standing on the shore, watching me and figuring out what he had to do next to deal with this last problem.
From somewhere in the back of my mind, I remembered a technique for breathing in water. You arch your back and turn your face up so that your nose is the high point, and any buoyancy you have will naturally keep that one point above the water. You can do this without having to tread water, so you can regain your strength.
A fine theory, that may or may not work if you’re fully dressed. Worth a shot. I arched my back and put my head up.
Nice and easy, Alex. Stop kicking. See if this will work.
Yes. I think we’ve got something here. As long as I stay perfectly still.
Breathe. Yes. Breathe. Relax.
I did that for a full minute. Then the cold water started to get to me. It was time to move again. It was time to take whatever strength I had recovered and see if I could get to shore, and hope that Paige wasn’t waiting there for me.
I dolphin kicked one time, hard enough to drive my head up over the water. I took a quick look. I saw where the road led down to the river. What must have been the boat launch. I didn’t see Paige anywhere. I went back under, then dolphin kicked again, looking in the other direction. I was actually closer to the other shore.
I tried to flatten out my body on the water, but I was too bottom-heavy. I kicked and kicked and got nowhere, feeling the strength draining away again.
Turn over, you idiot. Do this on your back.
I flipped over and looked at the sky. I sucked in the air as I kicked and thrashed and finally started making progress, eventually settling into a cadence. Kick breathe kick breathe.
Until finally, I felt the bottom of the river under my feet. I turned over and went down to my knees, then stood up and stumbled out. I collapsed on the shore, feeling myself sinking into the black mire on the side of the river. I looked back behind me. I didn’t see Paige anywhere. He had left. The son of a bitch had turned and walked away, thinking I was already dead. Or if I came to, that I’d be dead in another few seconds anyway. Whatever, I didn’t even care. All I knew was that I was here on the shore, feeling like my head was about to explode-but alive.
I lay there for a while, until I started to shiver. When I finally rolled myself back up to my knees, I felt my hands shift. I gave them one great twist and felt them come free. When I pulled the thing around to look at it, I saw that it was a set of jumper cables. I threw them on the ground and looked at the raw skin on my wrists. Then I tried to get up.
Whoa, that’s not going to work, I thought. Standing is one thing I’m not ready for. That’s when I remembered my cell phone. I reached into my pocket and grabbed it. I turned it on. Nothing. Goddamned cell phone can’t survive one lousy dunk in the water. Without another thought, I tossed it into the river.
I started to shiver again, so I put one hand on the ground and tried to stand. One more time, I thought. You can do this.
I got one foot under me, then the other. I took a step and almost went down, caught myself, took another step. I had no idea where I was. I had no idea where I could go for help. I just knew I had to move.
I reached around and felt the back of my head. There was a big lump there. The skin was broken and I felt blood. A cold rational voice in the back of my head made the general announcement that I surely had a concussion and could use some medical attention as soon as possible. I took another few steps and felt everything spinning around me.
When things came back into focus, I saw something just down the shoreline. A large facility of some sort. A building and a pair of great round tanks set into the ground. The water treatment plant. He said something about that. Something about the view from this house, and the man being in Scotland. A useless detail, and yet I remember that part.
“Where are you, Paige?” I asked out loud, my own voice sounding strange and faraway. “Where did you go?”
He drove the minivan all the way out here, after all. He said we were in Western Michigan, right? Didn’t he say that? That’s a long way back to Southfield. How’s he going to get there?
I kept putting one foot in front of the other. The ground was more even here. It didn’t feel like I’d fall with every step. I was walking through the facility now. I found the sidewalk that ran between the building and the tanks. I didn’t see anybody there. I kept walking.