Chapter 42: Making A Splash
The roar of water built and built. I fumbled with my phone, trying to mute it, but in the darkness I couldn’t find the button. The concrete shook around us. How was it so loud?
Three phone lights cut lines of visibility into the darkness, but I couldn’t see any water in the drainage ditch.
And then –
I did.
In the ditch and surging out of it and splashing across the floor of the tunnel, ankle-high, knee-high, waist-high, chest-high, and rising, foaming white on the crest like that Japanese wave painting.
It hit Miguel first. He cried out and spun into the railing and I saw the water engulf him, unabsorbed – holy shit, was it real? – and I flung myself over Lena.
I think one of us screamed. Probably her. Right?
The water slammed into my back and –
I felt it flowing past, but it seemed not to cling to my cloak or my robes or my hair. I looked down at Lena and saw her safe and dry in my arms, her face tucked against my amulet. Her wings hissed where the water rushed past them, but the flames limning her body burned unabated.
The water – the Water – filled the tunnel, but we remained untouched. The eye of the storm.
I reached out and the Water churned. I flexed my fingers and it coiled. I clenched my fist and it gathered around us, a wall, a vortex, surrounding but never touching.
The eye of my storm.
I pressed my palm flat and it subsided.
I smiled down at Lena.
She gazed up at me. Her lips parted. She blinked.
I felt her palms impact my chest and staggered back into the railing.
I blinked away the darkness and swept my phone around. I couldn’t see anything except through its light, which meant all I saw was filtered through Third Eye. Water streaked the tunnel walls and beaded on the railing beside me. Even the tips of Lena’s quivering wings were, though not doused, shrouded in wisps of steam.
They hissed as her flames flared brighter, blazing from her balled fists and her glaring eyes and her curled lips. She bit her words out like she was tearing into a steak with each snap. “What. The. Fuck.”
“I...” I looked down at my phone. If I switched to the Third Eye app, I knew what I would find.
Water.
I had it!
But because I’d jumped in front of her, Lena didn’t.
“I was just trying to...”
“Protect me? From a game? Again?”
I rubbed my eyes. “Yeah. Sorry.”
Lena’s flames rippled through the tunnel for a second, then her wings drooped.
Without another word, she slunk past. Her wingtips dragged along the concrete, hissing where they boiled away puddles.
She swept her arm away from me. I couldn’t see her phone, but the light from it illuminated the tunnel.
The empty tunnel.
“Miguel?” she called.
No response.
I shouted, “Miguel!”
A response. A low, echoing groan, distant, below us. Behind us.
Lena spun around and ran to the railing. “Hey! Where you at, man?”
Another groan. Definitely from the ditch, and quite a ways away. Past the locked gate.
Lena shot me a glance.
We swung our lights that way. Near the edge of our vision, a figure staggered into view, slick, wet, lopsided, one arm limp, the other reaching out, head bowed, taking shuffling half-steps.
“Oh, God, Cam,” Lena whispered.
“Shit.” I gripped the railing. “Shitshitshit. Miguel, if you’re pulling a prank I’m going to murder you.”
“‘M not,” murmured the figure, in Miguel’s voice. “Hurts like hell.”
Lena grabbed for my parka. “We gotta get down there –”
I was already vaulting the railing. I clambered down it and slid the last few feet into the ditch, then sprinted to Miguel’s side.
Up close, he looked awful. His arm hung loose and his coat and hair were wet and matted. In the light of the phone camera I couldn’t tell if it was blood or if he’d landed in the real water in the runoff ditch.
Probably the latter. There was more of it than I’d thought from above. It came up almost to my ankles. Goddamn was it cold where it had splashed my jeans.
I reached out to Miguel and shone my phone’s light on him. He winced away from it.
“How many fingers am I holding up?” I repositioned my phone so he could see them without the light shining directly in his face.
He blinked at me. “Oh no. I’m seeing double.”
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I felt ice down my spine that had nothing to do with the runoff water. I lowered my voice. “How many?”
“Two.”
“That’s how many I’m holding,” I said.
He frowned. “My God, Cameron. You missed the chance for such an obvious gag?”
“You’re legit hurt! I’m not going to give you the finger.”
“No commitment to the bit. For shame.” He smiled, but he seemed to have trouble holding the expression. I really didn’t like the way he trembled.
“Is he okay?” Lena called.
“I’m fine,” Miguel said. He took another step toward me and lowered his voice. “My shoulder is dislocated and I may have a concussion. And I’m freezing.”
How was he so cold, so fast? Was he going into shock?
I shrugged my parka off. “I’m going to put this on you, okay?”
“You’ll be damn cold,” he said.
“True. I’ll keep it.”
He managed to glare. At least his eyes seemed to be able to focus.
I eased the parka onto his uninjured arm. I had to pin my phone between my chest and neck to hold it while I worked. Otherwise we’d have had no light. “I think we should wrap the parka around your other arm. It’ll hold it steadier. You’re sure it’s dislocated, not broken?”
He started to nod.
“No nodding, dumbass,” I snapped. “Keep your head steady.”
He winced. “Right. Dislocated. Happened to me once when I was a kid.”
“I’ll zip up the parka around your other arm, then. It should help hold it steady, and maybe if I zip the collar up over your other coat it’ll help keep your head from moving around. But we’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Agreed.” He shuddered and bit his lip to keep from crying out.
“Guys,” Lena called, “this is not sounding okay.”
