Depth

SIXTEEN

IMMEDIATELY THERE WAS THE loud whining of sirens, and two red lights by the large metal doors began to flash.

“What the fuck did you do?” Dash asked. Lou smiled and walked back towards the sofa she had been sitting on. The doors began to groan.

“She opened the doors,” Simone said. “We have to get out of here!”

“Close it!” Dash screamed. Lou sat back down on the sofa, staring out at the water, her back to Dash and Simone. “Fuck!” He ran for the elevator, dragging Caroline with him by the neck. He got in the elevator and pushed Caroline aside as he activated it. It closed, locking them out.

Behind them, the doors had begun to open and the ocean was starting to rush in with the sound of an angry mob. It flowed over Simone’s ankles, cold and black.

“Lou!” Simone called out. Lou looked back at her and smiled, then went back to staring out at the water, the ocean at her feet splashing wildly and soaking her. The elevator was moving upwards. Caroline stared at Simone, still afraid. “Fuck,” Simone said, holstering her gun. The water was above their knees now, and the doors were opening wider. Simone grabbed Caroline’s wrist in one hand and, as the elevator rose above them, grabbed onto one of the bars on the elevator’s underside. They began to rise with the elevator, Simone and Caroline a human chain just above the water. She glanced back once at Lou, but the water had risen over her head, and all Simone could see was the ocean, taking back what it had been denied for so long, all angry froth and the smell of rot.

Caroline’s hand was slippery with sweat and the moisture in the air. Simone would lose her grip soon.

“I’m going to try to lift you,” Simone called down to Caroline. Below them, the water was churning up the elevator shaft, a storm in a bottle about to break free. She tightened her grip on the elevator bar and lifted up the hand Caroline clung to so that Caroline’s head was at her waist. Simone’s arm was getting weak and groaned against the effort, as Caroline got wetter and heavier.

“Grab my waist,” Simone said. Caroline stared at her like she was insane. They were flying upwards, and falling was death. Caroline’s hair streamed down behind her like smoke. “Hold onto me so you can reach the elevator, too. I can’t hold you like this much longer.” She could feel her arm giving way, burning with pain. Caroline was sliding away, as if the water were pulling her under without even touching her.

Caroline twisted herself, reached out with her free hand, and managed to wrap it around Simone.

“Let go!” Caroline called, her words muffled by the sound of the water below. Simone let go of Caroline’s hand and she slipped away. Simone felt a shock—the sudden cold of Caroline’s absence—and cried out, fearing Caroline had plunged into the water, and thinking of letting go, and joining her. But Caroline had just managed to wrap herself around Simone. Simone reached up with her free hand, grabbing the elevator more securely with both hands. The elevator rose quickly upwards for just a moment more, then stopped suddenly, jarring Simone. She felt Caroline’s arms digging into her ribs and gasped, half choking on her own breath. She re-tightened her grip and looked down. The water below had stopped rising, but it was still frothing and gurgling softly. The only other sound in the elevator shaft was the creak of straining metal.

The platform that led to the stairs they had come down was just off to the side, its ladder leading back outside, where Dash was escaping.

“I’m swinging us over to the platform,” Simone said, moving herself, hand over hand, to the edge of the elevator and starting to swing. “You let go first.”

Simone swung her hips and Caroline let go, catching onto the metal platform’s edge with her hands. It groaned at the sudden weight and bent. Simone held her breath, but the platform didn’t fall. Caroline pulled herself up, and then Simone swung her way over, landing halfway on the platform, legs dangling off. It screeched again and wobbled under her but still held. Caroline, standing on the platform, pulled her up.

“She just killed herself,” Caroline said, “drowned herself like that.”

Simone didn’t have time to think about that. Dash was getting away. She climbed the ladder and ran out of Lou’s apartment to the stairwell, just in time to see Dash through the glass stairs, leaving at the bottom floor. She ran down quickly, her body aching and fiery with every step, her reserves empty of everything but adrenaline. She was damp with sweat and sea spray, and everything seemed slimy to her. Outside the building, the storm had kicked into full swing. It was pouring rain, and wind whipped frantically around, the noise like a funeral dirge.

Dash was running out of sight, just the barest outline of him visible through the heavy rain. Simone took off after him. She found herself running faster than she knew she should. Catching Dash wouldn’t make up for everything that had happened, but it would be better than it all vanishing under the waves, like Lou.

Dash turned around a corner; Simone was catching up. He was headed for one of the bigger bridges, probably hoping to lose her in the crowd there, catch a taxi to a safe house, and hide out for a while before sneaking out of town. She wasn’t going to let that happen. The rain was pouring hard, and her clothes felt tight and heavy. The bridges were empty, and she could focus on just him, on chasing him, on catching him. She was gaining ground. She could see more than his outline, now. She could see the panic in his face when he looked back over his shoulder. He drew his gun and shot behind him once or twice, but they were lazy shots, Simone didn’t even have to dodge as they went wide. He looked tired. Simone smiled. She could do this all night.

He turned another corner and another—he wasn’t heading for a main street. They were going further downtown now. The bridges were weak and slippery, and Simone slowed down, but then Dash pulled ahead, leaving her no choice but to speed up again. When she felt her foot slide at the edge of a bridge, she wondered if that had been his plan.

Then she was flying out, weightless over the water.

The world seemed to take a breath. She fell in slow motion, noticing the details around her, like the splash of the rain hitting her stomach as her body went parallel to the surface. She felt the spin of her legs as they spiraled downward. She heard her lungs inhale their last breath like a loud sigh played in reverse.

And then she was beneath it.

