Southtown Read Online Free PDF Page A

hammered the doors. The van shuddered and began drifting sideways.
    Through the smear of the windshield, I saw Dimebox’s Town Car trying to climb the opposite bank, but his headlights dimmed. His rear fender slid back into the torrent, crunched against the guardrail. His headlights went dark, and suddenly the Lincoln was a dam, water swelling around it, lapping angrily at the bottom of the shotgun window.
    “Go back,” I told Erainya.
    She fought the wheel, muttered orders to the van in Greek, eased us forward. We somehow managed to get right behind the Lincoln before our engine died.
    Our headlights dimmed, but stayed on. I could see Dimebox Ortiz in front of us, waving one arm frantically out his window. His driver’s-side door was smashed against the guardrail. Water was sluicing into his shotgun window.
    Behind us, Lalu and Kiko were barely discernible at the edge of the water, watching mutely as our two vehicles were trash-compacted against the guardrail.
    The railing moaned. Our van skidded sideways. The Lincoln’s back left wheel slipped over the edge, and Dimebox’s whole car began to tilt up on the right, threatening to flip over in the force of the water.
    I grabbed Erainya’s cell phone, dialed 911, but in the roar of the flood I couldn’t hear anything. The LCD read,
Searching for Signal
. The water inside the van was up to my ankles.
    “Rope,” I shouted to Erainya. “You still have rope?”
    “We have to stay inside, honey. We can’t—”
    “I’m getting Ortiz out of that car.”
    “Honey—”
    “He won’t make it otherwise. I’ll tie off here.”
    “Honey, he isn’t worth it!”
    Ortiz was yelling for help. He looked . . . tangled in something. I couldn’t tell. Nothing but his head was above water.
    I looked back at Jem, who for once wasn’t focused on the PlayStation.
    “Pass me the rope behind your seat,” I told him. “You’re the man of the van, okay?”
    “I can’t swim,” he reminded me.
    His eyes were calm—that creepy calm I only saw when he tried to remember his life before Erainya, his thoughts thickening into a protective, invisible layer of scar tissue.
    I shoved him the cell phone. “It’s okay, champ. Keep trying 911.”
    He passed me the rope—fifty feet of standard white propylene. I didn’t know why Erainya stored it in the van. I suppose you never knew when you’d have to tie somebody up. Or maybe Dr. Dreamboat the ENT had strange proclivities. I didn’t want to ask.
    I made a knot around the steering column, a noose around my waist. Then I rolled down the passenger’s-side window and got a face full of rain.
    I climbed outside, lowered myself into the current, and got slapped flat against the van.
    Up ahead, a few impossible feet, the passenger’s side of the Lincoln was bobbing in the current. I could see Dimebox Ortiz in the driver’s seat, up to his earlobes in water.
    I didn’t so much walk as crawl along the side of the van.
    My efforts spurred Lalu and Kiko into a new round of yelling. I couldn’t make out words. Maybe they were arguing about whether they could blow me up without hurting Dimebox.
    I kept the rope taut around my waist, inching out a step at a time, not even kidding myself that I could keep my footing. The side of the van was the only thing that kept me from being swept away.
    The worst part was between the cars, where the water shot through like a ravine. When I slipped one foot into the full current, it was like being hooked by a moving train. I was ripped off balance, pulled into the stream. My head went under, and the world was reduced to a cold brown roar.
    I held the rope. I got my head above water, found the fender of the Town Car, and clawed my way to the passenger’s side.
    The Lincoln’s shotgun window was open, making a waterfall into the car.
    Dimebox’s hands were tugging frantically at something underwater. He was craning his ugly head to keep it above the water. His face was like a bank robber’s, his