by Jason Letts
“She’s gotten better,” Brady said, which wasn’t what Tera had wanted to hear.
“About what, needing you to punish her during sex or the conversations over dinner?”
Brady’s head jerked slightly, and she wondered if she’d been too blunt.
“Your memory is too good. You weren’t supposed to remember all that,” he said.
“My mind is like a steel trap.”
“And what is the rest of you like?” he said, which was a flirty line if she’d ever heard one.
“As soft and as smooth as water.”
“Then I’m jealous of the guy who gets you. The water in my apartment has enough minerals in it that it feels like I’m showering with steak seasoning.”
It sounded more than appetizing, but as she opened her mouth she knew that anything she would say could send them far over the line they’d been straddling if she weren’t careful. The second she stopped thinking about one reason she could never lay a finger on him she smashed head first into the other reason.
“You don’t sound like a guy who got his rocks off a little while ago. What would Olivia think about all this?” Tera said, doing her best to cut the tension.
He didn’t answer, and it gave her time to build up some resolve that she’d find a way to stop torturing herself over Brady. Maybe she’d suck it up and try a dating website. Anything that could direct her sexual appetite in a less inappropriate direction. She put it second on her mental list after getting herself to a place where she wasn’t constantly walked on and passed over.
Suddenly Brady hit the latch on the car door and popped it open. It took her a second to realize what was happening.
“Wait, where are you going?” Tera asked in an insistent whisper.
“They’re heading to the ATM. I’m going to have a closer look,” he said. Tera’s heart began pounding, and she quickly pushed open her door.
“Not without me,” she said, though she doubted Brady could hear her. He’d begun stalking toward the pier to get around the chainlink fencing, and she shut the door and hustled to catch up.
Turning her head, she could see some figures passing under a street light toward the ATM along the bigger road. There’d been a few guys with Chechy in the surveillance video, but now it looked like enough guys to field a basketball team out for a walk. How many members did this group have?
Somehow it didn’t seem to give Brady any pause that they were heading closer to a warehouse that could’ve had another dozen guys in it. He pulled a camera out of his pocket and shuffled along to the next building over. They settled next to the corner of the intermediary structure, and while she was breathing heavily Brady was calm and focused. If she couldn’t calm down and use her senses, she’d have no ability to help him.
Before she could catch her breath, he was on the move again, and she was right on his heels. The sound of the waves crashing against the docks seemed to help, and she began to see the wisdom of Brady’s plan. If everybody was out at the ATM to get paid or whatever, they could find an awful lot in only a few minutes.
Hunched over, Brady moved closer to the building, closing the gap with remarkable speed. Tera felt like she was in pretty good shape and was beginning to get used to the movement. Creeping along between buildings and avoiding being seen were her specialties, and as long as they kept an eye out for Chechy’s return they seemed golden.
Brady turned back to her, his face and furtive grin in the moonlight inspiring her. He loved this, and she was beginning to feel wired up about it. With just an extended finger, he pointed to the illuminated window and began approaching it at a steep angle, finally sidling along the warehouse, which seemed to have been used for seafood processing at one point going by the faded salmon stretching across the side of the building.
Everything around them was still. He crept up to the window and began to peek inside until he felt comfortable that the room was empty.
“Give me a hand with this,” he whispered, trying to slide the sill open. “Knock on the glass when it’s time to bolt.”
“Alright,” Tera said, hoping it would be that easy.
They worked the windowpane up until there was room enough for Brady to slip inside, where Tera saw a computer running on a desk, some empty pizza boxes, and some old fishing nets strung up on the walls. The window seemed to rest comfortably about midway up, and the impulse hit Tera to turn her attention to the front of the building to see if Chechy’s group was returning, the most likely source of any disturbance.
But that wasn’t where a faint crinkling sound came from, and Tera twisted around toward the back corner of the building a few feet away. She stepped closer, trying to determine if there was someone along the rear by the docks, but the waves lapping against the walled edge made it difficult to hear anything clearly.
The open window gave way, slamming closed, and making her jerk back. The loud crash must’ve been heard from all over, but Tera didn’t have time to think about it. Something behind the building followed more clearly this time, a footstep, and she’d barely been able to turn her head when a large figure coming around the corner quickly collided against her.
Tera grunted from the impact, scrambling to avoid falling over. If the sudden confrontation was a surprise to the man suddenly against her, he didn’t show any signs of it. The next thing Tera knew she was being shoved against the back of the building’s bare cement exterior. That athletic wear did nothing to cushion the blow and was turning into a poor choice.
The surge of pain rippled throughout her body, but the sensation wasn’t altogether unpleasant. She knew what it was like to be hit, and anyone who did so to her needed to know that he was going to get a lot more back. The moonlight gave her enough of a glimpse of the guy for her to see that he was young with straight hair hanging down over his ears. His eyes had that look she’d seen so often on the streets of someone who didn’t care what he did because he had nothing to lose.
