The Fires Beneath the Sea ebook - Lydia Millet (primary phonics .txt) 📗

Route 6; but as they got closer and closer it became clear that they had a rare, off-season traffic jam to contend with.

Cars were lined up along the highway at a complete standstill. The fumes from their idling engines filled the air, and a few horns honked way down the line.

“Oh, no,” groaned Jax.

The cars wouldn’t stop them, since they were on their bicycles, but the traffic jam would make the trip a lot less pleasant.

Suddenly she heard the whine of a siren behind them, and then an ambulance careened by at high speed.

“An accident,” said Cara, feeling a chill.

And just like that, she knew there was something wrong. She had to find out what.

“Follow me,” she said to Jax over her shoulder, and took off on her bike in the direction the ambulance had gone, toward the Wellfleet town center. She wove between the stopped cars to get across, then raced up the shoulder.

“Wait up!” Jax was calling behind her.

It was the opposite direction from Marconi.

She yelled back to him to explain, but what she said was probably lost to their velocity. He followed anyway, pedaling behind her as fast as his short, thin legs could go, a puzzled look on his face.

And then she saw it: beside the road, up ahead, a car was wrapped around a tree. A car that looked familiar.

Because it was theirs.

Cara had never felt so afraid, not even when the Pouring Man reached out. Never. The fear lodged in the pit of her stomach, making her almost sick.

When they got to the scene, there was the family car, the front of it forked so far into a tree trunk it looked as though the tree was part of it now. Then there was a police car, lights flashing, parked near the tree, and the ambulance pulled up with the back doors open. Then they saw the stretcher. And the prone form of a boy lying on it.

Max.

She practically threw herself off her bike, let it fall to the gravel and left the wheels spinning as she ran to the stretcher, which they were about to lift into the open back of the ambulance. She had eyes for no one but her brother … she couldn’t see any blood, at least—a good sign, she told herself—and then she was looking down at him, ignoring the paramedics or whoever they were, who were saying things in her ear she didn’t listen to.

“It’s me, it’s me,” she heard her voice repeat, and she was bending over to look into the familiar face.

It was white, but his eyes were open.

“Cara?”

“Oh my God,” she said, and her voice caught in her throat. Tears filled her eyes but didn’t spill out. Her legs felt shaky with relief, or shock, or something. He was OK.

She almost had to sit down, she was shaking so hard.

“Your brother’s one hell of a lucky kid,” a paramedic was telling her, and put an around her trembly shoulders. It was a lady paramedic, bulky and kind-sounding. “He’s got a broken arm, maybe a very mild concussion. And that’s all.”

“Never seen anything like it,” someone was saying behind her to someone else. “It shoulda been way worse. Miracle the kid’s still kicking.”

“Max. What happened?”

Max tried to smile, which looked kind of pathetic but made the tears slide down her cheeks for some reason.

“Guess Dad won’t leave me in charge again,” he managed weakly.

“Don’t joke! You never have accidents!”

His smile faded, and his eyes seemed to lose focus. The paramedic lady squeezed Cara’s arm.

“Honey, it’s just a broken arm,” she said. “Really. You don’t need to worry about him.”

“… finally met your friend,” Max was whispering.

“They’ll keep him overnight after they set the arm, no doubt,” said the paramedic. “You kids got a ride over there?”

Cara heard Jax answer her but couldn’t listen to either of them. She leaned close over Max, whose lips were moving but whose faint words she couldn’t hear in all the hubbub around her.

“What did you say?” she hissed, her lips a couple of inches from his ear.

“I think I met your friend,” he whispered back. “What did you call him? The man who walks in water….”

Cara felt strange; all over her body her skin was tingling.

“He was here? He did this?”

“He came up out of nowhere,” whispered Max, and then winced. Maybe they hadn’t given him anything for the arm, because he seemed to be in pain.

“He came up?”

“First he was in the rearview mirror,” murmured Max. “Smiling. Smiling this … awful smile.”

“He was in the car with you?”

“No. He was just in the mirror—when I turned around there was no one in the back. And then…”

“Then?”

“Then when I turned to the front again, he was crouched on the hood. His face was a few inches away.”

“Oh, no,” said Cara.

“I swerved. I hit a tree.”

“Of course you did. That was what he wanted,” put in Jax, at her elbow.

The paramedics made them move out of the way as they heaved the stretcher up. Cara watched as Max grimaced.

“He did it so you wouldn’t be with us tonight,” said Jax loudly. “He was taking you out.”

“Who was taking him out?” asked a policeman sharply, standing a bit behind them.

Cara shot Jax a look.

“We’re just goofing, Officer,” said Jax.

For some reason the policeman reached out and tousled Jax’s hair, like he was cute. It was weird: Jax was acting like Max’s accident didn’t scare him at all, like it was nothing.

The ambulance pulled away with Max inside. Cara watched it go and then turned to Jax. The policeman had walked away, talking on his cell phone.

“Goofing?” hissed Cara under her breath.

Sometimes, while trying to pass for normal, Jax impersonated an idiot.

“We’re riding with those guys,” he explained to her. “The policemen? They’ll take us to the hospital to be with Max. And I got an idea to make them stop at Marconi on the way so I can reposition the webcam.”

“Poor Max,” said Cara, biting her lip. “Did you