Drawn Into Darkness by Nancy Springer Page A

so.” Justin’s guess-so was hardly more than a whisper.
    â€œThen come on. Run!” Still holding the flashlight, grabbing his wrist with one hand, I hauled him with me toward the van. Partway there he kicked out of neutral and got himself in gear, passing me. He yanked open the passenger’s side door at the same time as I got to the driver’s side and aimed the flashlight at the ignition.
    No key.
    â€œSometimes he sticks it on top of the sun visor,” Justin said, voice strained.
    I flipped the visor. Papers fell down, but nothing with a metallic jingle. I scanned the dashboard, the seats, the floor. Nothing.
    â€œOh, shit.” Justin sounded choked. “He must have put it in his pocket.”
    â€œCome on.” I started running back toward where we had left Stoat, but after only a few strides I stopped dead, grabbed Justin by the wrist so I wouldn’t lose him in the dark, and turned off the flashlight.
    From where we had left Stoat, maybe thirty feet away, I heard the sounds of groans and fervid curses. Chillingly specific curses regarding the punk and the bitch and what he would do to them when he caught them.
    â€œRun!” Justin sounded panicked, yet he had the good sense not to yell; he spoke just loud enough for me to hear him in the hullabaloo of rain, river, and frogs. No way had he betrayed us to Stoat.
    Just the same I pulled him toward me and spoke close to his ear. “Run where?” Heading into the woods, thick with palmetto, would have been like running through razor wire in the night. And Stoat would catch us with the van if we tried to escape back up the road.
    â€œI—I don’t know!”
    Stoat roared, “What the fuck? A baseball bat! I’ll show them how to use a baseball bat.” Damn. He didn’t have his goddamn gun, but he did have a weapon.
    I imagined him using the baseball bat like a walking stick, staggering to his feet.
    In the total drenching darkness we could not see him and he could not see us. But to find the van, all he had to do was feel his way up the sand slope. And once he turned on the headlights, we were roadkill, if not worse.
    Adrenaline is a remarkable stimulant of both body and mind. I said softly, “Justin, can you swim?”
    â€œOf course. Why?”
    â€œWe’re going into the river.” I envisioned a Southern, sandy river with no rocks, no white water, and most certainly no waterfalls.
    â€œThat’s crazy! Alligators, moccasins—”
    Well, yes, there was that.
    People down here called the poisonous cottonmouth viper, aka water moccasin, simply “moccasins.” Indeed, some people called all snakes “moccasins,” as if they were terrified by Native American footwear.
    I declared, “I’d rather face a snake any day than
him
.” By Stoat’s constant swearing I could tell that, yes, he was on the move, feeling his way toward the van—and us. “The river, Justin. It’s our only chance.”
    I felt his hand grip my wrist the way mine gripped his, so that we forged a strong link. “Okay.” He sounded more brave than desperate. “Let’s go.”
    â€œQuietly.” Instinctively I crouched, keeping my head down. Justin did the same. Like a pair of soldiers under fire we scuttled past the noise pollution that was Stoat—I think we blundered within ten feet of him, and if he had shut his foul mouth, he might have heard us. But he kept stumbling toward the van. Quite blindly in the dark we dashed away from it, toward the hiding place we could not see.

NINE
    F irst I felt water puddling around my ankles, and within a few steps, the river current shoving against my shins. Stumbling, I almost lost my balance, and Justin stood still, bracing his feet and hanging on to me. Now the water reached up to my knees—
    Muffled by frogs and distance, I heard a slamming sound.
    Slam. Door. Van.
    â€œDown!” I hurled myself into