Kiwi Strong (New Zealand Ever After Book 3) Read online

  The river was slow here, and I’d seen the car go in close to the bank. Right about … here. I’d fixed the image in my brain, and my brain knew how to read the space, even with a migraine. Spatial awareness had been my life forever.

  I was going to find them, and I was going to get them out.

  There were no bubbles.

  It had been minutes since they’d gone in. Even if they were holding their breath … most people couldn’t hold it that long.

  I knew I wouldn’t be in time. I was doing it anyway.

  I’d taken the first few steps when I thought I saw something. Heard something. A shape, maybe. Something different, downstream.

  Downstream, where they’d be. If they’d got out. How could they have got out?

  There it was again, though. Something, in the fog. A flash, or maybe that was the migraine.

  I yelled. “Oi! Here!” A sweep of the torch, and I saw it again. I couldn’t tell what it was.

  I was running along the bank when I picked it out, far ahead of me in the water, barely visible in the light of the torch. Two heads. An arm, moving. A mother, pulling a kid with her? I was in the river, wading fast, feeling the cold and forgetting it, shouting all the while. “Hold on! I’m coming! Hold on!”

  The heads turned toward me as my light found them. It shone straight at them for an instant before I jerked it upward so as not to blind them. Three or four more mighty, heaving steps through water to my waist, and I had them.

  One of them, anyway. The other one was a dog.

  A big retriever of some kind, the human’s shirt sleeve in its mouth, swimming for its life. And hers, because the person was a girl. I’d seen that in the flash of light. White face, streaming dark seaweed of hair around it. I grabbed her under the arms, told the dog, “I’ve got her. Let’s go,” and started pulling her to shore. The dog resisted a moment, then let go and swam beside us until its paws touched the muddy bottom, when it struggled up to dry land, then dropped to the ground, panting hard.

  I barely noticed. I had the girl, who was small and light enough that she must be a teenager. A teenager, and she’d got herself and the dog out of a submerged car? How? The thought flashed and was gone as she stumbled onto shore beside me, all of her shaking, all of her freezing.

  It would be shock, now. Hypothermia.

  “Anybody else in there?” I asked, then asked it again. Urgently. She shook her head, but couldn’t get the words out. I said, “Come on,” took her hand, and headed up to the highway. When she stumbled again, I picked her up in my arms and ran toward the truck, its headlights still on, the open driver’s door spilling light onto the ground. There were two other cars there, their hazard lights flashing, and a couple men running toward me, shouting questions.

  “Her car went in,” I said. “Nobody else out there.” My teeth were chattering so hard, I could barely speak.

  “Bloody hell, mate,” one of the fellas said. “You were lucky to get her out.”

  I wasn’t listening. I was setting the girl down on the driver’s seat, reaching into the back for the grotty old blanket I carried, then yanking her shirt up and over her head.

  “Got another blanket?” I asked the fellas. “Shirt? Towel? Anything?”

  “I do,” the older one said. “Dog blanket. But here.” He pulled off his jacket. “Have this.”

  I was already unhooking the girl’s bra. She was slim and small-boned, but she had some muscle to her, which explained that swim. She was also shaking all the way now, but she still made a protesting noise as I pulled the bra off. She tried to grab for it, in fact. I told her, “I’ve got to get you dry. Hold this around you,” and wrapped the jacket around her, not bothering with the sleeves, then pulled off her shoes and socks and started wrestling with her jeans.

  She said, through shudders of cold, “I wore the … tight ones. Act of … rebellion.”

  “Yeh,” I said through gritted teeth. “I noticed.” She lay back on the seat, and between the two of us, we worked the wet denim down her legs. It was a major effort. Warmed us up, maybe, because she was still shaking, but she was also laughing.

  “Oh, bugger,” she said. “Trousers are the … Devil’s work. I’m the … Whore of Babylon … after all. Already burned in the … fire. Oh, bloody hell, that was cold.”

  The two blokes may have been staring at each other. It was hysteria, maybe, except that this girl seemed like about the least hysterical person I’d ever met. Possibly including the rugby players. I got the jeans off at last, put the blanket over her, and said, “Take off your undies.”

