Helpless

Chapter 84

Adriana stood from her crouched position quicker than Tom anticipated. Even so, he was ready to act. He’d been whispering in Jill’s ear while Adriana kept herself occupied with Roland. Jill assured him she was ready. She squeezed Tom’s hand with a strength he didn’t realize his daughter possessed.

Adriana raised her gun higher. Her face, savage with a gruesome covering of blood splatter, contorted into a vicious snarl.

“I’m sorry, Tom. I’m going to have to disappear. I don’t see any other way.” She aimed the weapon at Jill.

Tom shoved Jill backward, hard as he could, coiling and uncoiling his hips to enhance his leverage. Jill’s feet lifted off the ground. Tom prayed they had taken enough backward steps that he could shove her far enough out to clear the railroad ties below. He dove to his right at the same instant Adriana fired her shot. Tom heard the bullet slice through the air, then a loud splash. Tom rolled twice, getting closer to Adriana with each revolution.

Please… please be all right, he thought.

Another shot rang out. Then another. Pop! Pop! Tom rolled again and, in a single motion, sprang back to his feet, within striking distance of his target. Tom didn’t attack right away. He couldn’t make his decisive move until he knew for certain Jill was safe.

The delay gave Adriana precious seconds to get herself reoriented. She aimed the gun point-blank at Tom’s chest.

Finally, Tom heard what he’d been waiting for.

“Green! Green!”

Jill’s songbird voice echoed off the quarry walls and filled Tom’s heart. He lunged at Adriana, clutching her in his arms before she could get off a third shot. They grappled together, spinning around several times, as though in a frenzied dance. Tom lost his grip on Adriana’s arm. He felt the gun barrel digging into his abdomen. Tom somehow maneuvered them close to the edge of the quarry. He kept hold of Adriana as he fell backward. They tumbled over the lip of the quarry’s steep cliff with their arms wrapped tightly around each other.

Time slowed. Tom sensed himself floating above the water. The darkness below appeared infinite, and their bodies felt weightless. The fall shouldn’t have taken Tom by surprise, but it did. A ripping wind howled in his ears as he plummeted downward, shattering the momentary stillness. As Tom fell, he heard Adriana’s loud screams puncturing the night, and the explosion of a gun.

Rainy reached the path before the others. She sprinted ahead of Carter, who didn’t have nearly enough leg strength to keep pace. Off in the distance, Rainy heard the sound of sirens, screeching as though the whole town of Shilo were on fire. She could hear cars pulling to a quick stop, doors opening, then slamming shut. She heard the sputter of radios crackling as more sirens arrived. She pushed ahead, sprinting at full speed with her gun drawn. She felt dizzy with adrenaline. Her thoughts were spinning.

Why had Adriana left Mitchell? Why did Roland bring Tom to the Spot? Where was Lindsey Wells?

Rainy broke free of the woods and stumbled into the clearing. It was just as Mitchell had described. She looked around and saw two bodies on the ground. She heard a gunshot, followed by a splash.

Still falling, Tom heard Jill cry out from somewhere in the water below, “Dad! No!”

The railroad ties, the ones Tom had prayed Jill would clear, emerged from the darkness like a predator about to strike. Tom struck the water and twisted his body to avoid a direct hit. He heard the sickening crack of bone, felt Adriana’s skull crack against his own. Blood splatter sprayed his face like seawater called up from a fast-moving boat.

Tom floated in the water, clutching Adriana’s limp body in his arms. It wasn’t just the cold water making it hard for Tom to breathe. No, something else was wrong. A spot on his abdomen felt exquisitely sore to the touch.

Tom suddenly knew why he’d begun to sink. Water filled his nostrils. He gagged to clear his airway, but the pain felt worse than drowning.

Tom’s body bobbed vertically in the water, as if he were climbing the rungs of an invisible ladder. His mouth angled for each struggling breath. He let the water fill him up and pull him under.

His muscles were tiring. Any moment now.

Drowning wasn’t anything like the movies or TV portrayed it to be. It was far more terrifying, because no overt signals, like splashing or frantic hand waving, warned of any peril. Drowning, Tom knew, was a far more cerebral experience. But no matter how people imagined a drowning victim suffered, in the end everyone died the same way: the heart simply stopped beating.

Tom’s limp body sank into a free fall. He made several hard kicks, fighting to surface against the decreased mobility of his denim jeans. His lungs were afire. His chest felt as if it were being squeezed by a bone-crunching weight.

He felt a sudden pull on his shirt. His whole body jerked upward. His body jerked again. Instead of sinking, Tom felt himself starting to rise. Tom broke the surface, the fire in his burning lungs extinguished with that first blessed breath of air. He began to tread water. He could feel the blood rushing out the bullet hole in his stomach. He saw Jill treading water beside to him. She was holding on to his shirt. A body, floating facedown nearby, had to be Adriana. He could see the depression where the railroad tie had crushed her skull.

Tom felt another tug on his shirt, followed by the sensation of being pulled. Jill was swimming for the shoreline. And she was dragging him with her.

Tom felt the rocks and sand of the shoreline pricking at his neck and arms. He could see the moon and the stars above him. The world was spinning. The last words Tom heard before he lost consciousness repeated in his fast-fading thoughts.

“Don’t you die on me, Dad! Don’t you dare die!”