ID 216511405 © Kirsty Nadine | Dreamstime.com
I grip and release the steering wheel again, the plastic-leather-wrap creaking just loud enough for me to hear it over the old F150 engine. Keeping my eyes firmly on the road barely visible through the sheets of rain blowing sideways, I allow a corner of my awareness to confirm my boyfriend still had his gun pointed at me from the passenger seat. Anger burns in my belly.
“Just a little further,” he said. “The boys can take care of you.”
He loves me. I told my mom. If we are to have a future, I must let him know.
She is gonna get a decade of I-told-you-sos out of this.
If I get out of this.
“You don’t have to do this.” I say to the windshield, puzzling out a rise ahead. One headlight is out, I meant to get it fixed for the past month, always something if you know what I mean, but the one that did work was coming through the storm like a camp. Something is gleaming to the side of the road on a pole. RR inside a circle. A railroad crossing.
“Yeah I do. Things like you are poison.” Jason shook his head. “I can’t believe I let you touch me. Kiss me.”
Feeling is mutual, pig. Feeling is now very, very mutual.
I slow as my truck climbs the embankment. Living in Texas as long as I have, my trust of the roads during heavy rains rivals my present trust of relationships. For good reason. The other side of the long division between cotton fields caused by the embankment reveals a churning vista of water.
“Keep going.” He waves the pistol like an idiot.
Pressing firmly on the brake, I crack a smile and say. “Nope.”
“Fuck, you. No. Get moving.”
A chuckle escapes. “Turn around, don’t drown.” I indicate the water ahead, previously blocked from our side of reality by the three-foot high embankment acting like a dam. “Not happening.”
“You drive a god-damn truck, keep moving.”
“It ain’t a tall truck. The spark plugs could get wet. Pretty sure the water is above my running boards.”
“Deal with it.”
I shrug. “Your funeral.”
“No, it will be yours. Keep moving.”
“I like this truck.”
“It’s a piece of shit.”
“But it is my piece of shit and paid off.”
He pokes me with the gun. “Drive.”
I could grab the gun. Probably. The new moon had me at the lowest of my powers. Even so, I still move faster than most humans.
It likely didn’t have silver bullets. Except, maybe.
I release the brake and go down into the flood waters.
The truck lifts and moves sideways as soon as we get off the embankment. There is no river nearby, but we are effectively in a river.
“What the fuck are you doing?” He raises the gun for a head shot while bracing himself for the recoil against the passenger side door.
“Me, nothing. Just doing what you told me.”
The truck is floating, I have no control. I take my hands off the steering and release my seatbelt.
I can smell the sudden change of his emotions and slam myself forward into the steering wheel. The driver’s side window shatters, and the back of my head burns. The ringing in my ears makes me want to howl. I twist into him, the hot muzzle blistering my hand as I grab for it. I feel the blood free-flowing down the back of my head. Or it could be the pouring rain. Nope, the rain is making the injury burn. I wish I could call my claws, but a palm slam into his nose will have to do.
The crunch is satisfying.
The truck tilts to his side with the change of occupant positions and continues to tilt, sliding us both along the bench and increasing the instability of the vehicle. At least his window is whole and the seal is holding for now. The engine sputters to a stop as water gets into the compartment.
The gun goes off again. Idiot. He takes out the back window since I had twisted the muzzle away from me, and water, real water, not just rain, starts flooding in. I yank the gun hand into the waterfall; hopefully the powder will stop working. Not sure modern guns have that weakness, but here’s hoping. The blisters heal under the flow of water; the back of the head does not.
Silver bullets. Bastard.
The steering wheel and gear shift had interfered with my grappling, but the slide takes me beyond them and I am now on top of him. With my free hand, I grab his throat and hold him under the stream of water. He fights like a drowning man.
I don’t have size or strength on him. Not when Luna is napping. But gravity and position are on my side.
Plus I have fought before. Fought for my life before.
Jason’s last fight likely was on a school playground.
Instinct has him change his grip on the gun, and I yank it away and toss it out the back window.
Pulling up my legs, I climb on top of him. His seatbelt holds him in place, water up to his neck.
“Help me!” he begs.
I don’t bother answering as I stand to get out the driver’s side window. I wasn’t up to fighting the flood waters coming in the back window, not with a head injury. I may have deliberately stepped on his face, pushing him underwater, as I climbed up and out of Old Sally.
Standing on the driver’s side of my truck, I look out into the storm as the vehicle rotates around in the flood. I can’t make out where the railroad embankment is, any trees, houses, anything.
Wait.
God bless America’s thirst for oil.
A crude oil pump is in the direction my truck is traveling. When the truck is as close as it is going to get, I jump as close as I can to the scaffolding. The flood grabs me like a riptide, but I manage to grasp the metal structure.
Only three days a month when I can’t shift and Jason had to choose today. The River Wolf in me, descended from generations of wetland canines, bolsters my strength as best she can. I pull out of the waters enough to wrap limbs around the metal bars. The back of the head still burns, but I am safe.
Well, safer.
Stable?
The water will subside at some point.
After catching my breath, I wiggle out my cell phone from my back pocket to see if survived.
Maybe a bag of rice could save it. I shove it back into the pocket.
It was going to be a long night.
(words 1,133; written 9/28/2024; first published 11/17/2024)