Blood on the Bayou (33 page)

I’ve got a few hundred fewer followers than I did before, but the initial cloudburst has faded to a lighter drizzle. The acid left behind by smashed fairy bodies lingers long enough to melt glass before the rain washes it away. With the rear wiper broken, the back windshield is looking especially nasty. If the fairies get smart enough to start committing suicide in the same spot, they’ll be in the truck in a few minutes.

At this point, I can’t be more than a mile from the first lab stop. There’s a chance I’ll run into guards if I wait any longer. It’s time, as Fernando says, to shit or get off the pot.

“Okay. I can swim. I’m a strong swimmer,” I say, breath coming faster as I round a corner and a decent driving-off place comes into view. The water is plant free and there’s a hint of current and it looks deep. Really deep. My arms tremble, sweat breaks
out around my hairline, and a sour taste floods my mouth.

I can’t do this.
I can’t.

“You can. Just do it!” My knuckles go white on the wheel. I aim the truck off-road and push the gas to the floor.

“Stop! Stop!” The shout comes from the backseat, scaring the shit out of me.

I stomp the brake, but it’s too late. The truck zooms off the edge of the road, hanging in midair for a gut-shriveling second before nose-diving into the bayou. The impact sends my chest slamming into the steering wheel. I don’t do seat belts if someone isn’t there to make me buckle up, and staying unbuckled seemed like a good idea when I was plotting how to get out of a sinking vehicle without drowning.

But now, as my skull strikes the windshield with a dull pop and blood leaks into my eyes, I rethink the wisdom of eschewing beltage.

“What the hell, Red?” Tucker’s breath is hot on my neck. He grabs my shoulders, pulling me off the steering wheel as the truck begins to sink and water floods in through the cracks in the doors at an alarming rate.

“What the hell,
you
.” My words are slurred. I smack my lips. The salty-sweet taste of blood rushes through my mouth. “I bit my tongue.”

“You also busted your forehead open.” He smears into visibility, his eyes doing a weird jump-cut thing I’ve never seen them do before. “And probably killed
us both,” he says, cussing as he swipes the blood from my face and smears it onto the passenger’s seat.

“That’s going to stain.”

“Who gives a shit?”

“It’s a rental.”

“Are you insane?” he shouts. “What the fuck were you—”

“Don’t yell at me!” I shout back, wincing at the pain that shouting stirs up in my skull. “I didn’t know you were back there,” I add in a softer voice. “Why
are
you back there?” I pull my feet from the floor. The water is up to my ankles and some stupid instinct urges me to “Stay dry!” despite the fact that my plan is to submerge myself as soon as the truck goes under.

“I followed you to the docks and snuck into the garage. I figured you’d end up at the lab sooner or later and I could help you out.” He cusses as the water creeps toward his knees. “Show me to be a Good Samaritan.”

“You’re not a Good Samaritan. You’re a spy. You’re here to make sure Hitch does what the Big Man told him to—”

“I’m not a spy.” Tucker cusses again as the unexpectedly cool swamp water rises higher, soaking the seat of his pants. “I’m trying to help you, you stubborn, crazy, redheaded—”

“We don’t have time for name-calling, you spying, lurking jerk.” I crouch in my seat and crawl over to the already soggy passenger’s side, figuring it will be easier to climb out the window without the steering wheel in the way.

“Hell, yes, there’s time,” Tucker says. “I want to get it all out. In case I don’t live to tell you how crazy you are.”

“I’m not crazy. I have a plan.” I scan the windows. We’ll be under in a few minutes. I need to figure out where the fairies are gathered. Looks like most of them are hovering directly above the truck, with a few still straggling in from the road behind. All of them are being careful to stay above the bayou’s surface as they hiss and spit and knock their tiny fists against the glass.

What satisfaction I feel in accurately judging their lack of affinity for water, however, is banished by the fact that I’m
in
the damn water. And it’s up to my chest and it’s almost time to take this plan to the next level and swim out into gator-infested waters and hope I can hold my breath long enough to emerge somewhere the fairies won’t be looking. And hope Tucker can, too, because even though his presence here isn’t my fault and it’s creepy the way he hangs around
watching
me all the time, I’ll still feel guilty if I get him killed.

Unless I’m dead, in which case I won’t feel guilty—or anything else—about anything. As appealing as
that
sounds, I’m not ready to go out just yet.

“We’re not going to die,” I say. “We’ll wait until we’re under, drop the window, and swim downstream as far as we can. If the fairies haven’t noticed us, we’ll crawl up on the bank and circle around until we find the cave.”

“And if they
have
noticed us?”

“We swim some more,” I say, heart bobbing in my
throat as the water inches higher. “And hope we lose them while we’re under water.”

“With the gators and the snakes.” Tucker makes no effort to hide how dumb he thinks my plan is.

Negative Nancy.

“At that point we should split up,” I continue, ignoring his dubious grunt, “and hope one of us gets to the lab in time. If this is where it is. One in five chance, anyway, and—”

“I can disappear, Red,” Tucker says. “I can get away. You’re the one—”

“I’ll be fine. Just promise me you’ll stop Hitch from killing anyone if you can. He won’t be able to live with it if he does. He’s not himself right now.”

“He doesn’t deserve you,” Tucker says. “Never did.”

My eyes flick to his in surprise.

“You’re a good woman. Like the chance to know you better.” He gives me a tight nod that looks an awful lot like good-bye.

I clear my throat. I can’t think about good-bye. Not yet. “You have any idea where these new fairies came from?” I turn to catch one last glimpse of the outside world. Staring into Tucker’s worried face isn’t the best idea right now. I’m already seeing my life flash before my eyes; I don’t need to see it flashing before anyone else’s.

“They’re not fairies. They’re pixies.”