“I said I’m fine,” Miguel shouted. It made his head move more than I liked.
“You can show her weakness,” I whispered. “The nicest she ever was to me was when I got pneumonia.”
He glanced at me. “I’m not actually trying to hit on her, you know.”
“Good.” I took a step back, keeping my hand on his good shoulder to steady him. “Should we call the paramedics? I’m not sure you should be moving.”
I could tell he started to shake his head, but this time, he caught himself. “Out of the tunnel first. Then we’ll call.”
“We haven’t done anything illegal,” I said. “Probably.”
“I just want out of this freaking tunnel, man.”
I knew the feeling. “Where’s your phone?”
He flicked his eyes back and forth, for all the good that did in the darkness. “Shit.”
Just in case he’d dropped it nearby, I panned my light around. No phone. Just frigid water, black as oil.
Then, because we had to be close to where I’d seen whatever that shiny Third Eye object was, I panned up, too.
Whatever it had been, the Water must have knocked it backwards before I gained control. I couldn’t see even a glint from the ditch.
“We’ll have to come back for the phone,” I said. “We’ve got to get you out of here.”
“Don’t bother,” he said. “If it’s still running somehow, I’ll brick it remotely and get a new one.”
“See, now I just want to leave you. You can hire a private ambulance or something.” I grinned. “Lean your good arm on me and we’ll take it slow. Body heat’ll do us both good.”
Between Miguel’s uncertain footing, the water around our feet, and my worry about moving him too fast and jostling his brain, we made terrible time. Still, we returned to Lena with only a little hypothermia.
When she got a clear look at us, she started to climb the railing.
“Don’t!” Miguel snapped.
She hesitated, perched halfway up. “Don’t you start trying to protect me, too.”
“Once we get out of the tunnel,” I said, “we may need you to help us up.”
Miguel started to nod, but caught himself.
“Oh.” Lena let go of the railing and slid back to the platform. “That makes sense.”
“Should we try to get up there now?” I asked. “We’re past the gate.”
“It’s damn cold.” Miguel sighed. “If you can take it, though, let’s wait. There was a stairway outside. I’m... not feeling great about climbing the railing.”
Between his arm and his need to keep his head elevated, I didn’t feel great about it, either. Walking a couple hundred feet through the freezing water sounded bad, but not as bad as Miguel making his concussion worse.
Probably.
So we shuffled down the ditch and Lena went hand over hand at the railing. I could tell every time she looked at us, because her phone’s light flickered all over the tunnel.
I kept mine pointed at the water in front of my feet. Easier not to trip that way.
How far had we walked before we reached the gate? Far enough for it to feel really shitty to trudge back through frigid water with a concussed and freezing friend. Or maybe I was the freezing one. I had a heavy flannel on, but for all the difference that made to the air in the ditch, I might as well have worn a sleeveless tee. The water kept splashing above my boots; it had started to freeze on my jeans. My ankles didn’t hurt yet, which was either a good sign or a really bad one.
“Hold up a sec,” Lena said.
“If we stop,” I said, “I’m not sure I can start again, and I’m not the hurt one.”
Miguel didn’t even waste energy answering.
Lean stretched over the railing. She shone her phone light behind us. “Just listen, okay?”
I groaned, but I did as she asked.
Just the sound of the water seemed to soak into me. Miguel shivered and I patted his back.
Drip. Drip.
Splash.
Miguel glanced at me.
Drip. Drip.
Splash.
I looked over my shoulder.
“What is that?” Lena whispered.
Drip. Drip.
Splash.
The sound came from the ditch behind us.
I craned my neck, but I couldn’t turn around without letting go of Miguel. “Do you see anything, Lena?”
Drip. Drip.
Splash.
“No,” she said. “I thought I did, but... no.”
Maybe it was just the water sloshing against something.
And maybe some animal was down here with us, or some homeless dude had wandered in and fallen as well.
The charitable thing to do would’ve been to get Miguel out and then go looking. Would you want to read that a stray dog froze down here and realize you could have saved it? Hell, even if it was a coyote, that would make me feel shitty.
The sensible thing would’ve been to ignore it, because it was probably just some weird architectural feature we hadn’t noticed because we’d been talking.
The thing I actually did was shudder.
Drip. Drip.
Splash.
“Hey!” I shouted.
Drip.
Drip.
No splash.
“Anybody there?” I called. “If you need help, come on out.”
Silence.
“I find,” Miguel whispered, “I’ve got a second wind.”
“Awesome,” I said.
We picked up the pace.
It was stupid. Risky. I don’t even know what we were scared of.
Which was different from saying we weren’t scared.
We shuffle-sprinted the rest of the way, concussion be damned. When I saw a light at the end of the tunnel, I didn’t hesitate but to surge toward it, heedless of advice, and Miguel ran right with me.
Hampden streetlights! A passably lit parking lot!
And best of all, stairs.
I don’t think I’d ever been happy to see stairs before, but right then, they seemed to go straight to heaven. I half-pulled, half-carried Miguel up them and Lena met us at the top. She wrapped her coat as far around both of us as it would go and hugged us as tightly as Miguel’s arm allowed.
Miguel sagged against her. I rested my head on hers.
Drip. Drip.
Splash.
I trained my phone on the ditch one last time, and for just a second, I would’ve sworn I could see something glistening just at the edge of the light.
But when I blinked, it was gone.