Chapter 17: Alive

His boot came down, and it never reached my fingers.

His mother had both arms around his leg.

She dragged on it with her whole weight, and Shane staggered sideways and cursed.

Then Malcolm was there.

He had put Brynn down on the stone, and he went flat on his stomach and caught my wrist with both hands.

"I've got you."

"My fingers are slipping."

"I've got you, Lena. Don't look down."

He pulled.

My ribs scraped the edge of the terrace and I came up over it in a heap.

I lay on the cold stone with my face against his chest.

When I raised my head, Shane was gone.

His mother lay on her side where he had thrown her off, with one hand pressed to her mouth.

Gravel spat in the drive, and an engine tore down the road toward Boston.

Malcolm did not chase it.

He had Brynn's head in his lap and two fingers on her neck.

"She's breathing," he said.

The state police came in under four minutes with the lights going.

Then an ambulance came, and a medic knelt over Brynn.

"Pills," he said. "A lot. We'll pump her at the hospital in town. She'll live."

Shane's mother climbed in beside her and held her hand and did not let go.

It was past two in the morning when we reached the inn by the harbor.

The trooper had asked us to stay in town and give statements at nine.

Malcolm took the one room they had left.

I stood in the little white bathroom holding my hands under the tap.

Four nails were torn to the quick, and the water ran pink.

I did not cry.

I looked up, and Malcolm was in the door with a clean towel.

"Give me your hands."

"I can do it."

"I know you can."

He took them anyway.

He dried each finger, slowly, with his head bent.

His hands were shaking worse than mine.

"I watched you go over," he said. "I had Brynn in my arms and you went over, and I couldn't move."

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