  “Does that … work?” she asked, working away under the blanket with as little fuss as she’d shown about the rest of it. “With the … girls?”

  It took me a second. Then I laughed. “Well, I’m usually a little smoother in how I say it.”

  “You’re cold … too,” she said. “Hypo … hypothermia.”

  “Yeh. No worries.” I took the other blanket—it did smell like dog—and was about to wrap it around my waist before getting my jeans off when I remembered, turned, and looked. There was the dog, lying down five or six meters behind us, panting, looking like it couldn’t crawl any farther. The girl hadn’t even asked about it, had totally ignored it, in fact. That was odd, but people did odd things under stress.

  I jogged over there, feeling the stones under my stockinged feet for the first time, crouched down beside the animal, and began to rub it down with the blanket.

  It was a Labrador. Dark, and thin. More than thin—skinny, the ribs right there to feel. Exhausted, too, its muzzle on its paws, its eyes closed. And shaking with cold.

  “Hey, fella,” I said softly, rubbing a little harder, trying to warm it up. “How ya goin? All right there? Brave, weren’t you, swimming like that, pulling her?”

  “Where did it come from?” The voice came from behind me. The girl.

  “What?” I turned my head. “You should be in the ute. Keys are in the ignition. Start it. Warm it up.”

  “In a … minute.” She got down beside me, looking smaller than ever in an oversized jacket and a blanket as a skirt, and put her hand on the dog’s broad head. “I thought I was … hung up somehow. In the river. It was the dog, grabbing my shirt. I couldn’t think … where it came from. But I think … There was a shape. Why I swerved.”

  She was still so cold. Why was she out here? I said, “I thought it was yours. It’s skinny. No collar. Stray, I reckon. Go get warm.” I’d all but pushed her into the river. The thought of what could have happened—what should have happened—was trying to make me shake. I needed to get her safe. I needed to get both of us warm.

  “No,” she said. “Not if it’s been … dumped. People can be so … horrible. I’m taking it.” She was paying no attention to my perfectly logical suggestion. I was the rescuer, or I’d tried to be, and you were meant to listen to your rescuer, right? If I was cold, she had to be so much colder.

  “Fair enough,” I said. “If you’re sure.”

  “Come on,” she said, standing up. “Bring it. I’m freezing. I can’t … think. I need to get warm and think. Make a plan. And something’s wrong with you. You’re moving … oddly. Something hurts.”

  I’d just said that she needed to warm up. Twice. And she hadn’t even mentioned her car. That car was buggered, if they could even find it. Down the river by now, maybe. I’d swear she’d already written it off in her mind and moved on.

  It had been tragedy and death, and then it hadn’t. The adrenaline rush had me jittery and a bit sick, or maybe that was the migraine, which was pounding out of my eye like somebody was hammering there. She had to be feeling that sick rush too. Why wasn’t she showing it?

  Were all half-drowned, three-quarters-frozen teenage girls this cool and decisive?

  And how had she got out of that car?

  3

  The Next Thing

  Daisy

  Next thing, I told myself. Do the next thing. I got my arms into the sleeves of the jacket a
nd shivered my way back to the ute. I needed to get warm, and I needed to get him warm. I’d focus on those things, and on what was wrong with him, and then I’d do the next thing, and the thing after that.

  My mind wanted to descend into the panic I hadn’t let myself feel before. I couldn’t hold it off forever, but I couldn’t afford it now. The man had the dog, was encouraging it along, so that was good. We’d all get in the ute. We’d all get warm.

  Step by step.

  I pulled myself up into the driver’s seat, tossed my wet clothes and shoes into the footwell of the back seat, started the engine, found the heater, and turned everything up to full, then wrapped my arms around myself and allowed the shivering and shaking to take over. The man came after me, lifting the dog into the cramped back seat before he tossed his shirt back there and dumped his boots into the footwell, wrapped the damp blanket he’d used on the dog around his waist, and got out of his own jeans. They didn’t take as much effort as mine. He was about twice as big as me, but he didn’t wear his jeans as tight.