Pixies. It rings a vague fairy-tale bell. “Like troublemaking fairies?”

“No, nothing like that. Different species. Vegetarians.”

“Then why are they trying to kill me?”

“Don’t know. I’ve never seen them like this.”

“I’ve never seen them at all.”

“Not surprising,” he says. “They haven’t been out here long.”

“Really? They mutated recently? Because I—”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Then what—”

“That’s a story we ain’t got time for,” he says. “Just trust me, they don’t usually hurt people. And there aren’t as many out there as you think. They work in illusions. They’re making themselves look scarier.” Tucker crawls into the passenger’s side in back and plunges a hand into the water, looking for the window crank. I reach down, searching for my own. The water is up to my chin now, and I have to strain my neck to keep my face above water.

“How do you know about pixies?” I ask. “Did the Big Man—”

Tucker curses. “Tell me this car has crank windows, Red.”

Crank windows. I thought it did, but . . . Did I check? I thought . . .

I fumble below the water, my fingers brushing against the door handle and the armrest and some buttons. Lots of buttons. I jab them. I jab them one at a time and all at once and nothing happens and I pat down the entire door and there is no crank and still no crank and oh
holyshitfuck
!

“Tell me, Red!” Tucker shouts. The water is up to our ears. There are only a few inches of air at the top
of the cab. The truck is under. It’s time to go, but we won’t be going anywhere because I drove a car with power windows into the water and we can’t open the windows and we’ll never be able to open the door with the amount of pressure bearing down all around us.

Unless . . .

I gather all my internal forces. The familiar knot of potential energy balls at the base of my brain, but even before I send it punching into the window, I know it’s not going to be enough. My headache is back—probably because I Suck at Safety and just got my head slammed into a windshield—and now Tucker and I are going to die.

I try one more time—hoping sliding the glass down might be easier than smashing it—but still, nothing happens.

“My head’s messed up,” I pant. “You’ll have to break the glass.”

“I can’t,” Tucker says.

“Yes, you can, you—”

“I can’t,” he repeats. “I can move shit around, but smashing things isn’t in my bag of tricks. Can’t work up that much force. Already tried to work it down and got nothing.”

“Shit,” I say, then decide I’d rather
shit
not be my last word, and try to think of something else to say, something other than “I’m sorry.” Because the only thing shittier than
shit
is
sorry
. I’m tired of being sorry, I’m tired of other people being sorry. I just want
something
in my damned life to work the hell out for once! Argh!

The water level surges. Swamp water burns my nose and I taste mud and rotten things and choke on them. “Shit!” My face presses into the ceiling. I pull in my last gasp of air.

This is it.

Shit
for a final word it is.

B
ig breath.” Tucker’s voice is strained from keeping his head tilted back far enough to breathe.

His hand curls under my armpit as he pulls me through the front seats into the back. There’s more room at the top here—the truck’s going down nose-first—but not much. I brace my foot against the floor, keeping my head above water when Tucker pulls away.

“I’ll kick out my window and push you through first,” he says. “Got it?”

“No. You should go—”

“Don’t argue with me!” He sucks in a breath and starts kicking the crap out of the back window. Even with water resistance working against him, it’s a manly display. The window creaks and jumps in its grooves and the truck dips on the right side, but no slivers break the smooth surface of the glass.

We’re over. We’ve got less than ten seconds to breathe; maybe two or three minutes of consciousness before we pass out from lack of oxygen.

No matter how hard he pounds, there’s no way
Tucker’s going to bust through with his boot. He needs something sharp enough to shatter the glass, or at least a weak place in the—

“The back,” I gasp as the water closes over my head.

The back glass with the broken windshield wiper, where the acid from the pixie bodies lingered long enough to start burning holes. It might make it weak enough to break.

Too bad I’m not sure Tucker heard me. I open my eyes, but the water is so filthy I can’t see. Not like seeing is going to help much at this point. Neither will floating here with my lungs starting to burn, hoping Tucker was listening in that last second.

I squeeze my eyes shut, grab hold of the headrest, draw my knees to my chest, and drive them at the back window. I hit hard enough to jar my bones, but the glass holds strong. Water swirls around my legs as Tucker’s feet hit a second after mine, but there’s still no change in pressure in the cabin.

Maybe together, maybe if we—

I pull my knees in and wait until Tucker’s energy shifts before kicking my legs as hard as I can. We hit the glass at the same moment. The surface weakens, crumpling under our feet. Hope makes my heart beat faster, but I know we haven’t broken through yet. I pull in and kick out again.

And again. And again.

By the fifth kick, my pulse is racing and my body screaming for breath. I can’t keep up this level of physical activity without oxygen for long. I need to
breathe, and sooner or later my nose and mouth are going to stop listening to logic and—

On the sixth kick, my feet smack the window and keep going, sending chunks of glass floating into the bayou. Tucker and I dive for the opening, knocking elbows and knees as we push through and kick toward the surface. Screw the pixies and their acid spit, I can’t stay under water for a second longer.

I break first, sucking in a desperate breath that makes my lungs feel the most wonderful kind of horrible. They ache and burn and tremble—but air! Sweet air! I pull in another breath, relishing the tingle as oxygen races through my blood before catching a blurry glimpse of bluish green bodies and frantic wings. I dive back under. Once I’m a few feet below the surface, I swim hard in what I hope is the right direction.

I’m disoriented after the near escape and still light-headed and panicked, but I force myself to take ten long underwater strokes with my arms and legs before floating back to the surface and sipping in a breath as quietly as I can. This plan isn’t going to work if I make a bunch of noise as I swim away. I peek to the right and left. This time there are no pixies in sight, and, as I slip back under, I’ve recovered enough to look for Tucker under the water.