She felt the bubbles scatter-dance around her as she plunged into the ocean, the surface closing above her instantaneously, like the slamming of a prison door. The water was freezing, and her body sang out with shock in the first moment, but that singing faded into a lullaby as she sank farther into the water, propelled by the force of her fall. She felt the undertow manacle itself to her wrists and ankles, pulling her deeper. She opened her eyes. All around her were black shadows of a city under the waves. This would be her grave, she knew. Maybe one day she’d be pulled up by a recycling boat, and maybe someone would recognize her, or maybe not, but either way she’d be turned to dust and poured back down here. This was where she was going to end up. And it was beautiful. Living above the waves all this time, she’d assumed below was a frightening pool of inky black and all the worst, darkest thoughts of the people of the city. But when she’d been under the waves in Lou’s home, it had been different. It had been like a clear night. She could fall asleep under the stars. People used to do that, didn’t they? Stars were mostly invisible now, covered by smog and pollution, but the stars under the ocean—the green pinpricks of light, swirling like small nebulae—those she could fall asleep under.

The bubbles dissolved around her, and she thought about trying to claw her way back up to the surface, taking one last breath. But the waves here were strong, and pushing her all around, and she wasn’t entirely sure which way the surface was anymore. Besides, why go back? She pulled her hands down and looked at them in the dark water. They seemed oddly pale and faintly green, as though life had already left her and she was a ghost, forever tossed beneath the waves. Maybe she was.

So Dash would get away. So people had died. Would it make a difference? She suddenly thought of the painting Mr. Ryan had showed her—The Return of Odysseus. A man trying to get home to his city on the water. She remembered other things about the myth, too—the image of Odysseus strapped to the mast of his ship as sirens sang his men into the water, and of his wife at home, waiting. Simone had no one waiting above the water. She thought of her father, and she could see now how easy it had been for him to give in. And she gave in, too. She would die here, and she would have no regrets. Still, she turned in the direction she thought was towards the air, just for one more look. The surface of the water rippled with raindrops, and above that it glowed.

FROM ABOVE, CAROLINE KHAN was a dark inkblot on the bridge. The rain had plastered her hair to the sides of her face so it looked like a cowl. She ran forward, slowing down sometimes to wipe the water from her eyes. She paused at an intersection of bridges and looked around, narrowing her eyes against the storm. She ran down one of the bridges, then stopped and ran back again, in the other direction. At the end of this bridge was a turn, wrapping around a drab gray building turned nearly black by the water. Caroline stopped there and examined the wooden railings at the edge of the bridge. They were broken and splintered, burst outward towards the ocean like two reaching arms. The wood inside the broken railings was still dry.

Caroline got down on her knees and stared at the water. It was dark as onyx and just within her reach. She could dip her hand down into it and bring it back up.

She saw the hat first—floating on the water like a paper boat. Then a flash of red on the water’s surface—rust-colored and swirling like blood in the water. But it was in strands. Not blood. Hair. Caroline leaned over the edge and thrust her hand into the water, then yanked back like she was trying to catch fish in a net.

She fell backwards, a clump of red hairs in her hand. She leaned forward, took more of the hair, and this time pulled more slowly, lifting the weight of Simone’s head to the surface. Water poured off her face in thick sluices, and she sputtered into the air.

“Get the fuck up here!” Caroline shouted, extending her hand for Simone to grab onto. Simone stared at her, blankly. “Grab my hand!” Caroline shouted over the storm. Simone grabbed onto Caroline’s arm, and Caroline heaved her back up onto the bridge. Simone grabbed the edge of the bridge and, with Caroline’s help, pulled herself up, drenched and gasping.

“He got away,” Simone said when she’d caught her breath.

“Yeah.”

“Fuck.” Simone shook her head. She was soaked and had lost her hat. Her hair fell over her face in thick bars. She looked past them at Caroline, whose hair stuck to her face in lines like cracks in a porcelain mask. She was wet and her mouth was slack. They were both breathing heavily, and it was cold enough that she could see the little wisps of breath flying from their mouths like ghosts in the rain. “Thanks for pulling me out.” The air smelled like electricity, and her mouth tasted of metal.

“Yeah. Well. You’re welcome. Didn’t think I could handle this city without you around.” Caroline smiled as she said this. She was still on her knees, her hands clasped in her lap, but she let her body fall sideways into Simone, leaning on her, shoulder to shoulder. They stared out at the shadows of New York. It was barely visible, gray and green. Dash was long gone and Simone felt a knot of anger wrap itself around her chest, but then she breathed in and let it go. She shivered. Her coat was soaked too deeply for the warming gel to kick on.

Caroline laid a hand over Simone’s. Her hand was warm, and Simone took a sudden deep breath without meaning to, and coughed a few times. She looked at Caroline, who was looking at the ocean.

“Okay,” Caroline said. Simone almost couldn’t hear her over the rain. But she knew what she meant.

They leaned back against the solid railings. Rain poured down around them for a while. The sound of the ocean taking in each drop like a sinking stone echoed. It was like a thousand people swallowing, not all at once, but one after another after another.

“What do you think he meant?” Caroline asked after a moment. “When he said I’d keep quiet?”

“I think he was bullshitting,” Simone said. “I think he was going to get us outside, then shoot us and push us under. Easier to get two walking bodies above water than carry two dead ones.”

“I guess,” Caroline said. “I hope.” The rain began to fall even harder. It felt like bullets, but sounded like overwhelming applause.

“Fuck,” Simone said.

“What?” Caroline shouted over the rain.

“I just realized who hired Dash.” She was cold and wet, and her hair was plastered to her face and neck. The wind was whipping through her like knives. She stood slowly, her body stiff and cold and burning all at once, but she stood. She held a hand out to help Caroline up. “Let’s go home.”