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.