He came at her again, but this time she was ready. When the man swung his fist at her like a club, she leaned left and then charged forward with all of the force her legs could generate. As he reeled back, it bought her a moment to try to retrieve her gun, but she barely had it in her hands when her assailant was on her again.
The weapon slipped out of her grip and clattered against the surface of the deck, but she could barely think about it as she attempted to elbow the man away and avoid his grasping hands. Thankfully he didn’t seem to have either a gun or a knife, but his brute strength was worrisome enough. Bending over, he tried to reach for her gun, leaving her no choice but to shove him.
His hand on her arm didn’t relent, and even as he staggered for a step or two she had no choice but to come with him. The momentum continued to pull them farther away from the building, and it was so dark that Tera could barely see what was happening. A gunshot rang out somewhere, but the torso and snarling mouth in front of her made seeing what else was happening impossible.
She couldn’t get her bearings, and that didn’t become any easier as a hard fist connected with her jaw. But she did manage to spot the raised ledge at the edge of the dock only a moment before the man tumbled back against it. He was losing his balance, but he had such a hold on her that he managed to pull her sharply toward the rolling waves as if her swaying body could give him enough leverage to stop falling.
They both went over together, and Tera was thrown upside down as they spilled over the edge and dropped head first down the five foot drop into the unknowable dark liquid mass below. She barely managed to take a breath and shut her mouth before breaking the plane of the water and slipping under the surface.
Her shoulder and head brushed against the rabble of rocks below, and she spilled over into the depths where her extended legs and feet couldn’t feel anything but the completely enveloping chill of the water. The young man was still on her, too close and still grabbing her in every way he could.
Opening her eyes stung and brought her little information about wh
at was happening, but she sensed that he was flailing and attempting to again use her for leverage to get to the surface, which already seemed to be farther above them than she could reach. She was a good swimmer and could hold her breath better than most, but exerting a lot of effort and not being able to get above the surface wasn’t going to work for long.
Desperately she began grabbing at the man, trying to get to his hands, neck, or face to get him to focus on himself. He continued to attempt to punch her, which was virtually useless considering their current state, but the one waving arm trying to push her down was still the primary obstacle to getting her next breath.
Time was running out, and she knew she was moments away from being forced to open her mouth and gasp. Whether air or water came rushing in was an open question, and she wriggled and flapped her arms as he grabbed her and held her down. For an instant she could see the panicked look in his eyes.
The back of her head broke through the surface, but his hand was around her neck. It took all the strength she had left to jerk her head backward enough to breath, her effort ending up pulling him up above the surface as well. Her shoes rested awkwardly on the slippery algae-covered rocks just underwater. The water droplets poured off of her hair, chin, and sleeves.
The man was coughing and sputtering all while emitting some kind of keening sound. He choked on the water in his throat, his eyes were red, but that wasn’t enough to leave him without the will to fight. Hands emerging from below the waves, he reached up for Tera with gritted teeth, ready to do anything possible to kill her. What he could do from his position against the rocks was unclear, but she didn’t have to think twice to figure out that pressing her hand against his forehead to put his head back under and stop his wailing from attracting attention was a good idea.
Below her wrist, she could see his frantic eyes just an inch below the surface of the water. He strained to rise up, but her clenched muscles worked harder to keep him under. Still struggling for her own breaths, she was giving it everything she had and hoped her strength would keep up long enough.
His eyes lost their luster, his strong arms went limp, and eventually Tera felt confident that she could release him without there being a chance that he was still in any way a threat. His face was still visible below the surface, now placid and calm, even though his arms now bobbed along with the waves.
Her fear had long since gone, but the adrenaline didn’t seem to be going anywhere. Although she’d come close once, long before she was a cop, she’d never had to kill anyone before, though she’d seen enough corpses to fill a school bus. She couldn’t help but marvel at the person she’d killed who’d been trying to kill her, and what it meant that she’d been successful. For him, happening to come around that corner had put an end to everything that had begun the moment he was born. For her, this fight on the dock and in the water would basically be a meaningless blip…as long as she survived.
CHAPTER 8
“What was that?”
The voices up above cut her reflections short. She had a split second to decide between trying to clamor up against the sheer wall in an effort to hide or to hope that the swelling pulse of the lake would conceal her. Climbing up that high would’ve been an impossibility, and there was a good chance she’d slip or otherwise end up being seen.
After all of the commotion and the sounds of gunfire she’d already heard, hoping these guys didn’t have guns was too much to ask for. She’d be a sitting duck.
The comfortable choice for her was always getting back in the water, even if it was cool and slimy, and she let herself slip down out toward the deep darkness. Just before her head went under, she caught sight of a pair of men hustling along the back of the warehouse with its large open gate facing one of the piers.
She couldn’t be one-hundred percent sure, but she was plenty confident that one of them was Wayne Chechy.
