Aiden falls into silence. I speed along as quickly as I feel like I can in the rain. The roads can be dangerous when it gets this wet. Aiden has his eyes closed, his lip pinned between his teeth, his head tipped back against the headrest. His brow furrowed with deep concentration. Every now and then his hands flick up to his ears like he wants to cover them, but they always drop right back into his lap. He’s trying to listen, I guess - to what, I couldn’t fucking tell you. But the last thing I want to do is interrupt, so even though I have approximately one thousand questions, I force myself to stay quiet. It’s a Herculean effort.

“Fuck!” Aiden shouts, making me jump in my seat. I feel his gaze on my profile and twist to look back at him. His eyes are still the strange, frosty blue that they definitely are not normally. Deep, azure pools with a layer of ice crystallizing on top.

“Jesus, Aiden! Don’t do that! I’m driving.”

“I’m sorry, I’m sorry.” He breathes out and puts his head in his hands. “It’s just - I don’t fucking have time for this to not work!”

“How much time do we actually have? And until what? Seriously. Until what?”

“Someone’s in trouble.” He grabs two fistfuls of his hair. “Or they’re about to be.”

“What? Who?”

“I don’t know!” He groans and slumps forward onto the dashboard of my car.

It seems to me that I can do one of two things. Option one: slam on the brakes, turn us around, go home and see if I can get Aiden some help. Option two: trust him, like I just promised I would.

“Okay, okay. How do I help? What can I do?”

Aiden lifts his head and looks at me from the corners of his eyes.

“Maybe… could you talk? It helps.”

“Talk about what?”

“Whatever you want. Anything.”

“Okay, um -” I wrack my brains for something to say. “Did you know Caligula was bisexual?”

Aiden turns to stare at me.

“What the fuck, Jamie.”

“You - you put me on the spot!” Goddamnit, Kasey.

“That’s where your brain goes when I tell you that you can talk about anything? Try something a tad less distracting, please.”

“Less distracting… did you know that houseplants usually need less water in the winter?”

“Is that so?” Aiden closes his eyes again.

“Yeah, especially ones that normally grow outdoors that you brought inside. You water them less, but you should mist them more because the air gets dry.” I pause, glancing over at him.

“Keep going,” he says.

So I do. I keep the car pointed North and just ramble on and on about plants and the shop. We drive until we pass the Ketterbridge city limits, and beyond that, the houses on the outer fringe. Now we’re tearing along the shadowy road through the forest. It’s a long way to the next town over. Dark branches loom up and disappear as we tear past. The rain is relentless, and it’s pitch black outside the span of my headlights. Thunder rumbles distantly. I can’t tell if Aiden is still listening, or if he’s fallen asleep, or what -

“Here,” he says. “Turn left here.”

I don’t even know how he realized there was a turn coming up. His eyes are still closed. But what the hell, I’m in it now. I take the turn and we zip through the darkness, my windshield wipers beating hopelessly against the downpour.

“Stay on this road.”

I don’t even know where this road leads. These forest roads are notoriously difficult to navigate at night, lacking streetlights or good signage. Doubly so in this weather. I’m doing my best to keep us moving fast, but -

“Stop!” Aiden suddenly lurches upright. “Stop right here!”

I pull the car to the side of the street and put it in park, looking around for - anything? We’re on a seemingly featureless stretch of road, and there are no other cars, nothing. Aiden unstraps his seatbelt immediately.

“Whoa, whoa, where are you going?” I can’t hide the alarm from my voice as he shoves open the car door and jumps out into the rain. “Aiden, are you fucking kidding me? Oh my god-” I put on my hazards and leap out after him. The rain hits me with a force that temporarily blinds me; at least I was already drenched. Aiden is standing by the side of the road, his face screwed up in concentration again. A splash of brilliant white illuminates everything. More lightning.

Aiden turns to look at me with his strange, icy stare just as the thunder booms again overhead.

“Are you crazy?” I shout over the storm, racing up to him with water flooding my sneakers.

“We need to hurry!” he shouts, and leaps the guard rail.

“Aiden!” I jump it after him, my hand slipping on the wet metal. “Oh, my god, you bastard. You owe me a new pair of Converse if this turns out to be nothing!”

