I hear her say, If you don’t have anything else, you have to use your own body.
I roll, fast, and Bon’s wrist is turned and his shoulder jerked hard; I set the soles of my running shoes on the rock and lunge up at the waist, breaking his hold on my shirt. I think it rips, but I don’t care. I let momentum work for me; it carries me up into a crouch, and I duck and roll as mullet guy makes a grab for me. “Get her!” Bon says. I dodge.
I spin, coil myself, and leap into a run again for the edge.
I’ve never done this, never jumped off this damn rock, and it’s black down there, no way to tell where the water is, where dangerous rocks could be. I’m jumping blind, but I know instinctively it’s my only shot at making it out of here alive. I’m scared out of my mind as I go off into the dark.
It’s a long two seconds of falling. If I hit a rock, I’ll shatter my legs—maybe not even know I’ve done it until I’m underwater. No no no no no not like this . . . I don’t want to end up drowning. I can’t. Every cell in my body screams at the thought, an incoherent blur of the dreams I’ve had of floating in the water, of my dad’s underwater garden of dead women. Not like this.
I somehow avoid any deadly boulders. I tuck myself and hit the water in an enormous splash that stings like I dove into fire, and I sink, I sink as I unfold and instinctively begin to stroke for the black surface. I think it’s the surface. It’s so dark. I’m blind in the water. If I’ve lost my direction, I could be swimming down. My lungs are already burning, but that’s panic, and I need to stop it before it makes me thrash and lose everything. Calm down. Swim. Break the surface.
It seems like an eternity before I feel air on my flailing fingers, and then my head is up and I take a shuddering gasp. I try to orient myself. Where am I? Close to the shore on the Killing Rock side, but I don’t want to go back there; the beach is practically deserted now, everybody running for the hills, their cars, wherever they can go to get away. The cops. Where are the cops? I can see flashing lights somewhere up on the horizon.
I can’t see Vee anywhere. She left me here. She left me.
I’m a good runner, but I’m not a great swimmer. I get tired fast, and I have to pause to tread water. I know this isn’t safe. Stillhouse Lake is deep, and dark, and people have died in it. Nobody knows I’m out here but Bon and his drug-dealing friend. My phone is gone.
I need to save myself. But I’m tired.
I can’t see if they’re chasing me, but it doesn’t matter. The lake is so cold, and I feel sluggish. I need to get out. Now.
So I swim for shore.
The first police car is pulling around, lights flashing, and there’s an ambulance right behind it. I can’t even feel relieved. I’m too cold.
The two cops who get out of the police car don’t see me swimming toward them. Their backs are to me, and before I can get enough breath to yell, they’re already heading up the path. I wonder if they’re going to think I hurt Candy. That’s a new idea. I don’t like it, and I tread water again. Maybe I shouldn’t go up to the shore.
I don’t even realize that I’m slowing down and slipping under the water for a few seconds until the water closes over my nose and I panic. I flail up again, gasping, and I guess the splashing attracts the paramedic’s attention, because he shouts at me to get out of the water.
I swim until I finally feel the bottom again. I feel a hundred pounds heavier coming out, and I’m not at the beach sand part—it’s rocky here and slick—and I slip and crawl up until I’m finally on dry land. I flip over on my back and just . . . breathe. I cough out water I didn’t know I breathed in. I’m shaking so hard it hurts, and the paramedic runs over with a blanket and puts it around me. He’s yelling questions at me, but I don’t answer. I’m not sure what to say. I just want to go home.
The paramedic is asking me my name, and I manage to stammer it out. I guess he recognizes it, because the next thing I know he’s dialing a cell phone and hands it to me. “Lanny?” It’s Mom’s voice. It’s like a rush of warm water through my cold veins, and I almost gasp in relief. “What’s going on?”
I burst into tears. I stammer out something, I don’t even know what it is, or if she can understand it through the gasps and chokes and sobs. But she tells me she’s coming for me, so I tell her I’m okay and the second she’s off the call I drop to the ground, shivering and soaking wet and freezing cold, and I cry my heart out.
They pile more blankets on me, but I’m still cold when Sam’s truck slides to a stop on the road. More cops have arrived. They try to intercept my mom as she bails out, but she dodges them and races to me, and the desperation on her face makes me feel safe, finally safe. I struggle up from where I’m sitting, and before I can even get out of the blankets her arms are around me, holding me so tight it ought to hurt. It feels so right. I hug her back.
The relief lasts between us for maybe ten seconds, and then she pushes me back and says, “What the hell were you thinking? Why would you leave the house like that? Without telling me?”
I don’t know what to say to her. I don’t want to lie, but I also don’t want to tell her about Vee. I’m ashamed of myself, and I’m angry that Vee left me, and I have no idea where she’s gone. So after I fumble for a few seconds, I say, “I just—I wanted to go to the party, Mom. I knew you wouldn’t—”
My voice is quavering, voice unsteady, on the verge of tears. My tough-girl persona has melted away, and I feel like I’m a little kid again. I remember being twelve and showing off for Connor; I’d gotten Mom’s gun out of the lockbox and unloaded it and reloaded it, and the expression on her face when she found us was just like this. Angry, terrified, disappointed, so worried. It hurts. I just want to curl up in a ball and cry myself sick.
I’m the only real witness.
If the cops don’t get Bon and the guy with the mullet, I’m going to be in real trouble.
10
GWEN
It’s hard to even fathom the relief I’m feeling right now. Lanny’s cold and soaking wet and shivering, but she’s alive. Uninjured, but terrified. I need to get her home and into dry clothes, but the police officer who stopped Sam’s truck and has directed him to park over by the side is coming at us, with Sam and Connor close behind.
“I’m going to need y’all to wait for the detectives,” he tells us. “They’re on the way right now.”
Lanny says, “Is she okay? Candy, the girl up there?” She’s pale, shaking, but steady enough.
Up where? What girl? I wonder, but it’s not the time to ask. I turn to the paramedic and he says to my daughter, “We’re headed up there right now.” He directs the rest to me. “Lanny’s okay. Get her warmed up and let her rest. Her lungs are going to be sore and irritated for a while, so take her in to see her doctor; he may want to give her some treatments for that.” Then he and his partner are gone, carrying a lightweight stretcher and heading for the cliff the kids call Killing Rock.
I turn to Lanny and say, “Baby, what happened?”
She doesn’t want to tell me, and I don’t know if that’s shock or her physical misery or something else. I want to press, but Sam puts a hand on my shoulder and says, quietly, “Gwen. She’s okay. Take a breath.”