The sedan shifted again, a deeper tilt now, and something in Arav’s chest went cold. If the car rolled, both of them were done.
He dropped the tire iron, leaned in farther, and got both hands on her.
She was heavier than he expected, not because of her size but because fear had turned her body rigid. She clung to the steering wheel once, then the seat belt latch, then to him. The current yanked at her legs as if the river had already chosen her. Arav planted one boot against the submerged wheel well and hauled with everything he had.
For a second she moved nowhere.
Then she came free in a rush.
The water took them both.
It was like being hit by a train made of ice.
One moment he had footing, direction, breath. The next there was no up or down, only cold and impact and spinning force. Muddy water crashed over his head. Something slammed into his side. He surfaced just long enough to suck in half a breath before the current turned them again.
The woman clawed at him in blind desperation.
“Let me hold you!” he coughed out. “Around my neck—no, around my shoulders!”
Somehow, maybe because the human body still listens when the mind is drowning, she did.
He kicked hard. Nothing. Kicked again. His boots dragged through silt and empty current. He turned, trying to angle them not toward the road they’d left but toward a stand of willows where the bank sloped wider. Branches whipped past. A plastic crate slammed into his back. The woman’s grip tightened until his shoulder felt like it might tear from the socket.
In his mind he saw one thing with terrible clarity: Leela waking up alone in the truck.
That thought gave him strength that fear hadn’t.
He lowered his head into the rain and fought.
Stroke after stroke. Kick after kick. His lungs burned. His arms shook. Twice the current spun them sideways and he thought it was over. Once the woman slipped, and he caught her under the chin just before the river took her under again. His knees hit something hard—rock, road, maybe a branch pinned beneath the flood. He stumbled. Hit ground again. Then suddenly the force lessened by half, and then half again.
His boots found mud.
He lunged forward, dragging her with him, nearly crawling now, every inch fought for. When they hit the shoulder of the road, they collapsed together in the muck like wreckage thrown from a storm.
For a long time neither of them moved.
Rain beat down around them. Wind hissed through the reeds. Somewhere upstream a metallic crashing sound echoed as something large gave way. Arav rolled onto his back and stared at the white blur of the sky, pulling air into his lungs in broken, ragged drafts.
Beside him, the woman coughed up water and began to shake.
That brought him back.
He pushed himself upright despite the knife-like pain in his ribs. “Hey. Hey, look at me.”
She turned her head toward him. In the diffuse lightning he saw that she was younger than he’d first thought, maybe late thirties. Fine-boned face. High cheekbones. Eyes dark and stunned. Blood ran from a cut near her temple, washing pink in the rain.
“Can you stand?”
She nodded once. Then no. Then yes again, because survival had not yet taught her what her body could and couldn’t do.
He got one arm under her shoulders and helped her sit. She was trembling violently now. Not the ordinary shiver of a person caught in rain, but the full-body seizure of someone whose core temperature had been pulled down too fast.
Hypothermia. Shock. Maybe both.
“Your car?” she asked, and her voice came out as a cracked whisper.
He looked toward the river.
The sedan was gone.
She followed his gaze and closed her eyes. Not because she cared about the car. Because she understood what it meant.
“You’re safe,” he said, the words clumsy and inadequate. “My truck’s up the road.”
He helped her to her feet. She swayed so badly he thought she might pass out. The storm was easing by degrees now, the rage of it softening into a hard steady rain, but the wind still cut through their wet clothes like knives.
When they reached the truck, Arav yanked open the back door first.
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