Page 119 of Lord Have Mercy Part Four: Big Son

Tenny’s teeth were bared, but he shook his head. “Keep going. Go, Remy. Swim for shore.Go.”

His belly shivered with nerves, and he felt sick, and too tired, and his heart was beating in histhroat.

“Go!”

But Remy turned, and he went.

He couldn’t swim like Daddy did, long arms reaching, cutting through the water; but he ducked his head, and pulled himself along, and kicked as hard as he could, and each time he lifted his head to take a breath, he saw that the shore was closer, closer, and closer still.

Behind him, he heard shouts, and more commands from the police bullhorns. Heard more gunshots, and the revving of motors, and more than a few screams.

Where was Daddy? Tenny? Were they even alive?

The water wasn’t cold, but his teeth were chattering by the time his foot struck mucky bottom, and he stood up in the shallows, water streaming off of him.

He waded to shore, knees and ankles tangled with duckweed. The long, trailing underwater roots wrapped around him, and he tripped, and went down hard on his knees, hands splatting in the mud.

It sounded like an action movie behind him. A flare of heat and pressure at his back, and a great booming roar signaled that something hadexploded.

He flailed on his hands and knees with a wordless cry, and shuffled up from mud to sand, and then crashed through a tangle of cypress roots until he fetched up in a scratching blackberry hedge, and subsided, panting.

His whole body throbbed, sore, and achy. The wound on his arm burned terribly, but there wasn’t much blood on his sleeve, he saw, and he could still articulate his fingers and lift his arm at the shoulder. He wouldn’t die, he didn’t think.

He caught his breath for what could have been seconds or hours, then hauled himself to his feet and peered across the water.

He was shocked to see how far he’d swum. The dock, and its tumultuous activity – revolving police lights, running bodies – seemed a whole lake away. Somehow, he’d ended on the opposite shore, and not the shore where the police could have helped him.

He guessed he’d have to swim back across.

Or, more wisely, walk the perimeter of the lake until he reached them. It would take a while, but it would be safer.

One of the boats – the very boat he’d been on – boiled with orange and yellow flames, belching pale gray smoke up into the night sky.

Daddy? Tenny?

He didn’t know if–

A tight grip closed around his throat and squeezed.

A hand slapped over his mouth. He felt the heat and press of a body up against his back, too late to scream, too late to run. And the voice that whispered in his ear was terribly, unfortunately familiar. “Don’t make a sound, you little shit,” Boyle hissed. “If you try to get away, I’ll gut you. Understand?”

Remy sucked a breath in through his nose, and nodded.

Twenty-Eight

Alex didn’t know or care where Reese had gotten a Molotov cocktail, was only grateful that he’d had it, lit it, thrown it, and the resultant explosion of the empty boat’s fuel tanks had broken up what was fast devolving into a real shitty-ass party.

The shooting stopped.

The other two boats from Boyle’s party kicked into high gear and went racing away.

Alex finally dared to sit fully upright behind the wheel of their boat so he could actually see where they were going. He cut the wheel toward shore, intent on joining up with Duet and Dandridge so they could regroup and figure out where to go next.

A hand landed on top of his, and wrenched the wheel the other way.

Eyes still blurry and shimmering with the afterimage of the boat fire, Alex blinked up at Reese’s startingly stern expression.

“Ten’s still in the water,” he said, and his voice – only ever flat, or, at best, mildly pleasant, in Alex’s experience – cracked with emotion. With panic, Alex saw, when he got a good look at his eyes.

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