Burning Bright

Shit. Lioe froze for a second, frantically weighing her options. If she screamed, the leader would shoot—she had no doubt about it, and at this distance, he could hardly miss. He was too far away to try to jump him, get the gun away from him, and even if he weren’t, there were the others to consider—probably armed, too. That left the canal, her only—and not very good—choice. Unless I want to go with them. She rejected that thought even before it was fully formed. I don’t even know why they want me, who this mysterious someone could be—unless this is Ransome’s doing, his weird intrigue rebounding on me? She pushed that thought aside as irrelevant, said carefully, “Wait a minute, now.”

The leader relaxed slightly, the palmgun’s muzzle wavering just a little. It was all the chance she was going to get. Lioe flung herself blindly backward, into the canal’s murky water. Fleetingly she heard one of the men shout, and she hit the water hard, shoulder and hip, throwing a great plume of spray. She righted herself under the cold surface, risked opening her eyes for just an instant. The water, salt and oil and chemicals, stung miserably, but she saw light above her, and oriented herself against it. The current was strong, as she’d hoped and feared, and she let it take her, sweeping her down toward the junction where the canal turned south, away from the street. Already her lungs hurt her; she let out a little of her air, exerting herself only to keep herself parallel with the surface, and risked another glance into the dirty water. The surface glimmered just above her, tempting her with air and light, but she made herself stay down, trying to put a meter or so of water between her and the palmgun’s projectiles. She let out a little more air, darkness gathering at the edge of her vision, and could hold her breath no longer. Gasping, she broke the surface, flinging her hair out of her eyes, and heard the flat crack of the palmgun from the nearer bank. Someone shouted, but she dove again, striking out strongly across the canal. The current clutched at her, rolling her sideways and down, then back in toward the canal bank. She floundered in momentary panic, eyes opening in spite of the pain, and clawed her way back to the surface. She was at the corner, where the canal narrowed and the water ran the fastest, rolling and folding over itself. She forgot about the gunmen in her struggle to free herself from the current’s pull. For a terrified moment she thought she’d failed, that she would be pulled under and drowned, and then the water flung her with bruising force against the first of a set of pilings. She cried out in spite of herself, choked on a mouthful of the salty water, and struck the pilings again. This time, she grabbed for them, her hands sliding in the slimy mess of waterweeds, and then she worked her fingers into the dripping mat and clung, head above water, the current still dragging at her clothes and body. Her face burned where she had struck the piling, pain like long lines of fire running from cheek to jaw, and the corner of her mouth stung painfully. Her shoulder hurt, too— it was the same shoulder each time, she thought, with a crazy feeling of injustice. She’d fallen hard on her left shoulder when she went into the canal, and now it was her left shoulder that had hit the piling. She caught her breath, flailed her feet against the piling until she found something—it felt like a metal band, or an old mooring ring—and braced herself against it. It had all happened so fast, she hadn’t had time to kick off her shoes.