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He grabs fistfuls of my jacket, pulling me out of the seat. We spill onto the ice. The strap of my bag digs into my shoulder. The contents spill, scattering.
He drags me toward him. The rifle skitters on the ice after me. I yank, scrabbling for it, and grab hold just as he flips me onto my back.
He twists the rifle neatly out of my hands, yanks the strap from my shoulder.
I plant a boot between his legs and shove off hard. He stumbles back with an oof of breath and pain, and I grab for my bag, for the thing that didn’t fall out, for the bundle of cloth that unwraps easily.
The grenade. Cold in my hand.
He’s raising the rifle, he’s aiming, and I lie flat on my back on the ice and raise the grenade above me, my fingers wrapped tight around the pin, ready to pull.
He freezes. We stand there and pant for a couple of seconds before he speaks.
“The hell do you think you’re doing?” he says.
“Keeping you from shooting me.” I pull the pin out, mashing my hand hard around the grenade, keeping the lever depressed so it won’t go off. “See? Shoot me and we go boom.” I can’t believe how calm I sound, given that my heart is trying to climb its way out of my throat and plop onto the ice.
It takes five seconds for Raph to decide what to do, and in that time I’m trying to see a way out of here and failing.
He makes a choice for me. He dives for me, for the grenade, letting the rifle fall.
I roll out of the way. My elbows bark against the ice.
I’m still holding the grenade with both hands, terrified it will slip free. I can’t push myself up. His hands close around mine with crushing pressure. We struggle, his weight and strength against mine.
He hauls at me and I come halfway upright, flailing to get at least my good leg under me.
All I can think is that I have to hold on, have to get away, but my fingers are numb with cold and they slip. I slip. My hands loosen at the same moment as my weight suddenly jerks against his grip.
He fumbles. The grenade flies out from between our fingers.
We each act on instinct. His says, Catch it.
Mine says, Run.
Only I can’t run, just fling myself on all fours across the ice away from it, parallel to the plane as the grenade strikes, bounces, rolls, and by the time Raph has taken one step toward it he’s realized what he’s done and he heaves back around.
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
Boom.
•••
THE SOUND IS so immense it isn’t even sound. It’s pain and pressure and the air ripping apart around me.
I flatten myself against the ice, covering my head with my hands like that’s going to help. My leg flares with pain.
My ears ring and roar. My vision blurs, and I feel like a giant’s foot has crushed me into the ground.
But I’m alive. Is he?
I can’t see.
I need to. I need to move.