He doesn’t bother shouting anything back. He just sprints out into the dark forest, scrambling over mud and rocks and fallen leaves. I race behind him, my coat flying out behind me, my eyes fixed on his back. It will be a full-on crisis if I lose Aiden now. The road has already been swallowed up by the darkness, and I don’t think either of us have a clue where we are. I didn’t even grab my phone before we left. What was I thinking? I forgot to even check the time, though I can see the first ragged evidence of a stormy dawn starting to lighten the sky, turning it charcoal instead of jet black.

Aiden suddenly jolts to a stop, and I pull up just short of crashing into him.

“What happened?” I shout over the rain, trying not to seem as out of breath as I am.

“I lost it,” he gasps, smearing raindrops out of his eyes. “I could have sworn it was right here.”

“Okay, where are we? I think we’ve been heading East. We should be near - the river, I think? Is that what we were looking for?”

“No, I told you already, someone’s in trouble.”

“Okay, well, I don’t know where you’ve been for the last eight years, but I happen to know that when it storms like this, the rivers-”

“Right! They swell up and get dangerous, don’t they?” Aiden whacks my arm with the back of his hand, apparently out of excitement, but out of breath as I am it nearly knocks me over. “Jamie, you’re brilliant! Let’s go.”

After about ten minutes of wandering around in the early dawn gloom, we find our target. The ground slopes down towards the surging river, but we stay a bit back, just to be safe. The banks are swollen, the choppy surface whipped up by the wind. The band of dark, angry water would be almost invisible from here, but the sky is slowly growing paler above the blanket of storm clouds.

There’s no one there. It’s bright enough to see that, now.

“Shit.” Aiden slicks his wet hair out of his face and then leaves both hands on his head. He looks utterly defeated. “I must have fucked up. There’s nothing here.”

We both jump as a loud, keening sound screeches through the air; I gasp and grab Aiden’s arm. As we watch, a little silver car bursts through the treeline on the opposite bank, its brakes screaming. It somehow lands on four wheels, rockets forward, and plunges directly into the raging river.

Aiden and I stand there in the rain, staring. I know my mouth is hanging open.

“Holy shit!” I turn to look at Aiden and find him not there. He’s already racing down the hill towards the river, half-sliding in the mud, shedding his coat as he runs. The nose of the car is fully submerged up to the front windows, the driver invisible through the mist of rain and spray. I stand frozen as Aiden reaches the bank of the river and uses his downhill momentum to push off the slippery ground. He dives like an Olympic swimmer and vanishes into the churning water.

“AIDEN!” And now I’m half-falling, half-running down the slope towards the riverbank, with no plan or a second of consideration about what comes next. I fling my coat off, and the rain batters my bare arms and my face, stinging my skin. The headlights of the car, which had been creating a pool of underwater light, sputter and go out.

I don’t really stop to think about what I’m doing until the water hits me. At first, it feels like nothing, and then all of my muscles scream at once. It’s freezing, and the current yanks at my pajamas, trying to pull me downstream. I burst up through the surface and heave in a lungful of merciful air.

“AIDEN!” I twist in the water, disoriented by the rain, and almost sob with relief when a deep voice bellows back at me. Thank god my mom forced me into swim lessons when I was little. I beat against the current towards Aiden’s voice, and my eyes finally focus long enough to locate the sinking silver car. A sudden wave flings me the rest of the distance, and I grab hold of the side-view mirror.

With something to anchor me, I stop and crane my head around, searching. My eyes land on a golden-brown head of wet hair on the other side of the car.

“AIDEN!”

He looks up and sees me.

“The door is locked!” he shouts. I can see that he’s pulling on the handle, but he lets go and starts slamming his fist into the glass. “WAKE UP!”

I peer through the half-submerged passenger’s side window, and see that someone is in the driver’s seat, slumped forward against a deflating airbag. I can’t make out much: a long sheet of shiny black hair, and that’s pretty much it.

“HEY!” I pound against the window, but the person inside doesn’t move.

My scrambling feet find some purchase on the rocky bottom of the river, and an idea comes to me. Please don’t let me die doing this. I let go of the mirror and dive. My fingers scrabble blindly over the bottom of the river, until they close around a rock that might be hefty enough to break the window. But, goddamnit, it’s too heavy, and even though I’m pulling as hard as I can, I can’t-

A pair of muscled arms close around my chest, and suddenly the rock and I are both above water. I gasp, shaking my hair out of my eyes, trembling in Aiden’s arms.

