What was on the coast?
Worry about that another time. Get that boot lid open.
Billi braced her back against the top, and pushed down with her feet, trying to shove the twisted lid wide enough for her to swim through. The hinges groaned loudly. The boot lid was twisted out of its frame. It wasn’t keen on shifting.
She closed her eyes, concentrating on the one thing she had to do. Push! Push! Push!
Every muscle screamed as she tried to stretch out straight as a pole. But her legs shook. Her lungs were on fire. The boot lid creaked more as the hinges, reluctantly, gave an couple of centimetres. Only a couple. But that minute shift meant she was doing it. Success, freedom, life, was just another thirty centimetres away.
Push!
The car rocked. It tilted back and forth. It was tilting back now, pushing the boot lid closed…
The metal crunched together as the lid sealed itself back shut, for good.
That was her only chance and it was gone. She gave up. Battered, drugged and tied Billi despaired. The odds were too great. Stupid, random bad luck. The car in the water. Landing upside down. The way it settled. Too much bad luck and at some point you had to give up. Don’t fight it anymore. Let it be someone else’s problem.
Maybe her words had given Erin back control. Maybe Erin had beaten Reginald by herself. She didn’t need Billi. Who did, in the end?
Take a breath. You know you want to. Let the water and darkness fill you and be done with it. Just fade away and leave it all behind.
Is that how she wanted it to end?
That she’d be a sad tale around the Temple? The one they told with a shake of the head and resigned sigh? Another martyr for the cause. Another poor soldier fallen by the way in the Bataille Tenebreuse.
Did she want the bad guys to win?
Billi twisted around, her lungs aching but however many seconds she had left she would spend them fighting.
The impact had jarred the rear seats out of position. If she couldn’t get out through the boot she could get out through the front. Bubbles dribbled from her clenched teeth, her chest ached and if this didn’t work then it was over. She had to expel all her energy in this one last attempt. Hold nothing back. Give it everything.
She kicked. Back braced against the side of the boot she lashed out with her bound feet into the back of the seat. She whacked her toes hard, but it didn’t matter. She didn’t care if they broke as long as they gave her an opening. She kicked again at the middle, single seat, feeling it buckle, an centimetre, a little more, with each hit.
Come on!
She was feeling dizzy now, lack of air, all her effort, the drugs. This needed to happen now. She pressed her soles against the back of the seat and pushed. Legs trembling, chest aching, wanting to scream, wanting to breathe, wanting to live, she pushed.
The seat gave way. The hinges, already broken by the crash, finally snapped and the rear of the seat opened up, giving her a small window-sized opening out into the car cabin.
The last of her air gone in a rush of bubbles, Billi wriggled through the gap. The car had landed on its roof, so the cabin had crumpled to half its size, shattering the windows. She sensed, rather than saw, the driver’s seat was empty. The buckled metal door-frame gave her the edge she needed and she dug the wrist ties into the steel and rubbed them furiously back and she ripped the ties apart. No time to worry about her feet she pulled herself through the cabin and out through the passenger door window.
Pale beams of moonlight undulated softly through the depths. There was the gentle push and pull of a current. The ground was silty and the only way was up. Kicking, paddling, Billi rushed for the surface.
She gasped as she broke out. The air tore through her ragged, aching throat and she started swimming for the bank.
She crawled the last few yards and collapsed amongst the reeds.
She lay there gasping, face in the sandy soil, soaked through and weary beyond exhaustion. All but broken by the effort. She shivered. The wind was cold, and salty. Billi curled up in a ball, holding onto her own heat. She needed to move. She just needed to rest. She needed someone to save her for once.
When? When was that ever going to happen? They all thought she could do it alone. Even Ivan. They were meant to be a team, they were meant to be a couple but had never really shared their pain. Both had wanted to be strong for the other and instead of opening up to each other they’d built shields. It wasn’t being weak, it was being honest. Sharing their doubts, their moments when they felt weak, overwhelmed, scared about what was ahead of them. That’s what they should have done but she was Billi SanGreal and he was Ivan Romanov. They had to be strong all the time.
Just this once she could do with being saved. Just this once.
Where was she? Seagulls shrieked. Everything was salty.
Billi sat up slowly. Her body was in no rush to get active. It protested angrily, sending warning signals up along her nerves, little spikes of pain to let her know moving was a bad idea and if she pushed any harder something would finally give in. Hey, this is your body speaking. Mess around anymore and I’m gonna shut down. Give it a rest, why don’t you?
Shut up, body. I’m in charge.
A minute rubbing a rough stone against the leg ties finally had herself free and Billi stood up, arms wrapped around herself and teeth chattering.
The car had ploughed a trench down a muddy verge off a country road lined with hedges and birches. The bank was steep and roughly ten