Leaving the dead body of her previous adversary behind, Tera stretched out in the abyss and began an easy stroke to the left, vaguely in the direction of where they’d parked their car. She had to radio for help, since her phone would be useless. She had to find Brady, who may have been hiding or caught in his own battles. Most of all, she needed to find a way to get out of the water.
Taking another breath, she submerged once again and kept along in her current direction. The water whisked around her, and she propelled herself forward with as much care as if she were doing a lap at the rec pool. Before long she became aware that she’d slipped under another one of the piers and came up to try to spot a way back up.
The long pier didn’t have anything in the way of a ladder, just thick pillars that were as slimy as the rocks. She treaded in place, letting the lake water slip between her fingers. Looking up, she could faintly see between the pier’s hefty boards.
Breaking glass hit her ears, followed by laughter. Tera huddled closer to one of the pillars, trying to stay out of sight and determine whether or not she was in danger. Her best guess was that anyone around was oblivious to her, but what they were focusing on was also troublesome. She heard the door to their car swing open.
The urgency of coalescing around a plan before she got stranded out here hit her, but her options were limited to staying put or trying to hug the shoreline until she could find help and get away. Leaving Brady behind in the process, which she refused to do.
The voices by the car were too faint to hear, but they were talking about something. The sounds of more clattering and clanging intermingled with the splashing waves against the wall. She guessed they were emptying the vehicle of its equipment, and her hope was that the radio would appear too fixed to the dash to bother with.
If they took the loose goods and left, there was a chance she’d still be able to use it. Spotting some ropes attached to some dock bumpers that were hanging over the wall in the distance gave her a perfect way out.
But the sounds above around the car only became more pronounced, and they weren’t limited to voices. She became aware of changes in the light slipping through between the boards closer to the wall, and that’s when it hit her. They were laughing because they’d put the car in neutral and were rolling it along the pier with the intent to let it fall off of the end.
Her mouth was agape even and she kept herself still as the footsteps and creaking boards, the vanishing strips of light, all signaled that they were coming closer and would soon be overhead. Tera was shocked this old pier could even support the weight of a full-sized sedan, and it was tempting to try to position herself where she could quickly get out from underneath.
But becoming more visible seemed worse, especially when she spotted three men pushing the vehicle. It slipped overhead and continued on, only needing to pass a couple more pillars before there was no more pier left to traverse.
“Look out,” one of them said to the others, and the footsteps stopped as they gave it a last shove toward the edge. From her vantage point on the surface of the water, the car scraping against the far end as the front tires went over and gravity pulled the large dark object down, it all looked like a whale completing a dive.
The car hit the water, sending a large wave in all directions that ended up catching Tera’s face before passing away, and then hung there for a few moments as the lake slowly consumed it. So much for that radio. Things were getting worse and she was going to have to figure something out quickly.
The guys continued laughing as they sauntered back along the pier over her head.
“If we keep throwing cars off the edge they’ll pile up and somebody will notice,” one of them said.
“No choice with this one. Uninvited guests need to be taught a lesson. Their bodies will fit too.”
Neither voice belonged to Chechy’s, but the statements were encouraging despite their threatening nature. It meant they hadn’t caught Brady, who was still around at least as far as these guys knew. Tera watched them exit the pier and head back in the direction of their hideout, giving her a chance to make a move for the c
ushions along the wall on the opposite side.
Staying quiet, she swam over until she dared to test for signs of rocks below. Eventually she found one and began traversing the slippery shapes toward the wall. Her hand lost its grip and she collapsed face first against the shallow water and stones close to the dock. Everything smelled like algae, dead fish, and oil, and she could only guess at how filthy and disgusting she was.
The two dock cushions and their respective ropes came within reach. They were heavy and slick as well, but as she stood against the wall in the ankle-deep water she could’ve placed a finger on the top if she jumped.
Her first attempt to grab hold of the rope and scramble up enough to get to the edge of the wall ended in failure. Her arms were already tired from the fighting and swimming, and now they had to haul her soaked clothes up as well. Although the air was warmer than the water, a slight breeze gave her goosebumps.
After briefly attempting to wring some of the water out of her shirt and taking a moment to recover, she took hold of the rope with both hands and pushed her muscles to the limit hoisting herself up. Her arms burned and she couldn’t help but emit a warbling cry as she kicked her waterlogged shoes against the wall in hopes of finding a toehold. The cushions were too narrow and dangling to support her, but she managed to gain height and extend an arm onto the dock’s flat cement surface.
The tips of her fingers caught on the other side of the wall’s short raised extension, and she managed to swing a foot up as well. Now it was just a matter of hauling herself over the corner, and her body painfully scraped across the cement the entire way. When she rolled onto the level surface of the dock, the left side of her upper body ached from the effort, she was out of breath, and she began to sense that she had cuts and bruises all over.