Page 95 of The Truths We Burn

I run up the side of the pool, climbing over the gate that places me on the side only employees are allowed. I hear his footsteps approaching, his hands moving against the gate as he closes in on me. I look around, trying to figure out my next move, what I’m going to do next.

“Where to now, girl?” he mutters darkly.

“Up,” I breathe.

I grab the wall, lifting myself up onto it, seeing there is enough space for me to stand with both feet, but only in this area. I’m going to have to walk sideways, my back to the wave pool beneath with nothing to hold on to.

I turn back to the man closing in on me and back towards the sludge-filled pool. The water is dark, black as coal with pieces of ice floating at the top from the cold weather. Either lose and get beat to death or risk falling in.

The fall won’t kill me—it’s not high enough to do that—but my fear of water makes everything worse.

Chills run along my arms as I place my right foot on the ledge, pressing my hands and face into the cold sign. It burns my warm skin, but I don’t dare move too hastily. The wind hits me hard, making me lean into the sign more, trying not to let it push me away.

My throat is so dry, making it impossible to swallow, to breathe really.

My other foot wobbles, but it follows, and I’m soon shimmying across, my heels dangling over the edge as my toes try to keep me balanced.

Don’t fall. Don’t fall. Don’t fall.

I work my way closer to the center where the flag dangles, flapping around wildly.

My heart slams against my chest the closer I get, pressure weighing heavily on my shoulder, trying to work on nothing but instinct and not about Briar, about Lyra.

Reaching the center of the sign, I glance up, the orange material directly above me. The finish line is right there, victory so close I can taste it. My fingers tingle as I lean up on my tippy-toes.

Inside my head, I’m lagging.Everything is delayed—I feel sluggish like I’m moving in slow motion.

My hand curls around the material, feeling it in my palm. I pull it from its fixed spot, bringing it to my chest, holding it there like it’s a newborn baby.

I did it. We did it.

“Goddammit!” someone shouts, just before a hand is slammed into the sign, making it shake. It dislodges my balance, and there is nothing I can do to stop myself from falling backwards. My arms flail, desperately searching for something to grab onto.

But there is nothing.

The fall isn’t gradual like in the movies.

No, I fall fast, hard, crashing into the freezing water like a star from the sky at a million miles an hour and burning alive when I land.

Pieces of solid ice slam into my back before the water takes me. It submerges me almost instantly, swallowing me up like a hungry beast.

I’m wrapped in the frigid hands of death, curling around me like an unwanted hug, and amoverwhelmed by the intensity of the cold. It’s all around me, sinking into my skin, penetrating my bones, and it just keeps sinking deeper every second.

And there is nothing but darkness. Even as I open my eyes beneath the surface, it’s just filled with nothing but inky black.

I want to swim to the surface. I want the stinging in my lungs to go away, but my extremities…I want to fight, to do something, but nothing is working. My brain has stopped, and my body has no clue what to do. There is no feeling anywhere.

I’m paralyzed. Too frozen to move, to save myself.

Fear has taken over.

The fear of dying and not being able to prevent it. It’s out of my control completely.

Fear of not knowing what is coming for me next. The fear of the unknown.

Suddenly, I can hear music. Rosie’s music.

The songs she used to play in her room when she was working on a sculpture, and I wonder if this was what she felt right before she died.