  The other two fellas were still standing there beside the road. I buzzed the window down, though I didn’t want to, and asked them, “Did somebody ring 111?”

  “Yeh,” the one who’d given me the jacket, a middle-aged man with a ruddy face like a farmer’s, answered. “On their way.” He glanced at the river, then back at me, rubbing the back of his head ruefully. “Car’ll be done for, though, if they can find it at all. I’d offer to bring out the tractor, but …”

  “No worries,” I said. I was shaking hard now, but that was good. The body warming itself. I was immensely sleepy, too, from shock and stress and cold, and I was going to have to fight that. “Cheers for your help. We’re all good now. Oh. Your jacket.” I wanted to take it off and give it to him, but there was the wee problem that I was naked under it.

  And that I’d let a strange man take off my clothes in front of two other men, making me much too vulnerable, but I couldn’t think about that now, either. That thought would definitely make the panic rise.

  Later.

  “No worries,” the fella said. “Best keep it. You need it. Got nothing else to wear, have you.” The younger man, more like a boy, because he was maybe sixteen, was shifting from foot to foot, looking at me, then looking away when he caught my eye. Maybe he was cold, or maybe he was embarrassed that he’d seen me naked. Or both.

  “Give me your phone number,” I said, “and I’ll get both things back to you somehow.” Which was when I realized that I didn’t have my phone. Didn’t have the backpack of supplies I’d packed, or my tote. Didn’t have my wallet. Didn’t have anything.

  There was that panic again, trying to take over.

  Breathe. Think. Act.

  Everything I’d brought with me was gone, my car was too old to have had replacement insurance, and I couldn’t do anything about any of it. I hadn’t died, and we were getting warm, that was the main thing. Me, the dog, and … whoever this was.

  I couldn’t keep a dog in the flat. Not allowed.

  Next thing.

  I told my would-be rescuer, “Put his number on your phone, I guess.”

  He glanced over at me and smiled. Ruefully. I was operating on a need-to-know basis just now, discarding any information that was superfluous, and still, I noticed his smile. He was part Maori, or maybe part Islander. Dark, wavy hair cut short, high cheekbones. The clean white line of a healed scar running beneath a dark brow, and another one bisecting the web of lines beside a brown eye. A nose that had been broken, and the kind of strong jaw that suggested it wouldn’t break easily.

  A tough face. A nearly beautiful one, too, in that grown-up, lived-in way that’s so appealing.

  I may have blanked for a couple seconds, and then he reached for the jeans he’d pulled off, fished out his phone, and said, “They say it’s good to two meters down and thirty minutes in. Reckon we’ll find out if it’s true.”

  If it didn’t work anymore, was I going to have to replace that, too? My car. My wallet, my phone, my bag … and his phone as well? I set it aside with a major effort that felt more like lifting a boulder and said, “Fine. Let’s do that.”

  He glanced at me, then clicked around and said, “Well, bugger me. It works.”

  “Oh,” I said stupidly. “Well, that’s good. One less thing for me to ... to re— to re—” Now, for some reason, I was starting to shake with emotion.

  “What?” he said. “Why would you have to replace it? I hit you. You’re not responsible for this.”

  “I braked, though,” I said, pressing my elbows into my midsection, holding myself together. “For the dog.”

  “Right,” he said, then told the fellas outside, who definitely needed to get back into their own cars, because the older one was shivering and stamping now, too, “Give me your number, then, mate, and both of you can head out. We’re all good here. Cheers for stopping.”

  The fella looked at him, then at me, and then back at him again. He opened his mouth, and my would-be savior said with heaps of calm decision, “Just the number, and then you can bugger off. No worries.”

  They did, turning for one more look back at us, and I sat there with the heat running and the seductive drowsiness filling me, fought it hard, and finally said, “Do we have to wait for the cops? I can’t afford to wait. I’ve got someplace to be.”

  That was the moment it hit me. I was going for my sisters, and now, I couldn’t.

