Eighteen
The first breath she took was nothing but water.
She screamed, but no sound would come. It was cold . . . so cold . . . and she couldn’t see. Blackness surrounded her, pulled her feet, dragging her downward . . . and she was so weak, she could barely even move, let alone struggle.
So cold.
This was where she had always been headed. It was the nightmare made real. The darkness had closed around her and there was no escape.
Images floated past her mind as she hung suspended between life and death. She saw her childhood, her mother, back when things were good. She saw Marianne back when she could smile. She saw her mother’s vacant face and lifeless eyes . . . her lonely grave in Austin, unattended for ten years until her prodigal daughter offered her rosemary. There was an empty plot next to her, just the right size for one more grave.
She heard music, her own voice singing. Piano, deep and rich. She felt keys beneath her fingers, then strings, then muscles. She tasted blood.
Faces came to her, some with names, some without. Kat. Faith. Sophie. Terrence. Helen.
David.
Samuel. Ariana. Traitors. The full moon.
Memory struck, and from somewhere deep within her that was almost dead, she summoned all her strength and fought.
She burst through the surface of the water, flailing on all sides, her lungs burning from lack of oxygen. Her hands were nearly unresponsive, but she splashed out until she found something to grab on to and pulled herself sideways.
She crawled onto the bank, vomiting huge gushes of stinking lake water, then sucking in an enormous breath that made her dizzy. She collapsed into the mud, coughing and gasping and sobbing.
Her chest hurt. She put her hands to her heart, felt it beating. It was beating.
She was alive.
As soon as her lungs were empty and her nose was no longer full of the stench of pollution and dirt, she smelled something else . . . something crisp and light . . . something terrifying.
Morning. Morning was coming.
She had to get inside. The sky was starting to lighten in the east.
Inch by inch, she pulled herself all the way out of the water and got to her hands and knees, then her feet. The world spun around her, but she stayed upright through sheer force of will.
She had somehow ended up a long way from the Congress bridge. She was just off the jogging path that wound around Lady Bird Lake. In a few hours there would be people everywhere. She could get help, find a phone, call . . .
Call who, exactly? She had never bothered memorizing numbers because they were all stored in her phone. She was fairly sure she knew Kat’s, but she didn’t have any way to call. Her phone was back at her apartment and there was no way she’d make it there by dawn. She had to find someplace dark and safe, somewhere she could rest. She was so tired.
She almost sank back to the ground, but fear of what would happen if she was caught outside drove her forward. Her body hurt all over, and she felt like her insides were coated with sawdust. She was soaked and filthy and had no money, no identification, not even seventy-five cents for a bus.
Her mind was whirling. She had to think. Where could she go?
She stumbled up the path, arms wrapped around herself in a vain attempt to warm up. She made her way up to the street, trying to make sense of where she was, and her blurry eyes made out a street sign: LAMAR BOULEVARD.
That was something. Lamar ran all the way through Austin, parallel to the interstate from one end to the other. If she was at the lake, she was west of her apartment and just south of downtown. She could get home in a couple of hours walking once the sun went down. If she continued south a little farther, she’d pass the Zachary Scott Theatre and a variety of restaurants.
She concentrated on moving one foot at a time, watching carefully where she stepped in her bare feet. She was starting to shiver from the cold, and her teeth were chattering, causing her upper jaw to hurt like it was cracked. The pain in her body was growing so intense that she started to cry without realizing it until she felt tears hit her arm.
Around her the night waned, and her skin started to feel wrong, like it was on too tight. She remembered a similar feeling a long time ago when she’d been stung by a bee and found out she was allergic.
She looked around and saw she’d made it as far as the sandwich shop next to the theater. It was closed at this hour, but an idea seized her, and she slipped around the back of the building to the kitchen door.
Taking a deep breath, she threw herself at the door; it shuddered under her weight but didn’t give. She tried again, and again, crying out softly with each hit, and on the fourth, the flimsy wood splintered and fell inward.
She had to take it on faith that there was no alarm. Inside, the air was cool and dark, and she wanted more than anything just to curl up in the corner and sleep, but she’d be found; instead, she looked behind the counter until she found a phone.
It took several tries to get the number right. The last two digits were hazy in her mind, but providence was with her, and after a couple of rings, a sleepy voice answered, “Hello?”
“Kat,” she all but wept, “It’s Miranda. I need your help.”
“Oh my God, Mira! Thank God! I’ve been trying to find you—are you okay? Were you hurt?”
Miranda half laughed, half cried. “Please, Kat . . . I need you to come get me. I’m at the Newman’s Deli on South Lamar, by the Zach. Please hurry—and bring a blanket.”
“But—”
“Please,” she begged. “I’ll explain everything later.”
“I’m on my way,” Kat said breathlessly. “Hang on, honey, I’ll be there in five minutes.”
Miranda was sitting on the curb outside when Kat pulled up in her battered old Corolla. Miranda pushed herself to her feet and all but fell into the car, taking the blanket Kat offered and wrapping it around herself until every inch of her skin was covered.
“Hurry . . . I have to be inside before the sun is up.”
For once Kat didn’t ask any questions. When she saw the state of Miranda’s clothes and hair and the way she was shaking, she simply floored the accelerator and drove them to her place at twice the legal speed limit.
She bundled Miranda into her rented duplex and sat her on the couch. “Okay, start talking.”
“Not yet.” Miranda poked her nose out of the blanket. “Are there any windows in your guest bathroom?”
“No, but . . .”
Miranda shook her head and stood back up; Kat made a noise of impatience but helped her into the bathroom.
There, Miranda stripped off the blanket and heard Kat gasp.
“What the fuck happened to you?” Kat asked. “Your shirt!”
She looked down. There was a hole over her heart, and her T-shirt was stained with the blurry remains of the blood that had gushed from the stab wound. Miranda touched the hole, the memory threatening to engulf her.
“Someone tried to kill me,” she said.
“Jesus, Mira . . . first your apartment, now this—you’ve got to tell me what’s going on.”
“My apartment? What do you mean?”
Kat leaned on the bathroom door, looking utterly mystified by the whole situation. “It was all over the news last night. Someone burned down your complex. There are at least ten people dead—weren’t you there?”