Free Slip (The Slip Trilogy Book 1) by David Estes Page A

and yet infusing even more menace into his tone, like the low growl of a guard dog.
    The boy, rubbing his chest where the stone impacted him, doesn’t move, blinking faster than his heart is beating, trying to keep his vision clear.
    His father cocks the stone back, readying himself to throw it. When he hesitates, the boy grabs onto a shred of hope that this is all a big mistake, that his father will realize the wrongness of what he’s doing, that he’ll call the boy back to shore. They’ll walk back to the house and have an early breakfast together, sneaking in an episode of Bot Heroes before Janice arrives.
    His father chucks the stone.
    The boy dives to the side, feeling the stone rush past him, splashing beyond. That’s when he realizes: this is no mistake and his father isn’t going to change his mind.
    Eyes burning with horror and bugs, the boy turns and begins to swim. His legs kick in perfect tandem with each stroke of his arms. Water rushes around him, matching the blood rushing through his veins, through his head.
    A breathless brew of panic and adrenaline propel him forward faster than he’s ever swum. He feels his body almost lifting out of the water with each powerful stroke. He doesn’t take his first breath for ten strokes, only then realizing the ache in his lungs, the pounding in his chest.
    He gulps at the air, sucking in as much oxygen as he can in a swift second, before plunging under again. Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, gulp in the air, five more strokes, another gulp, on the opposite side.
    Only when he’s counted a hundred strokes does he stop, his chest heaving, his lungs relishing the chance to take more than a single breath at a time. He looks back.
    He’s already much further from shore than he expected to be. The current has swept him a fair bit downstream, too, but he can still see his father in the moonlight, just a thin smudge on the riverbank, standing still as a statue, watching him.
    The boy raises a hand to wave, hoping for any kind of sign that he can return now. Hoping his father is no longer the lion—that he’s done with the rocks.
    His father turns and walks back up the path.
     
    ~~~
     
    The boy treads water for a long time, letting the Mississippi carry him downstream. He considers going back. He could show up at the back fence, refusing to leave until his father answers the hundreds of questions he’s withheld for so long.
    But he already knows the door will be locked.
    He could go around to the front, pound on the door, force his father to talk to him, to explain what’s going on.
    But somehow, inexplicably, the boy knows his father won’t be there. That he’s left their little house for good.
    Still fighting off tears and fear, the boy does the only thing he’s ever felt good at: he swims. First upstream, fighting the current, until he’s past the moonlit path that leads to what used to be his home. Giving it one final fleeting glance, he turns away and swims for the lights, which seem even further away than usual—unreachable. The pack bobs behind him, tugging at his waist with each stroke.
    He reaches the approximate middle of the river, and has the urge to stop and turn back. But he doesn’t. He can’t. The uncertainty of what lies ahead seems less scary than the certainty of what’s behind him. He’s further from home than he’s ever been. The thought steals his breath for a stroke or two, but his lungs quickly adjust, like a well-built machine.
    The lights grow closer with each passing moment, until he can see them clinging to monstrous fingers that reach for the stars, spotted with eye-like windows that reflect the moonlight. He sees other lights, too, floating in the air like fireflies.
    And then he hears it: the slosh of water against rock. A familiar sound, one no different than he’s heard a million times on the opposite shore. He’s reached land. It almost seems too easy, and yet it shouldn’t. This is what he’s been training for.