  They were going to be waiting for me, anxious and scared, and I wouldn’t be there.

  I gripped the steering wheel with both hands, put my forehead against it, and breathed.

  “What?” the man said. “Hurting after all?”

  I shook my head, but didn’t raise it. “Never mind. I’m just … there’s someplace I was meant to be. Someplace important.”

  “I’ll take you,” he said. “Least I can do, isn’t it.”

  “No,” I said, all of it trying to wash over me. “You don’t understand. It’s … I’m …” I took another breath and refocused. “What’s wrong with you?”

  “Me?” he said. “Nothing’s wrong with me.”

  “You hurt.”

  “Oh. Migraine, that’s all.” In fact, one of his eyes was partially closed, and now, he groped for the glove box and took out a box of tablets, and struggled with it. I took the box from him, got the tablet out of its wrapper, and handed it to him. He swallowed it dry and said, “That’ll do.”

  “Right, then.” I tried to be brisk and capable. It had never felt harder. “First thing. Do we need to wait for the cops?”

  He shook his head, then put his hand to it lightly, his fingertips touching around his eye as if he were holding it in place. A man who was used to pain. “No. Nobody’s injured. Somehow. We can go. I’ll take you wherever you were going. Hop out, and we’ll switch around.”

  “No,” I said, “we won’t. Not if you have a migraine. I’ll drive. Mind stopping near Wanaka?”

  He stared at me for a minute. His mouth was actually open. “No,” he said. “You nearly died. You aren’t driving.”

  “But I didn’t die, did I?” I fumbled for the button, moved the seat forward, and adjusted the mirror. “Fasten your seatbelt, then. We’re going to Wanaka.”

  4

  The Whore of Babylon

  Gray

  I would have argued, but there was an ice pick in my eye.

  Later, I thought, as she pulled out onto the highway. It’s less than an hour’s drive. You can close your eyes for ten minutes, give the tablet a chance to work. The white gleam of light on the road was stabbing into my head. I hated the muzziness, the vertigo, and most of all, the weakness that I couldn’t power through, but the only way it would go away was if I closed my eyes and let the medication do its business, so I did.

  I should ask her name, I thought. Also, that fella back there recognized me, but she didn’t. Probably best. A lifetime as a very well-known sportsman in an underpopulated district of a tiny, rugby-mad countr
y had taught me to notice the recognition, and to keep my distance.

  That was the last thing I thought.

  I woke with a start. It took me a second to realize what had happened. We’d stopped, were pulled off the road in the dark.

  “What?” I asked. “Where are we?”

  “Turnoff,” she said. “For where I’m going. I need to talk to you. How’s your head?”

  “Head’s fine.” Good enough to be going on with, anyway. “How’re you feeling? Doing all right?”

  She shook her head. Dismissively, as if that were the last thing she’d ever be thinking of. “I have to go get my sisters.”

  “Oh. Fine. Though they’ll have to ride with the dog.” I unfastened my seatbelt and turned around to check. The dog was lying on the back seat, completely quiet. It was either asleep or dead. Hopefully asleep. I didn’t need to have killed a dog tonight, too.

  “You don’t understand.” She had both hands on the wheel and was staring straight ahead, even though we weren’t going anywhere. “I’m meant to be meeting them at a certain time, and I’m late. I also don’t have a way to get them home. I don’t even have my EFTPOS card. I’m going to have to do some … some sneaking, too, and I’m wearing a blanket.”

  “Right,” I said. “We’ll go grab some clothes first, then. I live in Dunedin, but there’s a place close by we can go.”

  She glanced at me, then away. She wasn’t a teenager. I wondered how I’d ever thought she could be. Her face and body might be young, but her body language was much too assured. Her hair was messy, her face possibly a bit strained, but she was coping. She said, “You could just loan me the ute. Not get involved.”

  “Yeh, nah,” I said. “I pushed you into the river and didn’t pull you out. You’re due a rescue.”

  Another glance at me and away. It seemed to be her specialty. “I don’t need a rescue.”