After about nine feet into the water, I hit the gap and plunge six feet. Icy water leaks in through the roof like the thing was made of paper. Everything goes black.
I reach up and smack the ceiling lights to give myself at least a glow to work with. I’m still thinking of Maya and where those creeps are taking her, what they’ll do with her. That and only that is the reason I don’t give over to fear. As long as Maya’s in trouble, I’ve got to fight.
There’s no Item to smash through the window. That’s the first thing they tell you to do when your car’s underwater: wait until the car’s hit the bottom of wherever it is you’re swimming to, then smash the windows. No going through the door—too much pressure or something like that.
The car’s still sinking down and there’s water up to my ankles cold as hell. I bunch my knees up to my chest—the longer I stay out of the cold water, the more energy I’ll have. Looking over near the passenger’s seat I try to find something to work with—hammer, metal bar, something strong and sharp I can use to smash my way through.
Nothing. Not on the floor, and not in the glove compartment. Shit. You’d think Theo would have armored these things up in case of emergencies, although he probably wasn’t expecting that his $200,000 car would be taking a swim like this.
The wheels settle to the bottom of the sandbar. They submerge slightly, lurch a little to the side, and hold. What the hell am I supposed to do now? The thought worms its way into my head uncomfortably, but I shove it away. Survive, and rescue Maya. Survive.
The water’s coming up fast: it’s almost at my seat. The ceiling’s ballooning down on me; I’ve maybe got a minute before it all comes crashing down. Maybe less—forty seconds.
So I do something I’ve done before when I’m fighting. The old samurai guys always say that your weapon should be an extension of your arm, but when you’re doing hand-to-hand with a bunch of ugly fighters, it’s more than that: your weapon is your arm. And although weapons can get damaged, they can’t feel pain. I imagine that my elbow is a point of steel that I’m about to drive into some guy’s gut, direct it at the window and smash. Nothing except blunt pain ringing up through my arm and into my head. I ignore it, cock my arm back and go in again. Still nothing.
The water slips onto my seat. One touch of that and I feel my strength flood out of me like through a stab wound. Christ—Christ. But I’m not dying here. If I die, Maya dies.
Again. Again. My bone aches like hell. The sleeve of my shirt is wet with what I know is blood even if I can’t see it. Again. And again. And, then a chip. A tiny fountain of pressurized water as small as a kid’s straw.
I forget about the pain I’d already promised myself to forget about, and cock back with what I’m hoping desperately will be the blow that shatters through. Then, I hear a tear. Everything goes dark and cold as ice.
The first few seconds of being plunged into super-cold water is what I imagine taking a bullet is like. You know what’s happened but you’re so paralyzed you can’t even think. Then you try to work reality back into your system—take a few steps, move your muscles—and you realize you can’t. You physically can’t do anything. And then you want to throw up and curl up.
All this flashes through my head the second the roof collapses in. I can’t think—not of survival, not of Maya. The cold sucks the air out of my lungs like a vacuum. Ten seconds underwater feels like fifteen minutes. I’m so cold that the cold starts to feel warm.
And that’s when I realize that if I don’t get myself out of the car in less than a minute, then I’m going to die. Simple as that. But facing the facts gives me a kind of armor. I don’t have time anymore. Every second counts because every second I stay underwater brings me that much closer to death.
I don’t have the strength or the force necessary to smash through the window, but with the car completely filled I realize I don’t have to. Something small but unmistakable sparks in my head, filling me with just a bit of warmth. It’s not much, but it’s all I need.
My deadly tired, numb fingers grapple around the car handle. They’re so stiff they don’t even curl: I’ve got to wedge my wrist up against the top part of the handle and move my fingers out, towards me. It’s a hell of a strain, feels like my fingers are breaking, and I can’t take a breath of air for more strength. I’ve hardly got enough air just to keep sitting there. Just a little more. My fingers can go to pieces—it doesn’t matter. Just a little more.
I don’t hear the click but I feel the handle give and the door slowly pries open. My mouth opens in shock, surprise, and joy, which I know immediately, is a mistake because there goes the last of my oxygen. I’ll have to beat it to the surface with everything I’ve got and anything I don’t.
Swimming, paddling, stroke after furious stroke. My lungs are on fire. My body feels like ground meat. The cold weighs me down, threatening to push me under the surface and hold me down. I don’t give in. I won’t ever give in.
And then, at last, surface. Air, amazingly. My lungs drink it in. Spiky, piercing, painful but life-giving air.
I roll out onto the beach, my back against the snow-covered sand, drinking it in. Suddenly, I’m exhausted. I’m more tired than I’ve ever been before. I could sleep for a thousand years, even in the cold and snow. It doesn’t bother me anymore. It’s even kind of warm, now that I’m out of the water.
My eyelids are like lead. Just a little sleep. After all that work, all that energy. Need something to keep on going. I’m so close to passing out I can already feel the darkness coming on. Infinite, black waves pushing me out to sea on waves of ice. I turn over and roll to the side so that I’m facing the broken barrier. I’m on the tails of my consciousness, and I know that if I close my eyes now, then I’ll die, and that’ll be the end of everything. I’ve forgotten why I was so desperate to hang on in the first place.
Then, through the haze, I see the light of the Motel Six. Warmth. A place to go. A way to save Maya. It all comes back, dull and tired, but stronger now than the desire to lay and rest and let exhaustion carry me off to death.
Getting up from the beach feels like learning to walk all over again. I’ll never know how I managed to get across the street and into the lobby, as tired as I was. The only thing I recall of all this is that I stumble in wearing nothing but my socks and underwear. I obviously shed the outer layers, but I don’t have any memory of doing it.
There’s no manager or anyone on duty from what I see, not until I lunge over and look behind the desk. The guy’s all done up in ropes and has got a gag of socks in his mouth. At least he isn’t dead.
My memory is spotted from here on out. I must have helped the guy get untied, but with my frozen hands, I don’t know how that would be possible. The next thing I know, I’m on the floor, right there in the middle of the lobby. And this guy—not more than a kid from the looks of him—is shaking me for all he’s worth, telling me I can’t go to sleep, I can’t go to sleep, I can’t.
Black holes. White holes. Little yellow holes like suns with faces that look down at me then disappear. It all goes flashing through my mind, glittering, brilliant, and brief like a shower of confetti, and then I’m out.