Chapter 62

THE ICE COLD WHITEWATER dragged me downstream in a direct path for the drowning pool. I held out my hands for anything I could latch onto. Body twisting and turning in the water, I grabbed onto a rock with both hands and arms. For maybe a second or two I managed to stop my downstream progress toward the pool. But it didn’t take long for the smooth, moss-covered rock to betray me. As the frigid water pulled at my body and the rock slipped out of my hands, I felt my body once more being carried away.

My head and body were pulled underneath the water’s surface. I swallowed the water and felt myself drowning. Until my head would once more reemerge, only to be sucked under again. Deeper this time, the water filling my lungs, choking me.

But instead of panic, an explosion of anger erupted inside of me. It built up and up until nothing mattered anymore. Not my pain, not the cold, not exhaustion, not the suffocating sensation of drowning. Not fear. There was only the need to beat the stream, to beat my fear, to put an end to Whalen. To get to Michael.

Despite the pull of the rushing water I yanked the flashlight from out of my pants and flicked it on. I ducked under the stream’s surface and righted myself so that my chest and legs were parallel with the streambed. I shined the light in the direction of the opposite bank. An instant passed before I located a felled tree that had been completely submerged by heavy water.

As I came upon the tree, I took aim at one of its thick branches. With my good hand, I grabbed hold of the branch, grasping it as tightly as I could. It worked. Pulling myself up and out of the stream, I spit out the water that filled my mouth and lungs. Then I sucked in a deep breath of sweet oxygen. Pulling myself in toward the tree, I planted my right foot in the secure place where the branch met the tree’s thick trunk. With my last breath, I heaved my torso up and over the stream bank.