She needed to listen to her intuition to survive the day.
Iniquus was surely in the mix.
Emergency services had to be rushing to the scene.
She’d be low man on the totem pole, or in this case, high girl on the bridge.
“Here we go,” Auralia said as she unclasped the belt for a brief moment to lift the ballistic vest over her head.
Afraid to shift the dynamic of the teetering car, Auralia set the weight on the console right next to her thigh.
Still, the move made the car sway. And Auralia quickly pulled her seat belt back into place.
The movement was mere inches forward and back, so subtle compared to the grand sweep of sky and water when the car was shoved into this position. Still, scary.
“Okay, think. What are the options?”
The back seat of her car could be pulled down to access the trunk. Auralia had practiced a few times after her sister WOMBAT, Kim, had been tied up and thrown into her trunk. When the kidnapper stopped for gas and a pit stop, Kim kickedout the back seat and was able to get out through the passenger door.
Granted, she’d still been bound hand and foot, but as she lay there writhing and yelling for help, the people around her became her protectors. The assailant took off, abandoning his car.
She could be like Kim in reverse and escape from the car trunk instead of the side window. Her weight back there might press her into a better position.
Okay, it wasn’t her favorite, but it was on her list.
“Here’s the plan,” Auralia said aloud so that her brain was processing it in different parts, giving the plan a better chance of action, “If I’m going over, I’m popping the trunk. It might make a sail, it might make getting out from the back seat easier, and it might give me access to my supply boxes in the back, including a life preserver from my boat trip last week.”
Auralia reached her hand up and felt for the trunk latch button. She put her hand down, then did it again, leaving it there as the car tilted downward and the frame slipped a few more inches.
Her weight pressing her into the safety belt, Auralia could see the water again. It looked damned far down there.
But now, quite obviously, she wouldn’t be slinking over the back seat and out the window.
She was going to dangle there until help arrived or she was going in.
Wouldn’t it be miraculous if Gator’s team suddenly arrived at the scene and worked their magic, stabilizing the car and pulling her free, so she could walk away with only an abraded face?
The “if only” game came in handy sometimes when things were bad and there was no clear escape.
She and those she loved worked in dangerous settings, yet they seemed to emerge unscathed each time. That was fallacious thinking.
Which one would apply?
Maybe ‘Appeal to Tradition’?
“Traditionally, I have survived life-threatening circumstances; therefore, I will do the same today.”
It seemed a dangerous mindset for Auralia to call her survival a logical fallacy.
“I pull those thoughts from the wind, and I send them down into the water as fish food,” she muttered as she pulled the safety belt back tight over her hips and tried to press back so her lungs had room to expand.
The rubber band around her wrist was cutting off circulation, and Auralia was glad because the burning sensation reminded her that she had useful tools at her disposal. “If the safety belt won’t release, there’s a sharp blade on the window breaker to slice through. Don’t wrestle, slice.”
The mental pictures were lining up. Auralia always found a plan of action helpful. If A happens, I’ll do this. If B happens, I’ll do that.
Unfortunately, there had been many a time when it was so far down the list of possibilities that a G was happening, even P. And for that, she probably had no plan.
Still, plotting an escape helped to steady her nerves.