“ARE YOU CRAZY?” he shouts, over the howling of the wind and rain. He’s holding onto the car with one hand, me with the other.

“BREAK THE WINDOW!” I shove the rock at him, and he lets me go and grabs it. He winds an arm back and smashes the rock into the glass. And then again, and again, until the shattered glass comes away in one splintered sheet. He reaches an arm into the car and unlocks the door.

Water floods in as he rips the car door back, fighting against the current. I grab on so I can help, and the door flies the rest of the way open, shifting the car even further into the river. Aiden lunges into the rapidly sinking car and undoes the seatbelt holding the unconscious woman in place. He hooks his arms under hers and drags her free. The movement sends the car flying forward, hungry water licking its way up over the leather interior. I spot a black purse on the dashboard and grab it as Aiden and the woman clear the car.

“FOR CHRISSAKE JAMIE, LEAVE THE BAG!”

“IF IT WAS ME, I’D WANT MY BAG!” I scream, over the downpour.

“ARE YOU KIDDING ME RIGHT NOW? GET HER LEGS!”

I sling the purse over my shoulder and scramble over to help. Together, Aiden and I drag the woman out of the water and collapse on the bank.

“Holy shit,” I gasp, staring up with blurry vision at the sky. The rain pelts down on me as I try to get my breath back. I start when I feel hands on my face, and open my eyes to find Aiden leaning over me, his soaking hair dripping onto me.

“Are you okay?” he asks, his chest heaving. I reach up and put my hands on his: he’s shaking.

“Are you?” I manage, and he lets out a weak laugh. He slumps forward, pressing his forehead to mine. I thought I was maxed out on adrenaline, but my heart gallops even harder to have him this close. The wild urge to lean up and kiss him almost wins out. Almost.

A noise from the river makes him turn, and the moment is gone. I swallow dryly as I sit up to see what’s happening.

The car has disappeared completely under the water. Only one corner of the rear bumper remains visible.

“Is she breathing?” I ask, twisting to look at the driver, flat on her back in the mud next to us.

“She’s fine.” Aiden collapses onto his back next to me. “The airbag knocked her out.”

We both lay there in silence for a second, and then Aiden begins to laugh. I sit up to stare at him incredulously. I’ve never heard him laugh like this, so wild and giddy.

“We did it!” he laughs. “We didn’t even have the glasses, and we did it!”

“The glasses? You mean the reading glasses?”

“Jamie!” He lunges upright and knocks me flat on my back, and I find myself in the second tremendous hug I’ve gotten from Aiden tonight. He laughs into my neck, his warm breath heavenly in my freezing state. I take a deep breath of him, the night chill clinging to his hair, the soaking wet press of his pajamas against me. I don’t really understand why he’s laughing, but it’s so late and everything that’s happened is so ridiculous and I still have this lady’s purse in my hand and Aiden on top of me and I -

I burst out laughing even harder than him, and we laugh until tears are streaming down our faces, mingling with the rain. Aiden flops back onto his back and twists to look at me, smiling wider than I’ve ever seen him smile - maybe with the exception of when I told him that he’s my best friend. His eyes are back to their normal, clear blue.

“We need to get her back.” He gets to his feet and scoops up the waterlogged jackets we shed. “She’s alright, but we don’t want her to get pneumonia.”

“Right. Should we go to the hospital, or just call 911?” I stand up, trying unsuccessfully to wipe the mud off of my hands.

“Neither. We have to take her to Kent’s place.”

“Kent’s place, why?” I stop to look at her, but I don’t recognize her at all. Aiden bends down and scoops her up into a fireman’s lift, fitting her against the back of his shoulders. She’s in a pair of black business slacks, and one of her high heels is missing. “Who even is this?”

“I don’t know,” Aiden says. “That’s just where we need to take her.”

A flash of the strange, white-blue color darts through his eyes again. I don’t know what that is, but - it must have led us here, right? If it hadn’t, would this woman still be locked in her car, sinking to the bottom of the river?

There’ll be time later to think about how none of this should make any sense.

“Okay,” I find myself saying. “Kent’s place it is.”