Chapter 21: Fireworks Night

Mireille's POV

The barge fired all at once.

The first shell went off so close and so loud that the planks shook under my boots.

The whole sky turned white and gold, and a roar went up from every person on the harbor walk.

Chantal flinched.

She had one foot on the rail of the boat and one hand locked around Sammy's life jacket.

The boat bucked against the pilings, and the rail jerked out from under her.

Sammy slipped.

I saw his small hands open.

I saw his mouth open too, round and silent, before the black water took him.

"Sammy!"

I did not decide anything.

I went off the end of the pier in my coat and my boots.

The cold hit me everywhere at once, and I could not breathe.

I came up with salt in my nose and my eyes burning.

The boat hull rocked against the piling on one side of me, and a wall of black wood loomed on the other.

The gap between them was three feet wide and closing.

Sammy's orange vest bobbed in the middle of it.

He was coughing, and his eyes were enormous.

"Mireille!"

"I've got you," I said. "I've got you."

I got one arm around his chest and pulled him against me.

The hull swung in and pinned my shoulder to the piling.

I screamed into the water.

Above me, the sky went red.

"Mireille!"

Killian lay flat on the planks above us with one arm down.

He had torn the mooring line off its cleat, and he was wrapping it around his forearm and hand.

"Take the rope," he shouted. "Wind it on your wrist, and give me the boy!"

"Take him first!"

"Mireille, give me the boy!"

I lifted Sammy as high as I could with my free arm.

Killian caught him under the arms and heaved him up over the edge, and two detectives grabbed the vest and pulled him onto the planks.

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