The Breakers Code Read Online Free PDF

was unconscious. He must have hit his head on the driver’s side window, because blood was pouring down over his closed eyes. I pulled at my seatbelt. It whipped off. I pulled at my father, but he was heavy and the water was starting to creep up at our waists. The sounds of the Beach Boys echoed through the car’s ruined cab. They told me not to worry; that everything would be alright. They were wrong. I pulled at my father again. He barely budged. So, I screamed at him.
         “Dad!”
         “Dad!”
         Daddy.
         He didn’t respond. I grabbed for his seatbelt, but the water was everywhere now. It pooled up around my shoulders. I tried to open the door but, like my father, it wasn’t complying. The water grew higher. It invaded my mouth and then my nose, drowning my screams. I opened my eyes. We were completely submerged. My dad lifted off his seat, his blond hair, hair like mine, floated like a halo around his head.
         I pulled at him again, thinking he might be lighter now that he was completely underwater. I was wrong. I pulled hard. Losing my grip, I slammed against the door. This time though, it opened. The current of the Chicago River reached for me, pulling me away from the car, pulling me away from my father.
         I saw the lights of the city toward the surface, but I swam away from it, back toward the car. My eyes started burning; my lungs caught fire. The chill in the water cut through my skin, down into my bones. But I kept going. I wasn’t going to leave him here, not down in the dark all alone like this.
         My father’s eyes flipped open as I got closer. His face got animated, panicked, realizing what had happened. He reached for his seat belt. It stuck. He was trapped. My fingers felt pinpricked as I jerked at his seatbelt. He pushed me away.
         He screamed something. It was drowned in the river, but I didn’t need to hear him to know what he said. It was in his eyes. He wanted me to leave him.
         I shook my head. There was no way in hell that was happening. We’d find a way. He reached into his pocket and pulled something out. What I hoped would be a pocket knife or nail file, anything to cut through the belt, turned out to be a little gold necklace. It was thin with a heart shaped locket at the end. It looked old, but I had never seen it before.
         He gave it to me along with a look. Again, I didn’t have to wonder. I knew what it meant.
         You have to leave me.
     
         I’m your father. Do what I say.
     
         I love you.
     
         Now the lack of air wasn’t the only thing setting me on fire. I looked at him for another moment, for the last time. I kissed him on the cheek, and then-
     
         “I think we’re done for today,” I said. My hand was up around my neck, stroking the locket my father gave me. Maybe our hour was up. I had no idea how long I had been sitting there, lost in the moment. It didn’t matter. I couldn’t do this anymore; not right now.
     
         It was raining when I left Dr. Conyers’ office; the sort of rain I didn’t know existed before I moved out of the city; hard and driven by unbridled winds. I put my IPod on shuffle and cranked the volume way up. I didn’t care what song came on, so long as it was loud and I didn’t have to think about anything else.
         Seeing Dr. Conyers always drained me. It forced my mind into a dark place. Still, she had helped me in the past. She had forced me to look at things, helped me make sense of it all, and guided me away from the bad choices I made after my dad’s death.
         Five miles outside of town, and halfway through the Lumineers album I had downloaded the night before, I caught sight of a car pulled over alongside the road. The rain was beating like bullets against the windshield, but I didn’t need to see much to know who it was. I had memorized that car years ago, along with the guy who drove it.
         Owen