Page 67 of Edge of Ruin
Or maybe that shuddering came from inside my own self.
We were on the northbound Kaneset Highway, which looped alongside the steep-banked, meandering Kaneset River. Haupt rolled down his window, stuck his empurpled face out to drag in air.
I was in conflict as to what to do. The road had given me options, and a quick, fiery death after a few seconds of falling through midair was a far better death than the one Haupt had described for me.
But what about Jack? He’d come back for me.
In back of the panic and terror was that haunting thread of emotion, like music in my head, sweet and poignant. I hung on to it, and with it, to my sanity.
He’d come for me. How had he found me? How had he known I was in trouble? It made the prospect of driving off a cliff oh, so much harder to swallow.
I concentrated on high-speed driving. No future, no past. Just this breath, into my lungs. Just this heartbeat, then the next, and I was grateful for every one of them, even with a gun to my head. I hoped he was okay. Please.
He’d come back for me. Put himself on the line for me.
“What are you smiling at, you insolent slut?” Haupt shrilled. “Are you laughing at me?” He jabbed the gun into my ear.
The van lurched and wove. “No! I wasn’t, I wasn’t! Not at all!”
I reached down with my left hand to grab the tire iron. The road ahead did a hairpin and started to gain altitude. Farther on, the road was very high over the canyon. Any further attempt to drive off the road once I drove higher would result in certain death.
This turn that was coming up was my last chance at a slightly more favorable compromise with certain death. Right ... now.
I widened my turn, wrenched the wheel, and braked, violently. Haupt lurched forward, holding out his arms to brace himself. I whipped the tire iron down over his forearms. Crack.
He screamed. The gun dropped. I spun the tires in the gravel, accelerating, gaining the crest ... and tipped over the top.
We were sliding and bouncing down the other side, tipping crazily. Haupt screamed, scrambling for the gun, but the van bounced wildly in every direction as it rattled down the steep slope of rock and shale?—
It hit a large rock at the river’s edge, knocking us forward. The van teetered, tipped, hung on two wheels for what felt like eternity.
Then it flopped onto its side into the river, Haupt’s side down. I slid down on top of him. Icy water flooded from the open window into the van.
We were a screaming, struggling knot, fighting, clawing. I couldn’t let him find that gun. His desperate, strangling grip was like the gigantic kraken of the abyss. The water bubbled in, swirling, getting higher.
I struggled up, yanking the steering wheel, trying to trample him down beneath my feet. The van was tipping, moving. If water covered the top of my side, I’d never get the door open. I shoved the door over me, expecting a bullet to punch into me at any second from below.
Haupt still struggled, but his head was underwater now. The water was up to my chest, gurgling and swirling.
Haupt seized my ankle and bit me, savagely hard. I screamed, struggled, kicked at him with all my strength. He looked up from beneath the water, a blaze of mad hatred in his eyes. Bubbles rose from his mouth. The water gurgled higher.
I thought about my tattoos, the ones he had intended to keep for his precious album of mementos. My hair, which he had wanted as a trophy. I put my feet on his shoulders, pressing him down as I shoved myself up, and pushed the van door open.
The van was moving with the current. I saw Haupt’s briefcase, bobbing on the surface next to the steering wheel, and grabbed for it. His hand still clung to it.
I yanked on it, and he let go, his eyes blank. Dead.
I clambered out and pitched myself into the river, shocked by the violence of the current. It tossed me like a twig. I couldn’t swim in any direction. All I could do was try to stay somehow afloat as I whooshed along, fighting my way slowly closer to the rocky shore. I almost let the briefcase go, but I couldn’t bear to. We had suffered so much for those necklaces.
I struggled with the current. The van had floated behind me for a little while, but it had soon gone down. A half mile or so later, I managed to grab onto a rock at the edge of the water.
I crawled up onto it, shaking so hard I could barely function. My teeth were going to fall out for the clacking.
I clung to the rock like a wet rag, just trying to breathe.
Chapter Twenty-Three
Jack
