Page 1 (2/2)
Of course, she was nine and her dad was i lasts forever Years later, after her parents were dead, her doctors said she’d had an out-of-body experience Commonplace, no voodoo For example, certain epileptics had si to walk the stars and know the gods, mystics and shamans drank potions It was all funky brain chemistry, the doctors said, theonly that you tickle the brain in the right spot, goose it just so Easy-peasy Figure out how to bottle it, and we’d all be rich
In fact, her last doctor thought what happened at Blackrocks-- that shove froinning to wake That her sleep going to hell and the smell of phantom smoke weren’t her first sy, chip-chip-chipping a peephole to peer with one yellow baby-monster eye--why, hello there--way back then
And she had been falling, falling, falling ever sinceInto now
PART ONE:
INTO THE DARK
Alex fell, fast, into the dark, in a hail of splintered wood, a shower of stone as the mine came down around her ears and water stormed up the throat of her escape tunnel She could s to meet her, the water so icy and assy fizz of rotten eggs High above, so far away, she saw the stars wink out The exit where Tom had been only minutes before noarmed with viscous, oily shadows as the earth folded and fell in on itself
She’d taken physics Terminal velocity waswell, they didn’t call it terh and even an ant will shatter After a certain height, co a car into a brick wall Sure, the car cru movable--had its own momentum People hurtled into one another or the seat or windshield, and then the brain, the heart, the lungs s and the impact wouldn’t just break her; it would obliterate her
She thought she was screa but couldn’t hear herself over the co hard smacked the back of her head, not a rock but Leopard’s Uzi still slung over her shoulders, the carry strap slicing her right ar into the small of her back For the first time in her life, she wished all Glocks had safeties She didn’t think the weapon would discharge and blow a hole through her spine or into her butt, but there was a first ti to your death On the other hand, a nice, quick, lethal bullet--
And then, suddenly, that was it In that very last second, she closed herherself forwell, for so Someone For Tom, maybe No, no maybe about him at all She hadn’t wanted Tom to leave, but she couldn’t let hiood thing she could do She so desperately wanted him to live that it hurt--
Then, no hts orEnd of the line
She hit
It wasn’t gentle
Alex clobbered the water like a sledgehaht ankle; the impact blasted into her hips A cannonball of pain roared up her spine to detonate in her head Her vision blacked from the spinal shock For a second, maybe two, she was out cold, helpless as a puppet cut loose fros
Ironically, the water that had just tried to kill her slapped her awake for round two Her ushed into hercla, her throat was a knot She couldn’t h with sheer will, she gulped one shrieking inhale before the water wrapped steely fingers around her ankles and calves to pull her down, down, down below the surface
No! A fist of red, burning panic punched her chest Completely underwater and totally in the dark, she thrashed with no sense of where the surface was Caught in a whirlpool created by co Her right shoulder slales down to her wrist and nu--where’s up, where’s up?--but hershrill of pain She wasn’t sure her legs were even working
Nearly out of air Got to do so to force open her mouth for air that wasn’t there A solid steel band cinched down tighter and tighter around her chest, squeezing, squeezing Desperate for oxygen, her heart pounded fast and then faster and faster and faster, a fist frantically banging her caging ribs: Let me out, let me OUT, LET ME OUT!