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He cursed weakly

The two of them set heavy chunks of broken concrete in beside hih with beaht from the holes

The cooler rocked back and forth withnoise as they wrapped the chain and then the rope

"That’ll hold," Dekka said

Drake felt the cooler being lifted It teetered precariously as they alrip

Then: A short drop A splash

Water began seeping in through the screwdriver holes as air leaked out Water came in from all directions, like some kind of awful multihead shower Soon there was an inch of water in the bottom, and when Drake tried to curse, it was lake water that he sucked up into his severed throat

The descent seemed to take forever Then: a bump as the cooler landed on the lake bottom

It took ten minutes for the box to fill completely ater as it rose over his mouth, his nose, his eyes, and finally swirled his hair

But he was not dead

Tiny fish, guppies, cah the holes They nibbled at him, but stopped once they’d had a taste Still, they swirled around him, faintly luminescent in the dark water, like dull fireflies

They looked into his ears They poked curious heads into his nose They swaus and from there up into hiswithout sound as he changed into Brittney

The idea of facing Taylor without a cigarette was bothering Lana quite a bit Not that she was addicted to cigarettes, she told herself; it wasn’t anything like that Only a very weak person would become addicted, and she was not weak

The fact that she’d been shaking and even more snappish than usual all day absolutely did not prove that she was addicted Neither did the fact that she’d spentSanjit