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Her eyes were wide and huge in her face.
“I’ll take them with me,” she replied. “We can eat tacos and then I need some help at the camp, things they can help me with. I have a couple of top cabinets that need laminate paper inside of them that I can’t reach. When you get back…”
Then we’d talk.
I sighed and my shoulders slumped. “Thanks.”
She narrowed her eyes. “Welcome.”
• • •
“What the fuck is going on?” Madden barked.
There were a shit ton of cops at the gym, and not a single one of us was hurt.
“We had a report of an officer down!” Brianna barked. “That’s what the fuck is going on!”
Everyone looked at each other for a few long seconds and then, “There’s nothing going on here.”
I looked at Madden across the small space of the gym and felt something sick in my gut start to churn.
“Then why the fuck did they want us all here?” I found the voice to say.
CHAPTER 22
Why didn’t the shrimp share his treasure? Because he was shellfish.
-Text from Bram to Cannel
CANNEL
“Is an officer hurt?” Ashlie asked worriedly.
I looked at her in my rearview mirror, then looked back at the road.
“From what I understand, one might be,” I lied.
The only time I heard ‘officer down’ was when someone had been truly hurt.
And I had a feeling Madden was the one to be hurt since it was his gym that it’d happened at.
“That’s sad.” Petra paused. “We should go get him a kitty for when he’s better.”
I had a feeling that Madden wouldn’t want a kitty.
But that was just me.
“How about we…”
The car hit us out of nowhere.
One second, I was where I was supposed to be—i.e., on the fucking road—and the next I was sailing over the bridge at fifty miles an hour.
I had a half of a second to realize that we were going to hit the water—hard—and have horror strike through my veins before we hit.
The impact of the car hitting the water was indescribable.
My face hit the dash, or possibly the airbag, with such force that I was stunned for a few long seconds.
The only thing to help me figure out that something was wrong after that was the screaming.
Petra and Ashlie’s screaming.
The enormity of the situation hit me then, and I started to scramble out of my seat without first trying to unbuckle myself.
At the same time, I was turning and yelling at the girls.
“Unbuckle!” I cried. “Unbuckle your seats and crawl up here!”
Luckily, they were both old enough to understand, and the authoritative command in my voice had them scrambling to do what I asked.
Meanwhile, I was still in my fucking seat!
“Son of a bitch!” I cried out when I realized how fast we were moving down the length of the river.
It’d been raining like a bitch for a month, and the river was swelled to at least twice the size it normally was.
Which meant it felt like it was moving twice as fast, too.
The girls scrambled up into the space between the seats, and Ashlie leaned over and unhooked my belt for me, finally releasing me.
“Do y’all know how to swim?” I asked, hoping beyond hope that they could.
“No.” Petra shook her head, fear in her voice.
The car tipped up completely, throwing us all toward the dash.
I hit the steering wheel hard and groaned.
But, what it did was put me in the space that I needed to be—which was by my keys.
I snatched them from where they’d gotten tangled between the windshield and the dash, and fisted the punch that I’d purchased because I thought it looked cool.
“All right, girls,” I said, sounding much calmer than I felt. “I’m going to hit this, and there’s going to be water that starts rushing in. Okay?”
The girls nodded from where they were crouched next to me, staring with such wide eyes that it hurt my heart. “When that happens, we might have to hold our breath. Do you know how to do that?”
They both shook their head, and I nearly groaned.
“You’re going to do this.” I mimed catching a breath, puffing out my cheeks to make it appear more understandable. “You’re going to also hold your nose so the water can’t get in that way, too, okay?”
They nodded.
“I want you to hold on to me, and never let go, okay?” I begged.
There was also a note of panic in my voice that I did my best to shove down deep.
Panic wouldn’t do me any good anymore.
Panic would only make this situation worse. There would be time for panicking later. When I had Will’s arms wrapped around me, and both girls were safely in their beds, tucked in tight, fast asleep.
“I don’t care what you have to hold on to. My hair. My shirt. My arm. Whatever you need to do to keep afloat. Just try your best to keep away from my legs so I can kick, okay?” I pleaded.
