We push on—we push through—and wade out into the icy drink to where the coach lists at a treacherous angle. Glass blown, body warped from impact, diesel staining the drink a meaner shade of black, screams still carrying over the water and into the night.
They’re still alive.
We reach the coach and fight for access, smashing glass and hauling people out. Grabbing and wrenching, over and over, losing track of how many, just that there’s more, and we won’t stop until we have them all.
But the coach…it’s unstable. Metal groans under us, listing harder with every sweep of current in the raging river. We’re on borrowed luck and somehow, in the mayhem, I’ve lost track of Sonny.
A slender human slips through my gloved fingers.
I grab for them again and drag them out through a shattered window. “Sonny! Talk to me. Where are you?”
No answer.
I shout again, passing the body over my shoulder to the crew behind me.
No response. And then I spot him, his line snagged on debris, head low, grip slipping as he flails against the side of the coach, cold shock overwhelming his faculties.
“Sonny!” I lunge for him, catching his harness before the current and his snagged line pull him under. His eyes are wide and white, panic already there. He thrashes, sluicing water over us both, and I realise he’s fighting me as much as the cold.
Shouting isn’t working.
I wrench him close, pinning him against me, forcing him to conserve the energy he’ll need to walk out of this water. I growl in his fecking ear. “Stop. Breathe. Focus.”
And I keep growling until the fight in him fades and I can coax a rhythm back into his lungs.
It costs us valuable time. Vital seconds, lives still depending on us. But Sonny’s with me. He’s whole. Now we just need to dig deep for a Christmas miracle, clear this goddamn coach, and get the feck out of here.
Easy, right?
Not even close.
I set Sonny straight, but the coach moves with me, lurching again, grinding metal against rock in the racing current.
Cursing, I lose my footing, the world shifts, and Sonny’s weight drags me under?—
Fuck.
Fuck.
It’s my turn to fight. I break the surface and shove Sonny as hard as I can toward the crews behind us, hollering at them to haul him in.
He resists, trying to stay with me, but I holler at him too until he listens, and battles his way to safety.
Then I turn back to the wreck, instinct telling me there are more souls trapped inside.
That I’m not done here.
Not yet.
I plant a boot on a surface that feels solid, but it’s twisted wreckage. It gives way, taking me under again, and pressure closes in on my lungs before I can figure which way is up.
Holy Christ. I’m as annoyed as I am scared, and I fight the line tangling round my legs, kicking at it like it owes me money. Like it owes melife, my lungs already screaming, black water and diesel flooding my senses, panic a distant drumbeat I’ll reflect on later.
Strength leaches from my limbs, murky light blinking and blurring. Screams become all too real as my window for survival closes in on me, and my annoyance fades.
So does the fear.
I can’t see shit anymore. And yet somehow, something white catches my eye as it drifts from me in the water.
