Page 63 of Trusted Instinct
And it was dangerous as hell to be possibly half in and half out of the vehicle if it decided to drop into the water.
There were no easy choices here, but one thing she felt for sure was that if the car was going over into the water, she wanted to be face down with a firm hold on the headrest and her feet thrusting into the steering wheel.
And while the safety belt seemed like it was the safest bet, Auralia was glad she was free of it because traumatic asphyxia, caused by pressure to the chest and restricted blood flow, was deadly.
And dead was dead, no matter the cause.
Auralia started the process of rolling over. When she moved, she tried to counter her weight and keep her body from jarring the car loose.
It was so slow.
It sucked her attention like a sponge, and she was oblivious to anything else happening. There was no sound, no color, no fear. She had entered into a space of sensation alone as she asked her blood not to throb through her veins with such velocity so that the beat of her heart didn’t tip her into the water and end thebeatsof her heart.
Once Auralia’s hip bones settled against the seat back—perspiration dripping from under her armpits and in a rivulet down her spine—she tucked her chin and gripped the seat, working to pull more oxygen into her lungs.
This was better. She could stand here at this angle with her bags gripped so tightly in her fist that her fingers had turned white and her joints had locked into a claw.
But looking out toward the place on the rail where she’d hoped to put her hands, Auralia realized it was way too far away. She could make it if she were an orangutan, but even then, the splintered metal would slice her.
Devastating.
It felt like a blow.
A loss.
A personal spit in the face by the Fates.
And when the next gust blew across and under the bridge, the wheels turned.
And as the car plummeted toward the roaring waters, in her mind Auralia screamed, “Creed!”
Chapter Twenty
Auralia
The moments from up to down didn’t exist in Auralia’s brain.
She had no sense of time or her body in space.
If she were injured, adrenaline had masked it.
Somehow, her knees were in the seat and her elbows were on the back of the seat that had been lowered to its full extent when she was dangling from the bridge, and her ass was pressed into the steering wheel, the yoga “child’s pose” of car accidents.
Outside, the water boiled a few inches below her open window.
Auralia came to her knees and leaned as far as she could out of the window, dragging the black bag with her clothes and phone out into air as thick and heavy as a wet sponge.
She flung the weight toward the front of the car and whipped it back toward the trunk, which had popped open in the tumble. She let the velocity of her swing carry the clothes bag into the bowl of the trunk. Once it successfully landed, she let go of the knot and worked to catch her breath.
This moment was replete with anxiety.
The way the current broke at the back of the car, the roiling foam along the sides made her worried that it would form a suction and pull her under.
Sitting around bonfires, entertaining each other with stories, the adults used to scare the children with tales of those who drowned in the Gulf and how their spirits washed up on the shore. There was always the story of the person who survived theoriginal impact but was drawn under the waves by the suction of the boat.
Creed’s dad told one of those stories to explain away thefeu follet, the ghost lights that could sometimes be seen over the water. They were glowing orbs that appeared at night in the Bayou. His Mémère said thatfeu folletwere spirits playing tricks, trying to spark people’s curiosity, enticing them deeper and deeper into the winding Bayou until they were hopelessly lost, and there they died. The lights just tested naughty children to see if they could be lured to their death—a cautionary tale.
Creed’s father, whom everyone called Papa Jacques, said, “No, thefeu folletweren’t to be feared; they were to be pitied.” He believed the lights that glowed bright and hung in the fog right where a lantern would hang from an outstretched arm were the souls of unbaptized babies trapped in limbo, and of course, the souls of drowned folks who went out to catch dinner and never went back.
